FGM Podcast by the Institute of Ideas

In this podcast I argue that the panic stirred up around 'Female Genital Mutilation' (FGM) has prompted a witch-hunt against doctors and parents.

Listen here

The FGM show trail: This case should never have come to court

The trial that exposed how unhinged anti-FGM crusading has become.

A jury in the UK found Dr Dhanuson Dharmasena not guilty of carrying out female genital mutilation (FGM) on a newly delivered young mother. Another man was cleared of abetting Dr Dharmasena. The jury of 12 concluded, in less than 30 minutes, that the evidence offered by the prosecution, representing the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), was wholly lacking in conviction. All I can say is: three cheers for juries!

Read what I wrote in full here

The FGM Controversy

The debate at the Battle of Ideas October 2014, with Lisa Harker (NSPCC), Bríd Hehir (former NHS health visitor and senior manager), Dr Christine Louis-Dit-Sully (research biologist) at the Barbican, London.

https://soundcloud.com/institute-of-ideas/the-fgm-controversy 

A tribute to nurses

As Christmas approaches, people like to reflect and think about what is important in their lives, be it family, friends, careers, jobs or hobbies.

Increasingly, we get the appreciative, flattering, sentimental, or mawkish round-robin messages via social media, encouraging us to ‘share’.

It’s a great (if unfair) world

Publicity about the newest and most astonishing health care development of our time vied for attention recently with a disease that is responsible for the deaths of thousands of ‘untouchables’ in underdeveloped countries.

FGM CRUSADE: WITH FEMINISTS LIKE THIS, WHO NEEDS MISOGYNISTS?

My latest piece on the Anti-FGM campaign explains why the crusade is doing violence to women's rights.

It traces feminists' journey from state opposition in pursuit of freedom and equality to their active support for state intervention around the issue by not challenging the restriction of people’s freedom of movement, the removal of passports, racist finger-pointing to identify ‘at risk’ children, girls and young women, and mandatory examination of girls’ genitals.

The emperor's new clothes? The dangers of the anti-FGM campaign

My Battle in Print essay, written in preparation for the Battle of Ideas discussion on the FGM controversy, can be accessed here.

It covers a history of the practice, types and prevalence, movers and shakers, discusses abuse, the law in regard to it, official responses, as well as why anti-FGM moral crusaders should be challenged.