This will nonetheless keep happening, and become more common in Europe. This is because FGM is mandated in Islamic law: “Circumcision is obligatory (for every male and female) (by cutting off the piece of skin on the glans of the penis of the male, but circumcision of the female is by cutting out the bazr ‘clitoris’ [this is called khufaadh ‘female circumcision’]).” — ‘Umdat al-Salik e4.3, translated by Mark Durie, The Third Choice, p. 64
Why is it obligatory? Because Muhammad is held to have said so: “Abu al- Malih ibn Usama’s father relates that the Prophet said: ‘Circumcision is a law for men and a preservation of honour for women.’” — Ahmad Ibn Hanbal 5:75
“Narrated Umm Atiyyah al-Ansariyyah: A woman used to perform circumcision in Medina. The Prophet (peace be upon him) said to her: ‘Do not cut severely as that is better for a woman and more desirable for a husband.’” — Abu Dawud 41:5251
Unless and until its Islamic justifications, which everyone seems to want to cover up and deny, are addressed, FGM will never be eradicated. Anti-FGM movements will tell Muslim women (and men) about the health risks of FGM, and about how barbaric it is to work to deny women sexual pleasure and try to control them, and none of it will stop FGM. All that will wash over believers and what will be left will be the fact that it is justified in Islam — and that is the one thing the anti-FGM campaigners refuse to address. So they will, unfortunately, never succeed.
“First sentence under new law over genital mutilation,” Swiss Info, July 13, 2018:
A Somali woman from canton Neuchâtel has been sentenced to eight months’ prison over the genital mutilation of her two daughters, in the first Swiss case of its kind after a law change.
The girls were six and a half and seven when the procedure was carried out between 2013-2015 in Somalia and Ethiopia.
The mother, who now lives in Neuchâtel in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, did not deny the charges. She was reported to the authorities by her estranged husband, who is also from Somalia.
The judgement was based on a relatively new article in Swiss law which aims to prevent Swiss-based families from having their daughters circumcised, whether in Switzerland or abroad….
The woman, who is illiterate, has been under immense social pressure in her home country for the girls to undergo the procedure.
This is why the sentence is mainly of a symbolic nature, the judge explained. But given the gravity of the offence, a short prison sentence was still necessary, she said.