Mojatu Berkshire Magazine Issue B011

14
Faith & Spirituality
mojatu.com
An Interview With Hilary Burrage: How
She’s Fighting to Stop FGM in the UK
By Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Q: Could you share with us how you began
working on the issue of FGM?
Ms. Burrage: I first heard of FGM (then called
female circumcision) back in the 1980s, from my
Mum, a Quaker and a member of amnesty, now in
her 90s. Deeply alarmed, I wrote to my Member of
Parliament but he told me not to worry, it was all
fixed because we had a new law banning FGM.
If only my MP had been right…! It wasn’t until
the early years of this century that I realised
his optimism was far from justified. I saw on
the Internet announcements of the Day of Zero
Tolerance to FGM and began to research the
facts. Horrified by what I learnt and, having
spent most of my professional life as a sociologist
teaching and researching social issues, equality
and policy, I decided I would have to act on what I
was discovering.
And so, having retired previously for health
reasons, I began to use my time to lobby and raise
awareness about FGM via the Internet and social
media. A couple of years later I was approached
by two different publishers to write books on FGM*,
then, towards the end of 2013, the Guardian began
their #EndFGM Global Media Campaign and they
asked me to be their consultant. Since that time
my ‘retirement’ has been in theory only. I’m a
completely free agent but my focus is firmly on
finding ways to protect and help girls and women
facing FGM and other human rights abuses.
…even now few people, even in regulated
professional caring roles, are confident about
what to do if they suspect a child is at risk or
has been harmed (from FGM).
Q: Over the years, what trends have you
noticed regarding FGM in the UK? Has the
situation improved or gotten worse?
Ms. Burrage: The really big shock, now three
or four years ago, was realizing that estimates
of FGM prevalence in the UK were woefully
understating the problem. There are not, as we
had thought, ‘only’ twenty or thirty thousand Britishbased
women and girls who underwent or are at
significant risk of FGM, there are around 140,000
of them, spread across the whole of the United
Kingdom, a figure proportionately comparable to
the half million both in the USA and in mainland
Europe.
We know these figures make sense because
as of last year, hospitals in England have
to report when they encounter patients with
FGM (the reporting is anonymous unless the
person is a child, when protection must be
considered), and there are around one hundred
cases reported every week even on that basis.
Hilary Burrage and Dr. Morissanda Kouyate,
the Executive Director of the IAC (Inter-African
Committee)
The absolute figures have almost certainly risen
over the past decade, but that’s probably because
of demographic change – there are now more
people in Britain from traditionally practising
nations and communities. When people in the
diaspora move to western countries usually one of
two things happen: either practices such as FGM
are abandoned because there is a new way of life
or, in some instances, migrants, in what may feel
to be a strange and possibly bewildering different
place, put even more emphasis on tradition and
heritage, so FGM can feature again in groups
which had ‘at home’ almost given this practice up.
When I was first alerted a decade ago, almost
nobody in the UK knew much, if anything,
about FGM. Now people from all walks of life
– politicians, legal, education, health and care
professionals, journalists, artists, taxi drivers and
shop-keepers, the person on the street – are to