Female Genital Mutilation Has Victimised Over 8,000 Women in U.K., National Health Service Reveals

A doctor shows how female genital mutilation is done. Reuters

These "parties" are bloody and are not pleasant at all to the women joining them.

These are the female genital mutilation (FGM) "parties" that a British charity has said are going on across England that have so far victimised at least 8,000 women, the BBC reported.

According to the Black Health Initiative, an England-based charity, midwives from Africa are being flown in to the United Kingdom to perform the illegal and dangerous practice on women. FGM is a criminal act in the U.K., carrying a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

"We know of parties happening here in England, and in West Yorkshire we recently had to break one up, and we've stopped another from taking place," Heather Nelson, chief executive of the Black Health Initiative, told the BBC in an interview.

"What we're finding now is that where once girls were taken abroad to be cut, specialist midwives are now flown over and several girls are cut at the same time, which then leads to a celebration," she disclosed.

At least 8,000 women in England have already been identified as FGM victims, according to the National Health Service.

FGM involves the partial or total removal of the female external genitalia for non-medical reasons, as described by the World Health Organisation.

The ritual, which is linked to African non-Christian religions and traditions, is carried out for various reasons, such as the belief that the procedure reduces a woman's libido and decreases the risk of extramarital sexual affairs.

A 2014 study estimated that as many as 200,000 women and girls in England and Wales have either undergone FGM, or have been at risk of being victimised, Reuters reported.

Women now residing in Britain who originally came from Somalia, Sierra Leone, Eritrea, Sudan and Egypt are among those who have undergone FGM, statistics have shown.

"FGM is a devastating act of violence that no woman or girl should ever have to suffer," Britain's Interior Minister Amber Rudd said.

FGM has been condemned by some Muslim leaders but still persists in Islamic-dominated countries in Africa and Asia.

Some Muslims believe FGM is part of Muslim law.

"I had it done, my daughter had it done, and I would definitely like my granddaughter to do it, too," a 45-year-old Muslim Malay woman told the BBC in an interview. "It's something compulsory for us to do in Islam."

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