Sir, – Fighting female genital mutilation (FGM) by holding non-judgmental workshops is not going to protect Irish, or Irish-based, girls ("Female genital mutilation: It's happening here, girls are being taken out of Ireland", Health & Family, February 6th).
In 2013 the provincial court in Barcelona sentenced Binta Sankano and her husband Sekou Tutay to 12 years in prison for permitting clitoridectomies on their six- and 11-year-old daughters. Both parents had lived in Spain for over 20 years and had previously promised social services that their daughters would not undergo FGM. The parents’ duplicity was only discovered because Spanish doctors examined the two daughters regularly.
The Spanish experience shows that the only way to protect at risk girls from FGM is for those from certain cultural and ethnic backgrounds to be checked regularly up to the age of 18 by public health nurses or GPs.
If a case of mutilation is discovered then that girl’s parents must be held criminally responsible and prosecuted. When it comes to girls’ health and wellbeing there should be no room for political correctness. – Yours, etc,
KARL MARTIN,
Bayside, Dublin 13.