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Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) is one of the most contentious and polarizing issues of our times, in Africa and globally. (Some just call it FGM, but the word ‘mutilation’ is itself contentious, since it implies harmful intent, and many people prefer to use alternative terminology, such as female genital cutting practices, or modification.)
On the one hand, some people (including United Nations agencies) say FGM/C is inherently and incontrovertibly harmful to girls and women, violates human rights, and must be eradicated urgently. To achieve that, they argue for zero tolerance, punitive laws, and fixed deadlines, and they are against cultural relativism. In the opposite camp, others urge caution, advocate the need for informed and respectful debate, and think change is more likely to be slow and incremental rather than quickly achievable by set deadlines. They warn that zero tolerance and heavy-handed law enforcement not only do not work but can also drive the practice underground, making both research and education for change more difficult. Some in this second group see the decades-long global campaign against FGM/C as deeply flawed, counterproductive, and at times neocolonial in its targeting and denigration of practising communities in Africa, and ethnic communities living with its effects in the diaspora. Cue angry clashes, which have recently re-erupted.
An article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics (JME) in October 2025, “Harms of the current global anti-FGM campaign”, co-authored by 26 international scholars from a range of disciplines, sides with the second camp. Predictably, the authors have been roundly attacked in the British press and by anti-FGM/C activists posting online. The responses published so far lay bare the fault lines in this debate – and expose some fundamental differences in viewpoint between scholars who carry out evidence-based research on FGM/C, and activists whose goal is to simply end it. (True, not all scholars agree with everything in the article either.) Its authors critiqued global campaigns, but also raised interconnected issues such as terminology (should it be FGM, FGM/C, FGMo for modification, female circumcision, or something else entirely?), and the double standards that surround the way in which FGM/C is regarded compared to Female Genital Cosmetic Surgery (FGCS), and male circumcision.
These are all perfectly valid and defendable points, many of which have been put forward by others before. But critics are calling them outrageous.
What the article says
The article does not promote FGM/C. It recognizes that some acts of genital cutting can be extremely drastic, such as the estimated 10 per cent of cases involving infibulation (Type 3 in WHO classifications), which is heavily concentrated in a few countries. Girls who are cut under unhygienic conditions by unskilled cutters may also experience harmful consequences. But the authors argue that the activism and policies to prevent future harms from genital cutting practices should not use overgeneralizations and inaccurate claims. This is not because they wish to romanticize cultural traditions (as some critics have assumed), but because policy should be evidence-based and avoid unnecessary, unintended harms too often suffered by practising communities and immigrants in the diaspora.
Even when there is evidence that change is occurring in immigrant communities – whether by minimizing or abandoning cutting – we see laws and policies that are punitive, resulting in the surveillance of immigrant girls in schools, sometimes non-consensual genital exams looking for evidence of imagined parental acts of cutting, or children being removed from their families while cases are brought against parents who have simply tried to seek medical care for some unrelated injury. Contrary to what activists assert, women living with past cuttings report sexual pleasure and climaxes at similar rates to non-circumcised women (since internal clitoral erectile tissue is unharmed by whatever cutting is done externally). And yet medical practitioners are often required by law to ask many questions about patients’ genitalia, creating discomfort for people seeking care for other medical concerns. This can lead to families avoiding healthcare services altogether. Could such social and legal harms be avoided? The JME authors think so.
To make their argument more tangible to readers unfamiliar with FGM/C, they bring up male circumcision, and note that FGM/C often removes less tissue than male circumcision, which in most countries is perfectly legal, widely done, and even advocated by health practitioners. They also point out the inconsistency between approaches to FGM/C and genital cosmetic surgery (FGCS – some prefer the term FGCP, for procedures). Many view FGCS as “medical” and acceptable, even when it is carried out on underage girls seeking to achieve a cultural body ideal. Why is this not also considered FGM/C, they ask? (This double standard, as well as that between approaches to male circumcision and medicalized FGM/C, was raised in the unsuccessful 2017 lawsuit brought by Dr Tatu Kamau in Kenya. She discusses these issues in a chapter of a forthcoming book see end of story). Clearly, the authors have laid themselves open to criticism by the “zero tolerance” proponents of punitive measures to eradicate FGM/C by fixed deadlines.
What the critics say
Here is a taste of published criticism of the JME article, with embedded links where these are available. (NB some newspapers are behind paywalls; hence some stories are not accessible.)
Dr Renee Hoederkamp, writing in the Daily Mail (15 December 2025): “I’ve seen the reality of this barbaric practice – and it’s not racist to say it’s an abuse of young girls…” She criticized the fact that “many of [the authors] are not doctors at all, but anthropologists… Shockingly, the majority of the authors are women”.
UK-based anti-“FGM” campaigner and sociologist Hilary Burrage, writing on her blog (10 January 2026; she also published an opinion piece in the journal Gynaecology on 8 January), said the article “facilitates the ‘anti-women’ backlash that many of us now see developing across the globe… The topic is too important for many of us working in the ‘anti-FGM’ field to tolerate in an even-handed ‘some good, some bad’ sort of way”.
Nimco Ali, CEO of The Five Foundation (formerly the Global Partnership to End FGM), writing in the Daily Telegraph (15 December 2025), accused the authors of defending FGM. She claimed that the article “undermine[d] years of hard-won progress”, and refuted the idea that it was racist to condemn FGM/C. “FGM is not an African issue, just as rape is not a cultural trait. Both are expressions of power and control over women’s bodies. Suggesting otherwise dehumanises women of colour…”
The Telegraph also published this, by Celia Walden, on 16 December. The headline: “Today’s virtue signallers are among the most evil in society.” It went on: “In defending the ceremonial butchering of women and girls, so-called ‘social justice warriors’ have abandoned morality… The second I saw the headline I knew what this was about. There is, after all, only one tribe confident enough to put out something this vile, safe in the knowledge that they are on the side of the angels…” The author slammed the authors as ‘woke’, and called the article “shameful”.
The Times newspaper ran several stories, including this by health editor Eleanor Hayward on 19 December, with the headline “FGM victims’ fury as academics compare practice to cosmetic surgery”. The author claimed that this was an example of academia “digging its own grave”, saying she had spoken to “survivors, doctors and midwives who are aghast that a medical journal would minimize the harms. They fear it could set back decades of progress.”
The right-wing media platform Unherd published this, by Josephine Bartosch, on 16 December: “Defending FGM sanitises abuse of women”. It began by stating: “Academics from some of Britain’s most prestigious institutions (…) have crossed a moral boundary that would make even the edge lords lurking in the darkest recesses of the internet blanche. [The article] appears to recast female genital mutilation not as abuse but rather as a misunderstood cultural practice in need of gentler language… We are invited to believe that the real scandal is not what is done to girls’ bodies, but in fact the bad manners of Western activists, journalists, and policymakers who insist on calling it mutilation.” And she slated academics: “The fashionable position among certain academics is that moral judgement itself is the real violence.”
Even Richard Dawkins, the eminent evolutionary biologist, weighed in on X, posting this (and a link to the JME article) on 19 December: “Female Genital Mutilation is a hideous, indefensible crime against defenceless girls, perpetrated by a culture of barbarians.”
Lorraine Koonce Faramand, a lawyer and “gender advocate”, said she was “appalled” by the article and called its authors a “meaningless chorus defending FGM”. The article’s focus, she said, was “on white feminist FGM scholar [sic] and Western concerns”. The first-named author (in an alphabetical listing) was in fact the Black American-Sierra Leonean scholar Fuambai Ahmadu, whose concerns cannot be described as “Western”. Koonce acknowledged that “diversity of opinion is the threshold of democracy and unfettered free speech. And undoubtedly hearing different hues of opinion can produce lively discourses”. But she drew the line at FGM/C: “However, there are some things so egregiously wrong that there can be no issue of fact. FGM is one of those things.” (This was published as a comment on Hilary Burrage’s blog, see link embedded above.)
Misleading claims
The authors of the JME article consider these critiques misleading, in part factually incorrect, as well as unhelpful. The article was not “anti-women”, neither did it “defend FGM”. It did not attack individual anti-FGM/C campaigners (as some activists have assumed), but took issue with the overall thrust and negative impacts of the global campaign. This is a valid subject for scholarly critique and discussion, as are the other issues raised in the article. FGM/C is not just about health, although the 26 authors include an expert medical doctor and others who counsel immigrants in the diaspora. More than a dozen are social scientists, including anthropologists (a field where FGM/C has long been a focus of debate, particularly among feminists). Others have professional backgrounds in politics, gender studies, policy studies, law, human rights, philosophy, and bioethics. They are based in Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and Australia.
Both sides should agree that broadening the discussion of FGM/C beyond health is important. We need to look at politics, bioethics, education, human rights, women’s reproductive and sexual rights, gender-based violence, gender equality, culture, colonialism and neocolonialism, history, economics, poverty, and more. Indeed, leading scholars argue that the subject is best approached from multiple perspectives, since the practices and their meanings vary across cultures. Moreover, policies need to be guided by a deeper understanding of the effects of these practices on human relations and justice, as well as on people’s decision-making about whether to keep, change, or abandon their practices. Even those seeking rapid change know that many types of expertise are needed in order to develop a sound strategy. So, it is useful to examine these intersecting dimensions if we want to reach a holistic understanding. Alas, that seems to be unacceptable to the most hardline anti-FGM/C activists, and critics like Dawkins, many of whom appear to see the practice in unnuanced, black-and-white terms.
Can these polarized positions be bridged? This requires dialogue, but it is an unfortunate fact that people in different FGM/C “camps” tend to talk past one another, and rarely meet in the same space, either online or in person. Hence, it becomes easy to adopt fixed positions that do not involve considering other voices and points of view, or respectful and informed debate. We think that needs to change.
In our own separate writings and conversations with scholars, activists, practitioners of FGM/C, and affected people, we (Hughes and Gruenbaum) have looked for such bridge-building possibilities. A first step is to recognize that it is not useful to hurl disparaging dismissals (like Koonce Faramand’s “meaningless chorus” or Walden’s “vile”, “shameful”) at the other camp. After all, isn’t this all about trying to convince each other? Activists want to convince practising communities to stop, but that is not achieved by insulting people. Instead, education and respectful dialogue with parents, community members, religious leaders, and others is how to build change. Unless the goal is simply to posture as “virtue signalers”, shouldn’t we all listen to scholars and activists who hold different views, and seek to persuade, rather than shame and punish? Every one of the article’s authors cares deeply about making life better for women and girls. Many are actively involved in working with immigrants or activists to end FGM/C in the next generation and ameliorate any harmful effects for those living with the long-term effects of childhood experiences. But they still want accuracy.
Those who criticize the authors for making “comparison with female genital cosmetic surgeries” have perhaps not thought deeply enough about the question of bodily autonomy. Or possibly they are unaware of the minimal rituals some religious groups practise (such as a prick that removes no tissue), certainly less extensive than FGCS or male circumcision. And what about African women who seek surgical repairs after childbirth? Should they not be allowed to do so? In all cases, it is important to know about consent, ages, and psychological considerations. So, the many Global North 16-year-olds getting labiaplasties to conform to their ideas of what is aesthetically acceptable, with parental consent, before they are fully mature, do constitute a subject for thoughtful comparisons. Why do the detractors object to that discussion? Possibly, they assume that all FGM/C is the same as that described in stories about the absolutely worst cases, when girls are taken as small children and subjected to unhygienic cutting and crude infibulation against their will. None of the article’s authors endorses such violence. Furthermore, while the suffering that survivors report must be respected, it is also the case that African women who think they should be allowed to decide for themselves, or who ask for patience while internal cultural debates play out, would also like to be listened to.
These are all reasonable topics for discussion, but whatever criticisms the two camps may have of each other, thoughtful dialogue, not mud-slinging, would be more valuable. Scholars who have previously written about these issues are sadly used to being the target of shaming by opponents. One example is Michela Fusaschi, an anthropologist who has written extensively about FGM/C and related gender issues. Although she was not among the authors of the JME article, she agrees with its key points. Referring to her earlier work, she told us: “From the early 2000s onwards, I witnessed first-hand how the vocabulary surrounding FGM operates as a genuine ‘political technology’.” By this, she means the use of language, such as “mutilation” versus “modification”, to shape how society perceives issues, how institutional action is influenced, and how the choice of language determines what is considered legitimate.
Prof. Fusaschi noted: “The publication of my first book, Marks on the Body: The Anthropology of Female Genital Modifications (2003), caused a stir within Italian feminism, not because of its arguments, but because of its subtitle and my decision to use the term ‘modifications’ rather than ‘mutilations’. Some interpreted this as relativism, or even as an anthropological justification of the practice.” She was accused of not being “one of us” (a feminist) and not wanting “the good of African women”. In her published work, she always uses the term “modification” and explains why: her women interviewees are offended by the term “mutilation”.
Fusaschi discusses some of these issues in her chapter in FGM/C in Africa and the Diaspora: Issues, Debates, and Challenges, co-edited by Lotte Hughes, Mark Lamont, Katy Newell-Jones, and Damaris Parsitau. Ellen Gruenbaum wrote the Afterword. The book includes a wide range of perspectives, and although it mostly uses the term “FGM/C” (in the Introduction, for example), the editors left chapter authors free to use the terminology of their choice. The editors deliberately commissioned chapters from both scholars and practitioners, including NGO staff, in order to include diverse viewpoints and generate informed debate. They also worked hard to bridge the divide between scholars and non-scholars, a divide which has become evident in the current standoff. This involved listening hard to one another, respectful dialogue, and a willingness to shift our positions and viewpoints. The editors were agreed that no one position on FGM/C should be allowed to dominate, at least not in the pages of this book.
Some in the “this subject is not up for discussion” camp will not like that. But let’s meet on the bridge and get serious about listening respectfully to the spectrum of experiences and creative ideas for change.
