| Topic: | Re:Re: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/52740 | |
| Posted by: | Fraser Pearce | |
| Date/Time: | 17/02/14 11:16:00 |
| My wife’s in the first generation of women in her family not to experience FGM. This came about largely because, as the home country tried to modernise, the men of the family were persuaded that FGM is an unnecessary practice of the past. In a sense, the government of the day tried to assimilate the male population into some of the norms of a modern, western state – with the women following the lead of the male head of the family. Perhaps a similar assimilative approach might be attempted 40 years later in the UK.* Then perhaps we can focus more on other 'issues': ‘hard’ ones such as parallel legal systems, consanguineous marriage, ‘honour’ violence, etc; ‘soft’ ones such as child fasting and veiling, attitudes towards music, physical education, etc. *There may hurdles. At our wedding in London, the sheikh’s advice was to “try not to hit your wife.” |