Geni­tally muti­la­ted girls and women in Europe

There is no comprehensive and ongoing discussion about the “situation of girls and women in Islamic societies” in our mainstream media. This is partly because criticism of the lifestyle and teachings of the founder of Islam, Mohammed, can quickly become life-threatening. So most people prefer to keep quiet.

  • For example, moderate Muslims who do not take submission to Mohammed's dictates so seriously. They may strongly reject child marriages, violence against women, or the treatment of inferior spouses and sex slaves in a harem. But because they value their lives, they prefer to remain silent.
  • Western intellectuals are also almost universally incapable of speaking plainly on this explosive issue. The majority of them do not really know what they are talking about. They refuse to take a comprehensive look at Mohammed's biography and the Koran. So they obediently repeat what other “experts” have put out into the world. 
  • Feminists are also conspicuously silent when it comes to the dignity and rights of women in Islam. From a safe distance, they may criticize the Taliban, Boko Haram, or ISIS here and there. But when millions of Muslims immigrate to European countries and a mass of imams spread Muhammad's teachings, most women's rights activists are suddenly struck dumb.

“Rethinking genital mutilation!”

Due to the widespread suffering of girls and women, and given the highly topical nature of the relevant issues, Bürgerforum Schweiz will be publishing a short series of blog articles over the next few weeks. The articles will examine Muhammad's treatment of girls and women and describe the fatal consequences that we are currently enduring in Western nations.

Today's topic deals with an extremely painful reality that has claimed millions of victims in Islamic societies for centuries: female genital mutilation (FGM). Unfortunately, the enormous extent of violence against girls and women still receives far too little public attention. Furthermore, the discourse to date has been characterized by rigid positions that make it difficult or impossible to consider the issue in a nuanced way and develop constructive solutions.

The following lines are intended to contribute to enriching the discussion and alleviating the plight of girls and women in Islamic societies.

Violence against Islamic girls and women

According to WHO estimates, there are around 200 million “circumcised” girls and women worldwide. The ritual of “circumcision” is not a thing of the past. Every year, around three million girls, most of them under the age of 15, still undergo female genital mutilation.

Although there are isolated exceptions, FGM is practiced almost exclusively in Islamic societies, especially on the African continent. It is difficult to bear reading reports of how girls' sexual organs are partially cut off, sewn together (e.g., infibulation), then cut open again for sex and childbirth, and possibly sewn up again after childbirth (reinfibulation, see comment 1).

FGM is usually performed by women who carry out their work with razor blades or broken glass. No hygiene. No anesthesia. Girls often have to be held down by several people because the pain is so severe. The health consequences for body and soul are often fatal. They often last a lifetime. Inflammation often leads to death. 

With millions of Muslims immigrating to Europe, FGM has become a public issue in Western culture:  

  • There are major international campaigns against this form of violence and the disenfranchisement of girls and women. FGM should be condemned and, where possible, banned in countries where it is practiced.
  • Girls and women affected by this practice who immigrate to the West should be informed about the medical and psychological help available to them. In this way, physical damage can be repaired surgically and psychological trauma can be healed.
  • In addition, laws are needed to ban the practice of FGM in Western nations and to enforce Western guidelines.

Fight against Western values and laws

The fact that FGM is a great evil has hardly been disputed in the Western public sphere to date. However, a group of “experts” recently called for a new discussion of the topic. In 2025, an article appeared in the renowned British Medical Journal in which 25 scientists (24 of whom work at Western universities in Europe, the US, and Australia, including Dina Bader and Cynthia Kraus from the University of Lausanne) called for a new understanding of “female genital mutilation.”

In their medical ethics essay, the authors vehemently criticize the fight against FGM, arguing that it does more harm than good to women. With a wealth of arguments, the authors want to persuade Western experts and politicians to take a more nuanced view of FGM and to take a less stringent approach to combating it:

  • The term “mutilation” alone is a thorn in the side of these ladies and gentlemen. Boys are circumcised, after all, without anyone talking about mutilation. What's more, lifestyle surgery is commonplace in the West, with women undergoing procedures to enhance their sexual organs. In the case of FGM, which proponents refer to exclusively as “female genital cutting” (FGC), “aesthetic considerations” also play a role in some cases.  

  • The authors insist on the cultural legitimacy of FGC. They point to gentler circumcision rituals, in which only a small amount of tissue is removed from girls/women. Without presenting any statistical data, the defenders suggest that this mild form of FGC is the most commonly practiced. The most painful and harmful form, infibulation, is mentioned. However, it is claimed without evidence that this form of circumcision is only practiced to a limited extent. Furthermore, the essayists do not distance themselves in any way from this extremely painful and destructive ritual.

  • The essayists explain the core of the diverging value systems: compared to the reality in the West, the individual needs of girls and women in their ancestral cultures often have less value than the demands of family and society. Women often do not even consider their own bodies to be their personal property, but rather the property of their ethnic group. In addition, these cultures often require girls and women to endure pain. The painful ritual serves as an initiation into the community.

  • Medical complications after FGM are the exception. Again, no statistical data! There are enough women who confirm the value of “female circumcision.” In some cases, these rituals are described as dignified, empowering, and important.
  • The fact that girls and women who immigrate to Europe are questioned about their sexual organs, or even examined, is discriminatory and racist (racial profiling); for some of them, it is even traumatizing. It degrades the girls and women and robs them of their privacy. Questioning them also weakens their position in the family and ethnic group, as they may speak negatively about painful rituals. Questioning those affected can also cause harm because the girls/women may subsequently withdraw from the medical sector, putting their health at risk.
  • Western PR and laws against FGM would worsen the situation of immigrant girls and women. The campaigns are often racist, unscientific, unjournalistic, misleading, sensationalist, unfair, stigmatizing, characterized by derogatory language that fuels mistrust of migrant communities. Surveillance and laws would be harmful and disregard the equality of those affected. Furthermore, laws against FGM would lead to immigrant women having circumcisions performed in secret. The West would do well to adapt its PR and laws in favor of migrant girls and women.
  • Furthermore, FGM is not evidence of patriarchal oppression and harm to girls/women. It is cultural hegemony, indeed imperialism on the part of the West, whose narrative despises the value of “female circumcision” in African societies. Migrant women were insulted and infantilized. The West refuses to recognize the agency of affected women and their communities.  

Incompatibility of fundamental values

Black-and-white texts are rarely helpful when dealing with such a sensitive topic. The medical ethics essay in the British Medical Journal is a polemical pamphlet that vehemently and one-sidedly defends “female genital mutilation” in non-Western societies. A competent contribution to the social and political debate on the subject looks different. Instead of presenting differentiated figures and proposing solutions in view of the incompatibility of Western and Islamic value systems, the authors take the easy way out. They accuse the West of racism and cultural imperialism. They freely speculate that campaigns and laws need to be changed. The anti-Western essayists seem unconcerned about the terrible suffering of millions of girls and women. They consider it more important to defend legitimate rituals in the societies of origin of female migrants across the board.

With their cheap cultural criticism of the West, the authors are merely building a pro-Islamic front. By refusing to discuss patriarchal dominance and the image of women in Islam as drivers of FGM, they are failing to gain trust in their ability to contribute helpful solutions.

There is certainly potential in the West to optimize FGM campaigns, enact and enforce laws, and improve the way authorities treat and support female migrants from Islamic societies. Dealing with girls and women who may have been circumcised or mutilated requires a great deal of understanding of cultural dependencies, empathy, and tact.

Unfortunately, the 25 authors of the essay (22 of whom are women!!) are far removed from such constructive pragmatism. The bottom line is that their demands can be interpreted as follows: The West should kindly leave immigrant girls and women alone. Migrant women should continue to be allowed to live according to the legal system of their country of origin. “Individual freedom,” the central value of Western Judeo-Christian culture, is out of the question for immigrant Islamic girls and women. The female gender should continue to be subject to the demands of men, families, and the society of origin.

For advocates of Western culture, these proposals are completely unacceptable. Individual freedom is the fundamental building block of our global culture. Western campaigns must continue to defend and uphold this value in national and international PR.

  • People in totalitarian systems, whether communist or Islamic, should learn through Western campaigns that freedom is essential for a happy, constructive life in family and society.  
  • Women and girls who immigrate to the West from an Islamic system must be informed even more competently about medical and psychological support services in order to recover from the harmful consequences of FGM.  
  • Migrants must also learn about the Western legal system, which grants them individual freedom. Girls and women from Islamic backgrounds have the unrestricted right in the West to freely choose and realize their personal life plans.

Fighting this “battle for freedom” on behalf of as many fellow human beings as possible is and remains our constant task.

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(The second article in the series on “Mohammed and the rights of girls and women” is expected to follow at the end of February 2026).

Comment 1: After giving birth, women have their vaginal vestibule narrowed again by stitching. This is done so that the woman appears to be a virgin again. Even in Switzerland, reinfibulation is performed at the patient's request. C. Thierfelder, M. Tanner, C. M. Bodiang: Female genital mutilation in the context of migration: experience of African women with the Swiss health care system. In: European journal of public health, 2005, pp. 86–90.