The cowards’ quarter
Girls as young as just several weeks old are attacked by untrained people, sometimes family members, who use non-medical equipment without anaesthetic. Police said instruments such as rusty tin can lids, razor blades and broken glass have been used to cut them, and thorns used to stitch up the wounds. The procedure can lead to both short and long term health problems, while some girls have died from infection.
So, female circumcision is back on the political agenda again – and in England, as part of a new campaign, aimed at raising awareness of the practice,
a reward of £20,000 is being offered to bring the first person in the UK to justice for the barbaric ritual of female circumcision.
Defending the campaign, Detective Chief Superintendent Alastair Jeffrey, of the Metropolitan Police’s child abuse unit said:
“This is child abuse. It is not an attack on anyone’s culture, it is an attack on anyone who commits this horrendous abuse of children. This is an appeal to communities themselves to eradicate this practise from within. It is about self-policing. It is recognising the fact that this is abuse.”
Ah yes, again, this damned cowardice.
Of course, female circumcision is child abuse but it is also (just) one example of the many crimes against girls and women committed by certain, desert God-ridden, misogynistic cultures.
Yes, cultures – and trying to end the practice of female circumcision in (at the very least) our own Western territories and prosecuting those who do the cutting as well as those who promote, facilitate and hide these actions should be part of a rigorous and uncompromising campaign to end all these barbaric, culture-defined crimes.
It is a very good thing the Met is trying to do something against female circumcision – and it is understandable that they want to focus on the practical. A police organisation should always try to stear well clear of any broader, political debate.
However, by coming out to state that this campaign is not about cultural issues, the Met has entered the political arena – and has, regrettedly, chosen to position itself in that abject cowards’ quarter of cultural relativism.
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