SIO73: FGM in the UK, with Chantelle

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:29 Thomas: Hello and welcome to Serious Inquiries Only. This is episode 73, and I'm your host, Thomas Smith. Alright, today I am speaking with Chantelle Boduel. She's a friend of mine, and she just graduated from the University of Kent with a degree in human rights law. And for her thesis, she took on the subject of FGM in the UK. We talked about a lot of the tough ethical questions involved in this. Some might not be so tough, but some are pretty tough. How exactly do you try to stop this? To what degree should we be willing to give up our civil rights, or the civil rights of even one segment of our community, in order to ensure this isn't happening to young girls? It's a really interesting, difficult, ethical topic, and Chantelle has the expertise to kind of take us through it. So with that said, let's get over to the interview.

0:01:32 Thomas: I'm joined by Chantelle. How are you doing?

0:01:35 Chantelle: Good, how are you?

0:01:36 Thomas: I'm doing great. It's great to talk to you again. This is not the the happiest of topics, but I wanted to ask you how did you get started on this? Like what made you choose this as your thesis?

0:01:49 Chantelle: Yeah, so I was doing my master's thesis, and originally I wanted to do something about this sort of dichotomy between cultural relativism and universalism in human rights field. So it's a subject that comes up a lot, and I think we've seen it in the news a lot trying to decide whether human rights should be universal and applied to everybody, or if there are differences between different cultures and and if if human rights is sort of a symptom of like cultural imperialism, which is something I saw a lot. So originally, I wanted to focus on something like that. And then my academic advisor suggested that I have sort of a subject to focus that around. So I explored a few things and then settled on FGM. And I decided to settle on FGM within the United Kingdom, in order to sort of really zone in on this argument between universalism and cultural relativism.

0:02:12 Thomas: Yeah,

0:02:41 Chantelle: So that's why I chose that.

0:02:41 Thomas: That's fascinating. Yeah, that makes sense too because the first thing that everybody thinks of when it's like, well, cultural relativism. Well, what about? FGM is usually like the first day. Wow.

0:02:49 Chantelle: Yeah, exactly. This comes up a lot.

0:02:53 Thomas: So, in speaking about relativism, that's interesting to me. I guess, what's your sense of the proportion of people in your field that are more like cultural relativists versus, you know, what was the other term? Universalists?

0:03:08 Chantelle: Universalism.

0:03:08 Thomas: Okay, universalists.

0:03:09 Chantelle: I would say institutionally, it's very universalist. Most of the professionals I come across just sort of speak as if universalism is the go-to, especially in the legal field. But there is a lot of pushback more from the development field. So more from people saying, well, keep this in mind, we have to make sure that the legal system doesn't become imperialistic, especially the international legal system. So and I mean, I think a lot of people in the human rights field are sensitive to that idea. Because historically, there have been a lot of issues of the law being used, and I'm talking about like colonial times, the law being used to support imperialism, right.

But in modern day human rights, I think, I think we need to get away from that, like my personal opinion is that everyone should should have access to the same rights. And just because I was born in Canada doesn't mean I should have access to different rights than a girl born somewhere else, you know. So I think institutionally, like the UN, UNICEF, all those big organizations, they are kind of on the side of universalism, but there is a lot of pushback in academia from the other side as well.

0:03:19 Thomas: Right. Right, yeah.

0:04:17 Thomas: Yeah, interesting. Interesting. Well, that that that's encouraging, because that's kind of where I would sit, too, if I were to just pontificate on it, because it seems like, yes, when you go too far in the universal universalistic direction, that definitely sounds horrible. Like there's abuses and all kinds of things that can happen from that. But at the same time, if you go to far the other way, I don't I don'T really like that. The idea that, you know, it's especially in some of these countries where women's rights are horrible and like there's all these issues. Is I don't want to just sit there and say, well, you know, it's their country. They can, you know, don't.

0:04:48 Chantelle: Exactly. And also, it's like the question of where does one culture end and another start, right? So how do you make the rules Between, okay, you're from this culture, so you have these rights, or and who speaks for each culture too, I always think, because in in the FGM, like anti-FGM field, a lot of the main people are themselves African women who have had it done to them in their childhood, you know, so are we then going to silence them and say, well, it's part of your culture? Well, who speaks to their culture, right?

So but I think, as you know, as a white woman, I think it's important for me to acknowledge it and to try to, I had a whole section just on the importance of terminology and making sure that I try to avoid using the word victim too often, if I can, I try too, I mean, even well because a lot of the women, or the people working in the field, have said that they don't want to think of themselves as a victim, even though, you know, maybe when it was actually being done to them they were being victimized, but then they're survivors now, they survive this procedure, and if you talk in terms of victimization all the time, then it sort of takes away a bit of their autonomy. That's

0:04:54 Thomas: Yeah. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mm-hmm.

0:05:31 Thomas: Why is that? Just to fill us in.

0:05:53 Thomas: Hmm.

0:05:53 Chantelle: Some of the stuff I've been reading. And also, just the terminology of FGM, so FGM stands for Female Genital Mutilation, right? But mutilation is kind of a heavy word, and a lot of uh, people don't necessarily want to think of themselves as being mutilated. But then there's also pushback on the other side as well, like the African um Union has come out and said, like, this is the term we want to use, mutilation, because we want wanted to get across how intense this uh, procedure is.

0:06:11 Thomas: Yeah.

0:06:21 Thomas: Yeah it seems like if you go the other way, it might get too normalized. Like if you just call it something, yeah medical.

0:06:23 Chantelle: Exactly. Normalization is a problem, so it's just important to, like, for my actual uh, paper, I used the acronym fgm slash c throughout the whole thing. Um, because C stands for cutting, and that's just like a, like an exact description of what it is, it's cutting, right? Um, but there are some problems with that too, like people, some people don't like like that term either, I just tried to use it to be sort of neutral.

0:06:35 Thomas: Hmm, yeah

0:06:50 Chantelle: Um, but circumcision is another word that some people use, which, because it translates more easily into the the all the different languages, circumcision translates better than mutilation, so that's sometimes used, like, on the ground, like in the field. But circumcision has its own problems, right?

0:06:50 Thomas: That makes sense.

0:07:06 Thomas: But it's funny that that very fact is normalizing because it's like, oh, let's put it into language that everybody understands. And then it's, like, okay, well, then it is normal.

0:07:14 Chantelle: Yeah, and there's a bit of of issues with the term circumcision too, because it kind of draws parallels to male circumcision, and those are two completely different procedures, so I just use, I think for the purpose of this podcast we can just use FGM, because it rolls off the tongue a bit easier.

0:07:22 Thomas: Right.

0:07:32 Thomas: Sounds good. I know I will get people chirping back at me that it is actually the same, like the male and female circumcision.

0:07:33 Chantelle: Yeah. So the main difference I would say with that is that, like, we don't need to get into male circumcision, but the FGM, like, maybe I can do a little description about what it actually is, so that everyone's on on the same page. But all of the different versions of FGM have to do with the clitoris. So whereas male circumcision is skin around the penis, FGM is actually removing or altering the clitorus or the labia. So it would be more like if male circumcision involved the tip of the penis.

0:07:43 Thomas: Yeah. Okay. Right?

0:08:08 Chantelle: Maybe, and I should just say, maybe I shouldn't have said this before, that some of this stuff is going to be difficult to hear, in terms of, you know, it's kind of uncomfortable subject, but uh, yeah, I guess that's just, we just have to say it the way it is, you know, yeah.

0:08:20 Thomas: It is okay. I am wearing a cup. So, that is just,

0:08:23 Chantelle: Okay, so there are four types of FGM, and I actually think it's really important to sort of distinguish between them. The first type is just the removal of the clitoris, um, or sometimes just the clitoral hood, so the clitoris also goes, like, deeper inside, there's like nerve endings inside the body too, right? So this is just removal of the external part of it. And then the second type is called excision, and that would be the removal of the clitorus and the inner labia, so the labia minora.

And then the third type, which is the one that most people think of when they think of FGM, is the total removal of the clitorus and both the inner and outer labia, and then what happens is they sew up the pieces of skin that's left to leave only a small opening at the very bottom, for both menstruation and urination. And if you know anything about female genitals, you know that the urethra is at the top, right, like close to the clitoris, so that means that the urine has to go all the way down to come out of this small hole at the bottom. And so, so obviously this provides, like, so many issues in terms of infections and

0:08:24 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, Yeah.

0:09:33 Chantelle: Problems throughout their lives. And then type four would be any other kind of like non-medical procedure. So it can include pricking, tearing or stretching or burning of the female genitals. But the most common are the first two. That's about 80%. And then Type 3 and fibrillation, the really intense one, that's about 15%. And then the last one is about 5%, globally.

0:09:58 Thomas: And are you talking about, oh, okay. I was just going to ask that's around the world that you're okay.

0:09:59 Chantelle: Yeah. Around the world, yeah, so it varies by ethnic group, and in different countries, yeah.

0:10:05 Thomas: Yeah. So different regions, do they have like different focuses of what they tend, which one they tend to do?

0:10:10 Chantelle: Exactly, but it can even vary within a country, because it's it comes down more to, like, the practices of ethnic groups. Um, so I mean, we couldn't, I, I don't even know, each group, like, which kind they do, and it's really, I mean, there's at least 30 countries, if not probably more than that, that practice it, so they all have their own type, variation, yeah.

0:10:16 Thomas: Okay.

0:10:31 Thomas: Yeah, but your focus was in the UK. Is that right?

0:10:34 Chantelle: So I did a, I did a little bit just to see where where it came from originally, because in the UK it's mostly ethnic minority groups, or like migrant groups, that practice it, right? So in order to understand why they're doing it, and that's the best way to stop it from happening, you kind of have to go back and see why they do it in their home countries as well, so that's why I did it a little but of research on that. But I thought it was really interesting, actually, that um, some of these big organizations, like UNICEF, has been doing a lot of work on FGM, and they say that it's sort of all in Central Africa, which, of course, there is a big portion there. The only two countries that UNICEF listed in their 2013 list that aren't in Africa is Iraq and Yemen. But some of the research I was doing showed that actually there's probably probably many more countries that practice it, like Iran, Kuwait, Indonesia, Malaysia, definitely the Philippines, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, UAE.

0:11:33 Chantelle: These are all more like sources that, you know, maybe don't have the institutional strength of UNICEF. But the problem is that there's just an extreme lack of research that's been done into all these different elements. So, yeah,

0:11:46 Thomas: Is there some threshold to where it's, yeah, if it's like, you know, a handful of occurrences, they're not going to say that it happens in that country. Is when there Some you're saying it happens In this country, like how much are we talking?

0:11:56 Chantelle: So I mean, in the UNICEF data goes down to as low as like Cameroon is 1% of the people there, or the women, I should say there. But in these other countries that I mentioned, I think it's more a problem of there's not enough research being done at all. Like the research is blocked because it's such a taboo subject.

0:12:14 Thomas: Okay. Right.

0:12:16 Chantelle: Like in Africa, I think FGM is seen as like a coming of age ceremony. So it hasn't been stigmatized as much, at least historically it wasn't. It was just a part of what they did. So they don't mind as much if research is being done about it. Whereas in some Middle Eastern countries where there's some evidence that it's also taking place, they kind of don't allow research to be done.

0:12:39 Thomas: Okay.

0:12:39 Chantelle: So we don't Know if these authoritarian governments, if it's being done or not. But there is some, you know, maybe not as trustworthy resources like newspaper articles and stuff that suggest it is being done. So I think we just need to do more research before we can conclude that it's not being done in these countries. Yeah.

0:12:40 Thomas: So, right.

0:12:58 Thomas: Okay, that makes sense. How far does this go back? Did you research into that?

0:13:00 Chantelle: Yeah. So, That's the thing, like, we don't even really know exactly where the first, why it first started, but it's definitely predates all of the Abrahamic religions. And yeah, so there's some evidence which is contested that, um, it, they have found evidence of it in Egyptian mummies, so as far back as ancient Egypt. There's also some First Nations and Aboriginal groups that don't have any interaction with each other that have done it separately. So, like in Colombia, there's certain groups that have doing it separately there, but there's some that have also done it in Australia, throughout Africa, of course it's been historically done. So I think what I came to conclusion is mostly that it doesn't, like, religion might contribute to it in some ways and different, different elements of culture contribute to, but really it comes down to this obsession with controlling female sexuality.

0:13:05 Thomas: Right. Wow. Right?

0:13:55 Chantelle: Like, that everything that I was reading about, you know, even when it's a coming of age ceremony, it's to make women acceptable for the marriage market or girls acceptable for the marriage market, so it's ensuring that they stay clean and pure until they're married. And this, when you look at some, some of the research, some people explicitly will state that, oh yeah, it's to prevent women from having orgasms. Like there are some sort of anecdotal, you know, people that have been interviewed one-on-one and they say, yeah, of course women have to have it done so that they don't have orgasms, and then there's others that completely reject that view as well. This is the importance of looking at the different ethnic groups.

0:14:31 Thomas: Yeah.

0:14:31 Chantelle: There's others that say, no, it is a beautiful coming-of-age ceremony. It's a beautification process. It is to make genitals more clean, things like that. So there's really a variety of reasons that it's done. Yeah.

0:14:44 Thomas: You talk about it being a coming of age ceremony. I didn't think about that. There must be variation in what age it's done. Is that another thing that varies on among groups.

0:14:52 Chantelle: Totally. Yeah. So I think globally the average age is eight years old, but it's down anywhere between zero, like infant, to around 15. And then some ethnic groups also do it, like, right before marriage, so just to prepare, like, for an actual marriage ceremony. But mostly it's done to young, young, young girls. That's, that's the majority, which is, yeah, sad.

0:15:17 Thomas: Okay. Yeah.

0:15:20 Chantelle: Yeah, but one thing I thought was really interesting too, I did a little bit of research about, um, the connection to religion, because I'm sure you remember that, uh, that episode of Bill Maher where he said that it's an Islamic problem, and then Reza Aslan came out and said it has nothing to do with Islam at all.

0:15:39 Thomas: Yeah, I do remember that. I'm guessing, are they both wrong? Because it feels like it's got to have a little bit to do with it, but maybe not as much as we would think.

0:15:47 Chantelle: Yeah, exactly. So, um, I wouldn't categorize it at all as a Muslim problem, and it doesn't come from the scripture, or from, it predates the religion, but um, it definitely has something to do with religion, especially since, within Islam, a lot of the people that are interviewed who have had it done and who want to continue the practice, they themselves will say it is for religious, religious reasons. So even if there isn't a large amount of doctrinal support for it, if the women themselves believe that it's a requirement of their religion, then, in my opinion, that means it has something to

0:15:53 Thomas: Yeah. That makes

0:16:24 Chantelle: Do with religion, right?

0:16:26 Thomas: Sense. But it doesn't have any textual support, it sounds like what you're saying. Like, it doesn't... Go ahead.

0:16:26 Chantelle: Yeah. Well, it's not mentioned in the Quran at all, but it is mentioned a few times in some of the Hadiths. I think there's four of them that explicitly mention it and they don't necessarily prohibit the practice. Like one, one example of one of the Hadiths is that there's a woman who asks Muhammad if she can continue her practice, which is, she, she does FGM, if she could continue doing that, and he says it's not forbidden, but she should not exaggerate it. So some people take that as support for the practice, but then of course there, there have been many Islamic scholars who have come out and said that's a weak Hadith.

So I'm not, obviously I'm not an Islamic scholar, but I guess different Hadiths have different strengths to them in terms of how many people believe it's a true Hadith, so there have been lots of Islamic scholars who have come out and just gone through all the Hadith that mention it and shown why it's not support for it, and then of course there are others who say that it is supportive of it. So, you know, with such a religion with so many different people practicing it, there's always going to be variations. Yeah.

0:16:34 Thomas: Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay, yeah.

0:17:40 Thomas: What about other religions? Because you mentioned it's kind of across religions. I can't think of any support for... Yeah, where are they getting that? Is it justified anywhere in teachings or in...

0:17:45 Chantelle: Christian. Christianity does it too, especially so no. It's not in the Bible at all, but um, they

0:17:55 Thomas: Yeah, I think I would have remembered.

0:17:57 Chantelle: Sorry, go ahead.

0:17:59 Thomas: I said I think I would have remember it. I went through the whole thing. I don't remember anything about that, but yeah.

0:17:59 Chantelle: Yeah, no, it's not mentioned at all, but it's, it's one of those things where I think, I think about where culture ends and religion begins. You know, it's kind of complicated that way because, they, the reason a lot of Christian people in Africa support the practice, they say, is for cultural reasons, but those cultural reasons are purity and cleanliness and things that are very heavily influenced by religion.

0:18:28 Thomas: Yeah, that is hard to take that apart where the religion ends and culture begins, because it's like, yeah, if there's also, like you said, there's all this drive to control women's sexuality, which, you know, it's a chicken and egg kind of thing of which came first, or they're probably around the same time of like, that is used to justify religion, but also religion is used to justify that. It is kind of hard to separate that all out.

0:18:33 Chantelle: Exactly. Exactly. But I think it's, it's, it's a little bit dishonest to say it has nothing to do with religion. When it comes to eradication efforts, we need religious leaders to sort of be on our side and to help us. And so we have to address some of the reasons why religious leaders in certain communities might be supporting the practice or continuing the practice. Like there are some Muslim communities where the, um, their spiritual leaders tell their people that it is a requirement, you know, that does happen, um, I wouldn't say that's the majority, I would say the majority are against it, but there are some that, that preach it. So until we address those things, I think we can't say it has nothing to do with religion, uh.

0:18:59 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:37 Thomas: Well, and then I don't know if you already said this, or if you have these numbers, but when it comes to the practice, you know, what proportion is Muslim, Christian, whatever, and anything else? Do you have the numbers broken down that way?

0:19:50 Chantelle: Yeah, I don't have them broken down that way. I think it would be more depending on different countries and stuff, because it'll vary by country. I don't have like a global average of how many, um, Muslims practice or how many Christians practice it.

0:20:00 Thomas: No, okay. Well I meant, or of the people who practice it, what percentage are which is what I meant. Because it would be interesting to, you were a very high proportion Muslim, then it would be a different story than if it's like totally even throughout the religions.

0:20:00 Chantelle: Um, yeah.

0:20:16 Chantelle: It's not totally even, I would say it's slightly higher percentage Muslim, but still very high Christian percentage, especially in Africa. What I found interesting is, I'm pretty sure that all the countries outside of Africa that practice it are Muslim countries, and there is some evidence to show that, like in Indonesia, for example, FGM came into the country with Islam. So, it does have some connections, but no, I don't have the exact numbers about that.

0:20:40 Thomas: Interesting. Right. And in Africa, it sounds like it goes so far back that it would have been a cultural tradition before Christianity, and then Christianity kind of just didn't really interact with it, or maybe it sort of in some places justified it a little bit.

0:20:58 Chantelle: Yeah, exactly. That's what I would say for, and for Islam as well. I Mean, when I was reading some of the, the Hadith, I was just thinking to myself that it really sounds like, you know, if Mohammed was also a political leader, right. And he came into an area where they're already practicing this, um, it would be much easier in terms of a cohesive society if he didn't try to outright forbid it but instead just said, oh, do it less severe.

0:21:00 Thomas: Interesting. Hmm.

0:21:24 Chantelle: You know, like Yeah, I was thinking from political terms, yeah

0:21:24 Thomas: Yeah, don't get carried away. Yeah, that is a very politic answer. Yeah, totally. So do we want to focus in on the UK then? Because that gives us a really good basis for around the world

0:21:30 Chantelle: Yeah sure So for the UK, uh, the reason why I chose the UK specifically is because there has never been a conviction for any FGM related crimes in the uk UK, despite the fact that it's illegal under British and international law, and they know for sure that it is happening in the UK. So there are as many as, I mean this is a high end of the spectrum, but as many as 170,000 women at risk for the procedure. So at risk just means that they are from migrant communities that have a very high level of FGM.

0:22:12 Thomas: Practice.

0:22:13 Chantelle: Happening. So, like, Somalian migrant women. So whether it be their first generation or second or even third generation, they could be at risk for the procedure. And there have been a number of cases where it has been known to be done within British territory, they might fly in a traditional cutter into Britain and then have it done sort of behind closed doors. There's also a problem of them taking girls back to the country of their origin or their parents' origin and having it done over the summer holidays and what is referred to as, like, the cutting season, but that's also illegal to remove a child for the purpose of having them undergo FGM, but it's just very difficult to, you know, you can't necessarily stop a family from leaving with their child unless you have solid evidence that this is going to be done to them, so

0:22:13 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah there's

0:23:04 Chantelle: This is sort of where the cultural, cultural relativism comes in a bit, because there's always these different rights being put against each other, like the right to privacy, the right to be able to parent your child the way you want, and, of course, the right to be to leave the country, then also the child's rights and doing what is necessary in order to protect the child from this procedure.

0:23:24 Thomas: Just basic liberties at stake too.

0:23:27 Chantelle: Something I find interesting, I wonder what you think of this, so in France, you know how France has a sort of a different relationship with integration, right? They're kind of more like, this is France, we do it our way. Whereas the UK is more trying to be tolerant of cultural differences. So there's always comparison between the two. And in France, they have a couple of things, like, for example, they have mandatory medical examinations of girls from at-risk communities. They do it in September and in January. So between, like, after summer holidays and after winter holidays.

And they're just like a medical examination where they just sort of check to see if, if it's been done, and the parents know that this is going to happen, so it's supposed to be sort of to discourage them from doing the practice because they know that their child will be examined later, um, but in the UK there's been stark opposition to this because it's seen as a violation of the child's rights to have this mandatory medical examination. Well, now that you have a daughter, I, I wonder what you would think of that, is that something that would mandatory medical examinations? Yeah.

0:23:35 Thomas: Yeah that's a tough problem, them, I, well, We are, we have mandatory some things, right, or, uh, a lot of vaccinations are mandatory if you want to go to school, if you wanna have your kid go to school. I would look at it as something like that, I mean, it's hard because for me personally I wouldn't care, because if this were, I, I would say twice a year is pretty invasive to to personal privacy, that's kind of a burden to have to do something required twice a year. It's a lot. And if it targeted one group and not others, that would seem unfair, definitely. And I don't even know if you could do that in the US. But in terms of merely the safety and the good that it's trying to do, I mean, if I were a member of a community where this was a big problem, and I was somebody who didn't believe in this practice, like, I wouldn't have a problem with it, but yeah, that's hard

0:24:45 Chantelle: Yeah. Yeah so I think that's that's a big part of it, but there are also some people who are against FGM who have a problem with it just because when it comes to migrant communities that already feel isolated or already feel like they're not really socially included in the community, then having these sort of things that that are just focused on them, them, can contribute to that sort of social isolation, um, but, but, another reason why I think that they might be useful, or they've been useful in France, is then it takes away the burden, burden of the child having to report on their parents, or having to testify against their parents. So then it can be the medical professional who says, yeah, I examined this child in January, they didn't have this procedure done to them in September, it had been done, or something like that, and it sort of removes the burden from the child, and I think it's been used in France to be able to prosecute people who have so

0:25:29 Thomas: Yeah right yeah oh yeah, so how many have there been a lot of prosecutions in France, or yeah?

0:26:23 Chantelle: In France, when I checked last, so probably in June, there were, um, 100 people that have been prosecuted for FGM related crimes, um, most of these I think were parents or cutters themselves, um, but that's another problem that comes up legally, is this idea of what is the the best interests of the child. So can you arrest a parent? I mean, if it was someone who didn't have a cultural history of doing this, or, you know, a tradition of doing it, then of course it would be child abuse. Like, if my parents, when I was a child, decided to cut off parts of my genitals, that would be childhood abuse. But these parents believe that it's the best interest of their child to have this procedure done. And they could otherwise be completely loving parents who who don't abuse their child in any way.

0:27:09 Chantelle: So is it the best thing for the child to be removed from their parents' care and have their parents be sent to jail after this procedure has been done? Would that be the best things to do? Thing for their child?

0:27:18 Thomas: That's another really difficult question, I mean, you would also have to put some value on, like, will this prevent future, you know, future atrocities, yeah, that's it. Sounds like a collection of really difficult problems, so I see why you're interested in this issue, yeah.

0:27:25 Chantelle: Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was interesting. But in the UK, they haven't really done much about it in terms of legally prosecuting people. They've been trying to target the cutters more than the parents, because I think it's also a problem of just like logistics, I, you could make an example, I guess, of a few parents, but it's not like we can arrest all the parents who do it if it's true that there are, you know, something like thousands of people who might be doing this, right? The system just wouldn't be able to hold that many more people

0:27:45 Thomas: It makes sense all right. Well, they need to just apply a little American know-how to that problem, because we know how to imprison thousands and thousands of people. So maybe they can ask us.

0:28:04 Chantelle: Yeah yeah But I think it's also getting to a problem now where some policymakers are looking to convince the public that they are doing something about this. So there's one case, there was one case where a doctor was charged, but he was never convicted. And the case, when I read into it, just seemed like he was trying to be used as a scapegoat. So his name is Dr. I'm probably gonna pronounce this totally incorrectly, but Dr. Dharmasena.

Dharmasena, and he, he was like a still in training, I guess he was still only two years out of med school when it happened. And what happened is a woman came in to give birth who had had FGM done to her as a child, and he didn't know about it when he went to to help her, and it's, this is all supposed to be caught beforehand, right, because there are some procedures that need to be done to reverse it in order for the baby to be delivered safely. So this doctor goes in and he helps her deliver her baby, and there was a lot of bleeding, and he had to make a small cut in order to allow the baby be delivered safely. And then afterwards, because she was bleeding so much, he did one stitch to stop the bleeding. But that is called reinfibulation, which is also illegal.

So I didn't mention this before, but with the most extreme version of FGM, it's even more horrific. But after they give birth, often they're restitched in order to be made tight again, I guess is the goal of that. So he did one stitch to stop the bleeding, and this was categorized as reinfibulation, and

0:29:46 Chantelle: So then he was taken through the system, and I think it took like 30 minutes for the jury to dismiss it because it was clear that he didn't, he he didn't mean to do it. He was just, he didn't follow proper procedure, because that's not what was supposed to happen, but he didn't know the procedure. So that's more an error of medical education than it is him actually trying to perform FGM on this woman, right? But yeah, that's the problem that happens if it's not addressed properly, then people are just looking to convict and just to show that they're doing something about it.

0:29:51 Thomas: Yeah, especially at a time when we've seen the rise of populism and anti-immigrant sentiment. I'm sure that heats up the issue a lot, right?

0:30:22 Chantelle: Right. Right. Yeah, but something else that I, I think is important to mention that I came across a bit in my research is there, there is still an element of what I would call Western hypocrisy when it comes to this. So I don't want to go, I'm not a cultural relativist. I do think that we should have the same rights regardless of what our culture is. But at the same time, I think we need to acknowledge that sometimes in the Western, so-called Western world, we can be kind of hypocritical. So there is such a thing as vaginal cosmetic surgeries, and those are totally legal. So FGM is illegal.

0:30:54 Thomas: Well but hold on, but

0:30:59 Chantelle: Go ahead.

0:30:59 Thomas: You've got to be 18, right? Or you've got to an adult, right? Hmm.

0:31:03 Chantelle: No, not necessarily. And that's what what surprised me a lot too. You can be a minor as long as you have parental consent. Yeah, which is essentially FGM, right? So, because a lot of these ones, I mean, the children don't necessarily decide to do it. They don't know what's going to be included in it. They don't know that they'll be cutting, for example. They just think it's a coming-of-age ceremony. But some of them do decide, do choose to do it, or they want to have it done because it's a cultural norm, like all of their friends have had it done. I was reading a case of a woman who decided at the age of 21 to go and have the procedure done on her, and she ended up being very happy with the outcome, even though that would be technically illegal.

0:31:10 Thomas: Interesting. What did this happen

0:31:45 Chantelle: So she was American, and I believe her country of origin is Ethiopia, so she went back to Ethiopia to have the procedure done, right?

0:31:53 Thomas: I would say, I mean, if you're an adult and you're making the decision for yourself, that's sort of a different thing, right? I mean, people do all kinds of weird stuff to themselves, but if it's, yeah, if it, it's a question of being a minor, but when you talk about like vaginal cosmetic surgery, I, not talking, when you're talking about Western hypocrisy, I thought you were going a different direction. You're going to talking about actually trying to, you know, remove the clitoris and like prevent, uh, orgasm and stuff like that

0:32:20 Chantelle: So there's different reasons for it being done. Uh, they're not trying to prevent orgasms, and, and it is, it is generally, um, the, women or girls who decide they want to have it done, and then they go to a medical professional, and they, uh, have to go through a bit of, um, psychological evaluation first, I think, and they have to be coached about the impacts of it.

So it's definitely different, but what I was trying, trying to say is that it is legal even for minors, and it, we, we regard it in a totally different way.

So we talk about it, was like, oh well, it's their choice, it's they want this cosmetic surgery, and might not think that it's the best thing for them to do, but we give a lot more autonomy to that idea, whereas with FGM it kind of brings out like a collective shudder, and and a lot of these children who have it done to them, some of them do think that it's a beautification process that they do think it's cosmetic in nature as well. That's a part of the process. So, I mean, I just think that if cosmetic vaginal surgeries are legal for minors in the UK, then that is a big hole in terms of FGM eradication programs, because a lot of people who are pro-FGM or who don't want it to be made illegal can point to that and say, well, you know, you're letting British-born or white, white British girls have these procedures done, but you're saying that our cultural practices are somehow wrong.

0:32:21 Thomas: Right, yeah yeah yeah, that's interesting

0:33:44 Chantelle: And there's evidence too that it's on the rise, like the amount of young women who get vaginal cosmetic surgeries is increasing.

0:33:44 Thomas: Thing it's still, I, I wonder if you can make a pretty hard distinction between a cosmetic thing and an actual removal of like the pleasure, you points of it.

0:34:00 Chantelle: Some of the cosmetic surgeries do very similar things. So they will remove parts of the labia in order to make them look better or supposedly look better. They'll remove the parts of the clitoris if they think the clioris is too long or something like that right so I mean, they might come into it with different objectives, but it still comes down to this idea of, I hate to use this word because I know it is a trigger word for a lot of people, but it is still comes down patriarchy, right? It is like these women, even though they might want to have the procedure done, these women and girls, they are still doing it because they believe that their, their genitals don't match what they've been socialized to think they should look like. And then it's similar in some of the African communities that do FGM, is they think that the female genital isn't, they're not fine the way they are. They need to be altered in order to appease the patriarchal society. So I just see so many similarities between the two. And yeah, I thought that was interesting.

0:34:01 Thomas: Right. Well, that just sounds like FGM, yeah yeah no, that makes sense, that's more than I thought it would be, I thought there wouldn't be as much to that argument until you laid it out, and I think, I think you make a good case. I just wonder then if it ought to be, you know, you need to be legally an adult, or at least a certain age.

0:35:12 Chantelle: Yeah, that's what I would say. But I'm curious in the US, are you allowed to get tattoos before you're 18? Do you know?

0:35:17 Thomas: I with parental consent. I'm not a big tattoo guy, but

0:35:19 Chantelle: Yeah. Cause I think you're also allowed to get like breast augmentation and stuff like that before 18.

0:35:23 Thomas: Yeah, I think with consent, but I would have breast augmentation. That'd

0:35:26 Chantelle: Yeah. I mean, I know that's totally different. I'm just saying there's a lot of things that minors are allowed to do that, um, are kind of serious things, but we, we allow them to do it with parental consent. So same with these vaginal cosmetic surgeries.

0:35:28 Thomas: Yeah.

0:35:41 Thomas: But I mean, if the average age is eight for FGM, I mean that's not anywhere where I would, like if I were in in charge of things, I it makes sense to have the ability to do certain things with parental consent, but not at a, that young of an age. Like, I don't think you, I do not think you can be having getting life-altering decisions. Like,I do not know, I think even with parental consent, it is not like a get-out-of-jail-free card for, you know, oh, she knows what, you know, my daughter knows what she wants, but, and I am consenting. I think you still need to be a certain age to understand the impact of the decisions.

0:36:11 Chantelle: It's I agree with you. And it's definitely not age eight that these vaginal cosmetic surgeries are getting, are being done. It's, it's more like teenagers. I don't, I don't have in front of me the average age, but I would guess it's something like 15, 16 in there, you know? So it is different. And I don't, I didn't mean to compare it to tattoos because clearly cutting off pieces of your genitals is not the same thing, but, I just, yeah.

0:36:15 Thomas: Right. Sure, yeah. No, I got the comparison. It made sense. Just a serious decision, like a potentially forever decision that you're making as a kid with parental consent.

0:36:41 Chantelle: Yeah, exactly. It's just an interesting thing when I came across it. I was like, hmm, I don't know how I feel about this. Because you You want to give people as many liberties as you can to make decisions for their own bodies. But when it comes to minors, it's just especially something like cutting off your genitals. Like that's that's an intense decision to make.

0:36:45 Thomas: Right, right. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And even that is, you know, it's far more serious than a tattoo that could potentially be removed or even like a breast augmentation that could be undone. You know, something that's It's reversible, like irreversible damage is, it seems like a category of, of its own. So, um, what else did, do we want to explore in terms of the UK? So there's no, there haven't been any, any, uh, any prosecutions at all.

0:36:59 Chantelle: Mm hmm. Mm hmm, yeah.

0:37:22 Chantelle: Yeah, so no conviction.

0:37:23 Thomas: No convictions.

0:37:23 Chantelle: So I'm yeah, so that's the only one that I came across, the doctor that I explained that has been prosecuted. But he was let off, like I said. So I think that's something they're trying to find the best way to go about doing this. There is this new procedure now that's required, which is mandatory reporting. So if a doctor comes across evidence that a child or a woman has had FGM done to them at some point in their life, then they inform the proper authorities. And then that family is sort of, don't want to say monitored, but their children, any, any potential children are sort of monitored to ensure that they don't have FGM done to them. So, you know, they might be included onto the list of at risk girls and volunteers, community grassroots organizations will focus on those areas to try to discuss it and encourage families not to go ahead and do this to their daughters as well.

0:37:24 Thomas: Oh, okay. Okay.

0:38:18 Chantelle: And there are different objectives to, like, they have this thing called the FGM passport. Passport. So in the, in the passports of, of individuals who are considered to be in the at-risk communities, they have the option of including a page that explains that FGM is illegal and could be, it could result in up to 14 years imprisonment, all this stuff. So when they go back to their, the countries of their origin or their parents' origin, they can show relatives who might be pressuring them to have this done to their child like, look.

0:38:46 Thomas: Right.

0:38:47 Chantelle: I could go to jail for 14 years if we do this, so this is why I don't want it done to my kid, kind of thing. So it takes the, the pressure off of them a bit. But of course, people have to want to have that passport. So. That's, that's more targeting people who are already against the procedure, but might feel like might give in to the societal pressures. So that doesn't really target people who are still pro the procedure.

0:38:57 Thomas: Yeah.

0:39:09 Thomas: Yeah. I, well, I do definitely, I like the idea of these kind of non-invasive education driven, you know measures to try to try to reduce the problem though

0:39:20 Chantelle: Yeah, me too. I think those ones are the ones that are ultimately going to end up working. But it also sort of, you know, the idea of having this passport where it says you could be put in jail for up to 14 years when we know that no one has ever actually been prosecuted, or like prosecuted to the full extent of the law, at least they've never been convicted. So if we continue with this, this thing in the, in the UK, where the law actually isn't applied, then the laws won't be taken as seriously, right? Or at least that's my, my fear of what could happen. Yeah.

0:39:53 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, it is interesting when it's a law that hasn't been applied, how I don't know how much people be afraid of it. I don't know how much these communities, like, if they are aware of it in general, you know, like, I just don't know. Do you, do you have any from your research, do you have any sense of when, someone in the UK is doing this, do they, do they know or care that it's against the law? Is there any way of that for us to know that? Hmm.

0:40:17 Chantelle: I don't think there's been enough research done on that either about how aware the practicing communities actually are of the laws. I think it's becoming more obvious that it's illegal because they do, you know, do it in secrecy. It's not something that is done out in the open. So they know that it will be frowned upon, that it might end up with some consequences. But one thing that I found important is that there is a lack of training for what's called, like, the first responders, so the people who might be the first to detect this is happening, so like teachers, nurses, other health care professionals, those kinds of people who have, like, counselors and stuff, who have first contact with the children that might have undergone it. A lot of studies show that there's a limited amount of understanding about the procedure and limited understanding about how to deal with it. There was actually a study done in Australia, or it was one of those kind of, like, literature reviews, where they looked at 18 different studies about the medical professionals' knowledge of FGM.

0:40:21 Thomas: That yeah so

0:41:23 Chantelle: And a lot of these studies show that they had very limited knowledge of this procedure in high-income countries. So because it's not traditionally done in North America and the UK and other European countries, there's a lack of education about that in medical school. So that could be one way that we might be able to improve, uh, improve the eradication efforts as well.

0:41:44 Thomas: Is it a big problem in the U.S. though? I know that wasn't your focus, but is it enough to where, because I haven't heard much talk about it here. Hmm.

0:41:51 Chantelle: I, I don't know any statistics about the U.S. I do, I did stumble across that, I'm sure you saw it, to the article of the doctor who had been arrested for performing it in her clinic. Um. I don't have her name written down here, but I'm sure you can easily find that. That was, I think, only a few months ago. Um.

0:42:02 Thomas: Yeah. That Sounds familiar. Right. Yeah.

0:42:09 Chantelle: Which actually brings me, I don't know if we have time to get into this, but into another subject that's called the, the medicalization of FGM. It's essentially when some, even some people who are anti-FGM, believe that we should be doing it in hospitals until such a time where it can be eradicated, because the danger to the children having it done to them in unsafe, unclean situations, we can limit that danger. It is under the paradigm of what is called harm reduction. So harm reduction strategies started with, like, drug issues.

0:42:17 Thomas: Sure. Sort Of like clean needle stuff, like.

0:42:44 Chantelle: Exactly. Exactly, so they're applying that now, or they're trying to apply it to FGM, where some doctors think, you know, this is a terrible procedure, but I'd rather the child not die from shock or from infection. So. If I can do it, then that will prevent you the worst case scenario, and then we can work on eradicating the procedure. I, I haven't been convinced by the argument. I mean, it's really difficult to argue with it, because of course you don't want to see anyone die from a procedure that they don't need to die.

0:42:44 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

0:43:12 Chantelle: From, but there is some evidence that, that, that normalizes it too much that.

0:43:17 Thomas: Well. Shoot, I meant. To asked this earlier, but I, this actually might still fit in here, which is, you know, what are the, do you have numbers of what are the dangers of this? How many girls, you know, how many girls die from this? How many girls have complications? Do you have those kind of numbers from your research?

0:43:17 Chantelle: Yeah.

0:43:31 Chantelle: So it really depends on, you know, how, I explain the different types of the procedure. Right, depends on that, and it also depends on how it's done. So sometimes the procedure is done in just, like, all I can say is in a horrific way. Where you know they might use like glass or a sharp piece of bone to do the procedure, so obviously that's going to lead to way higher risks. But from the, the data I saw was anywhere between one in three girls die to one in 40. Um, yeah.

0:43:36 Thomas: Yep. Yeah, yeah.

0:44:00 Thomas: That's pretty high.

0:44:00 Chantelle: So that's very high, but again, like, the, the lack of research is what I found was the biggest challenge when doing this, because, I mean, of course, like I said again, it really depends on which type and all this stuff, but then also it's so hard to, to have this research done when a lot of this is being, uh, conducted behind closed doors. So.

0:44:00 Thomas: Jeez. Yeah, yeah.

0:44:21 Chantelle: But there's very high medical risks, especially with type three, uh, which is infibulation, which is the most invasive kind, um, hemorrhaging, like dying from, like, bleeding to death is common, or even having issues later in life. There's issues when it comes, when you first start menstruating, uh. When you get pregnant, there's risks to the child, uh, the unborn child, risks during pregnancy of, you know, higher risks of bleeding, bleeding out during pregnancy, different things like that. So, I mean, medicalization of the procedure could address some of those risks. But the problem then is like the.

0:44:59 Thomas: Yeah.

0:44:59 Chantelle: Normalization of it where, if it's being done in a hospital, it's seen as an acceptable surgery or it's seeing as a medical procedure when really it still is, at least in my opinion, a mutilation of girls, right? Right.

0:45:00 Thomas: Yeah.

0:45:13 Chantelle: But it kind of comes down to like this idea of imperialism. Again, a lot of the people that are for harm reduction strategies, they say, OK, we might not like this, but do we want to risk girls lives in order to be principled in our opposition to it?

0:45:26 Thomas: But how would this even work? I guess maybe I didn't, so you're saying allow it somehow, like, with, because it's illegal, but how, so how would, how would this practically play out?

0:45:38 Chantelle: So how it plays out right now is that there are some countries where it's done in hospitals. So, like, Indonesia, Malaysia, they, they have it done in hospital. Actually, I can't remember, I think it was Indonesia. Yeah, Indonesia, where it's so common to be done in hospitals that they actually offer, like, packages where you can get your, your newborn baby's ears pierced at the same time as getting FGM. So that's how much it can be normalized. Right. But in, in other situations, it can be more, like, you know, like, say there's an eradication effort going on in rural, rural African community, they might, the doctors might just provide clean tools for them to use, or they might provide, like, antibiotics. So that they don't get infections afterwards.

0:45:55 Thomas: Yeah. So This apply this question applies more in countries where it's not illegal is what you're seeing, or do I have that wrong, because I don't know how this this would work in, like the UK Or, you know, oh, it is illegal.

0:46:28 Chantelle: Well, a lot of these countries, it is illegal. Illegal? Yeah, so

0:46:32 Thomas: Okay. But it's, but it's okay.

0:46:32 Chantelle: A lot of African nations, yeah, it is illegal there. It's just the law isn't applied to an even more extreme version than it's not being applied in the UK. But in the UK, it's absolutely no, they would not be done in a hospital. I'm just saying that there are suggestions that it perhaps should be permitted in hospitals to avoid some of the more extreme problems. And I mean, when I talk about eradication efforts, I'm talking kind of more in a global Because there is this idea, too, that we're not going to eradicate the procedure in Western countries until it's eradicated everywhere.

0:46:37 Thomas: Yeah. Okay, right. Hmm.

0:47:04 Chantelle: Because, you know, with migration and everything, people bring their traditions with them, especially when they feel like they're being isolated in their new home. So in the UK, these migrant communities that feel isolated, they sometimes will hang on even tighter to their traditions in order to feel some sort of identity and community and stuff. So if we want it to be eradicated there, if we wanna work on sort of education programs, we also need it to eradicated elsewhere in the world. And then harm reduction is just one aspect of that where people think, okay, we could have it done in hospitals so less girls are dying of it. But we could also have the doctor, you know, the relationship between the community and the medical industry being closer so we could negotiate for less invasive versions of the procedure and all this stuff.

0:47:53 Chantelle: And it's something I struggled with while I was writing it because fundamentally it seems wrong to have a medical professional doing something that is so medically unnecessary. You know, like they're supposed to do no harm, right? Isn't that like one of the core aspects of being a doctor? And this is completely medically unnecessary. There's no reason to have FGM. But if they're trying to prevent a child from dying, it's really difficult to argue against it, you know?

0:48:04 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:48:17 Thomas: I, I think I'm with your first impulse, which is like, I don't, I don't think that's a good route, but who knows? It's definitely all these, all these arguments are difficult ones. It's like a bunch of, you bad options on both sides of questions, it seems like.

0:48:29 Chantelle: Yeah. Also, I was thinking, too, with the harm reduction strategies, is were originally started to address medical issues, right? Like drug abuse is, I mean, it categorizes a medical illness, right, whereas FGM is more of a social issue. So I don't even know if harm reduction strategies would end up being successful in dealing with a social issue. Also, the harm reduction tragedies generally don't involve irreversible surgeries like FGM, Right? So if you provide someone with clean needles, you're not doing irreversable damage to them. Whereas you're cutting off pieces of a girl's genitals. It's something that they can't undo later in life. Nice to depress you this on this sunny day So

0:48:58 Thomas: Right. Yeah, no, no. I don't know where to go. Are there any conclusions you drew, or was this more of an exploration? What did you come away with from this?

0:49:21 Chantelle: A conclusion that like for the UK specifically is I think they should more to kind of model some of the French programs like I'm not against the idea of mandatory medical examinations, mandatory reporting, which they have started doing already, those kinds of things. I think that they should prosecute some of of the parents and definitely the cutters that they can come into contact with because my, my opinion is that if they are enforcing these laws, that it would, it would be communicated through the community at a faster rate in conjunction with education programs. Right. So I'm not saying stop the other more grassroots organizations, but I think that, you know, if you know that your neighbor got two years in jail for doing FGM to their daughter, maybe you'll be less likely to do it to yours. Right?

0:50:11 Thomas: Yeah.

0:50:12 Chantelle: Right. I don't think it would be possible to prosecute everyone. But I think in those really extreme cases, that could be a positive. I also think something that really needs to be addressed and this is not an easy thing, but FGM is based on this need to repress and control female sexuality. Right. And I think some of the programs need to address that more directly because a lot of them, you know, sexuality is difficult to talk about, a taboo subject in a lot of communities. And so they kind of, they're skirting around the root causes in some ways. Like, I, I read an interview of two, um, two Muslim imams in London, and both of these imams are against FGM. They, they say that it's, it's against um Islamic teachings, which is great, but then they turn around and support all the things that would lead to it. So they still are very saturated in gender norms. They're very to this idea of purity and virginity and all these things that are the reasons why FGM is happening to begin with.

0:50:29 Thomas: Right.

0:51:17 Chantelle: So, I mean, I know that's going to be something that's really difficult to address, right? There's no easy solution. But everything I read, I kept thinking, at the end of the day, this comes down to controlling female sexuality, like they're cutting off pieces of, like the pleasure inducing pieces of female male genitals, in order to try to control women.

0:51:35 Thomas: Right, yeah.

0:51:36 Chantelle: And I know a lot of women, like I don't want to, I'm sure what I've said has already offended a lot people. And if Look at it from more of a removed perspective, I can't help but feel like, you know, they're cutting off the pieces of of women's genitals. Yeah.

0:52:02 Thomas: Yeah, I know that I've seen that too. A lot of women who've had it done will argue for it, and a lot of the justifications are kind of the same justifications for me, circumcision sometimes, like health or cleanliness Or, you know, aesthetics. And it's just, I feel like you can't really escape the fact that it is more targeted toward the actual pleasure part of genitals versus with male circumcision. It's sort of ancillary.

0:52:02 Chantelle: Yeah.

0:52:30 Chantelle: And One thing I forgot to mention at the beginning, but I, I think is important to mention also, is this has been done in the West, like, before migraine, like migration was a thing. So, and the Victorian era, there were, in um in the UK especially, there was doctors that, one doctor specifically named uh Dr. Isaac Barker Brown, who was doing like removing women's clitorises to deal with female hysteria, he called it. It was a treatment for female hystería and female masturbation. It's been done, you know, different communities have been doing it for a long time. So it's not like it's, I don't necessarily think it shows some sort of cultural deficiency or something like that. I think it's just a different manifestation of patriarchy. You know, we have purity balls and chastity balls and things like that. Like people wear purity rings in the US and Canada. It's a similar idea of trying to control female sexuality. It just manifested in a different way.

0:52:55 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Yeah, It's more extreme, extreme right.

0:53:29 Chantelle: Yeah, so this is just a more extreme version. But like I said, in the Victorian era, they used to do similar things. And I think I don't have any of it in front of me right now, but I think if I remember reading that in the U.S. too, it was a problem like a long time ago, like 100 years ago, where they did similar procedures as well. Trying to control female sexuality and deal with female hysteria. So exactly.

0:53:42 Thomas: Right. Yeah. I mean, I, I just don't- there, it is a weird balance it sounds like. Once again, that goes back to the balance of like, is it hypocritical to be turning a critical eye toward other cultures in this way? And it's, it's, I think that there are- you don't have to want to impose like your complete morality on other people to want to say, okay, there's some baseline stuff, like no genocide. There's just certain baselines. I would love if everybody had freedom to practice their religion, freedom of democracy. I would love if everybody could have basic freedoms, and I don't think it means viewing your culture as perfect to want to say there's some baselines that I believe everybody should have in the world, and not having your genitals mutilated is one of those baselines for me.

0:54:43 Thomas: It doesn't really matter. Like, yeah, if it's been a problem in the West or it's not, like it's Not really relevant, like wherever it's happening, it's a problem for me, but yeah.

0:54:42 Chantelle: Yeah, that's one of them. Yeah. Yeah totally. I agree.

0:54:54 Thomas: Well, thanks for taking us through a very troubling topic, And there's definitely some tough balances, you know, of how invasive of, can we get in personal privacy to try to ensure this isn't happening? And yeah, very interesting stuff. So Chantelle, thanks very much for coming on.

0:55:12 Chantelle: Thanks for having me.

0:55:37 Thomas: Alright, lots of interesting ethical questions there. One of those difficult topics where we might have ended up with more questions than we did answers, but sometimes human problems are difficult like that. You know, I'd be curious, I know I have a lot of UK-based listeners, I would be curious for your thoughts on this. What do you think about the idea of the mandatory medical appointments to fight this problem? I mean, on one hand, you have to balance what I think is definitely something really, really wrong that is happening to little girls, and on the other hand, the alienation a group would feel by being targeted with that, targeting an entire group for a behavior that not everyone is doing. It's a difficult thing. I would be curious to see where you guys stand. I wonder if in the US it would be constitutional. I'm not sure if it would, but I don't know. I don't know how your law works over in the UK.

0:56:28 Thomas: And I think it is a real question of what to do when a family has done this to their child, as Chantelle outlined. I mean, they doesn't mean they're bad in any other respects. I mean, it's not like an abusive thing in their mind. It's something you have to do. So is it good to then separate the child from the family at that point when there's no further harm that's going to be done? Really interesting ethical questions. So, tough topic. I would very much like some, some voicemails and feedback on this. I'd be curious what you guys think, how to balance those different rights and objectives. So thanks, Chantelle, for taking us through that. And I will have to see you guys on Thursday. Thank you so much for listening and see you then.