The Immigrants' Gift

Immigation from Africa and the Middle East continues to enrich the native culture of Great Britain. Among the newest cultural imports the British Isles - female circumcision:

It is known by a variety of names, the most common of which are female genital mutilation (FGM), female circumcision, or simply "cutting" - a word which somehow conveys the raw pain its prepubescent victims suffer.

Most people will be unfamiliar with this practice, which involves removing part or all of the clitoris, the surrounding labia (the outer part of the vagina) and sometimes the sewing up of the vagina, leaving only a small opening for urine and menstrual blood.

It is carried out for a variety of cultural reasons. Such is the secrecy that surrounds the practice that even those aware that it occurs in large swathes of Africa and Asia will be shocked to learn that it is prevalent in Britain.

During a highly disturbing, four-month investigation, however, we uncovered evidence that thousands of British-African girls, in towns and cities throughout the country, have been forcibly "cut".

By conservative estimates, 66,000 women and girls living in Britain have been mutilated. This figure, accepted by the Metropolitan Police, came in a report by a volunteer organisation funded by the Department of Health and carried out with academics from the London School of Tropical Hygiene and the City University.

And thousands more girls are at imminent risk as families club together to fly professional "cutters" from Africa to Britain.

These women "elders" perform the crude operation for up to £40 a time, often on kitchen tables or floors, without anaesthetic, using filthy, blunt knives, razor blades or scalpels.

Many readers will be distressed by our report, but this practice is an abomination which has no place anywhere, let alone in a civilised society, and if it is to be expunged then this is a story that must be told.

One wonders why the Daily Mail fears that its readers will be so distressed that the editors feel it necessary to defend writing the story. Given the state of British culture it cannot be that the editors fear a reaction against the graphic nature of the article. Rather, they probably fear accusations of Islamophobia or racism (the two worst crimes under British law) for pointing out what they need to remind people is a barbaric practice. This is how far the UK has fallen.

The article notes that there are more than 600,000 "ethnic Africans" in the UK. But it doesn't ask why so many Africans were permitted to emigrate to Britain or if their presence is a benefit to the native British people. Given the subject of the article, the answer should be clear. But those are questions that no one in Britain (or the rest of Europe or Canada, or the US) is permitted it ask openly.