REPORT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY HEARINGS HELD
ON 23 AND 24 MAY 2000
PALACE OF WESTMINISTER

PUBLISHED BY THE ALL-PARTY PARLIAMENTARY GROUP ON POPULATION, DEVELOPMENT AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH

NOVEMBER 2000


'NGO Working at Grassroots Community Level: Oral Presentation and Questions'
Mrs Shamis Dirir, Director
Black Women's Health and Family Support


Chairman: …We move on to our last witness, Shamis Dirir, whom many of us have known for some time. Shamis is the Development Director of the Black Women's Health and Family Support. She is from a Somali family, and was born in Aden, South Yemen. She has been active in setting up various voluntary agencies in Tower Hamlets. The first association she set up was the Somali Women's Association in 1979, so she has been doing this work for a long time. She then went on to set up the Maternity Services Liaison Scheme in 1980 which deals with ante-natal and post-natal care of pregnant women, specifically from the Somali, Bengali, Chinese and African communities. In 1982 she founded the London Black Women's Health Action Project, a registered charity organisation that campaigns against the practice of FGM based on the fullest involvement of the women concerned.

Shamis Dirir: We have had many debates today, but let us first hear from the grassroots level: that is organisations working with the communities concerned. I should like first to tell you what we do as an organisation. We are an eighteen-year-old organisation, so we were involved in passing the Female Circumcision (FC) Bill in 1985. We currently have seven projects within our organisation, which generally works to educate the community about the harmful effects of FGM. We intend to eradicate FGM from the grassroots level by talking to women, young and old people to see what lessons can be learnt for our work, and encourage them to come out and discuss their problems and understand the harmfulness of this practice.

Imagine that you have been carrying out a practice that has been in existence for many, many years without any questions being asked, and then you migrate to another country and are told, "You must stop the practice". It will be a terrible shock. How would you explain this to the community? "We are harming our children and is there a way we can stop"?

First we look at the law in this country and say: "A law has been passed in this country and that you cannot continue with the practice." Secondly, we can look at the religious aspect and say, "It is not religious. Why are we then practicing it? Why are we harming our children?" The people we see in this country do not only come from cities, some also come form the rural areas and they do not know anything about the religious interpretation of the FGM, as FGM has never been talked about in their communities. A lot of women have recently learnt that FGM is not a religious practice. Some are asking, "if it is not a religious practice then why are we practising it?" Some women say that it is our culture practiced for thousands of years. Why should we stop now? We then bring in the prohibition law.

In 1991 we inquired from the Child Protection team to find out if female circumcision was being branded as child abuse. They said yes, and when we told the community, "you are abusing your children", many women got very angry. They always say, "we are not abusing our children. We love our children. We perform this traditional practice in our daughters' interests, to have a husband and to become the best girls in the world. This is why we are practicing it." We say, "if FGM is not child abuse, what are you doing to your child?" The community considers child abuse as sexual abuse and other intentional harms that can be done to children. The community believes that they are not sexually abusing their children. "We are helping our children to get married, and to find husbands", is their opinion.

We have been working over the past eighteen years and we have had a lot of women who listen to us, many of whom do not want to continue the practice. But there is another dilemma. Some of the women would like to practice the Sunna method. I do not know whether people know that there are two types of Sunna. One is to cut the hood of the clitoris and the other is to prick the clitoris and shed blood. We ask the women which of the two they would like to practice. If they say, "we would like to cut the hood of the clitoris", we reply, "that is wrong".

Last year our organisation saw 1,767 people, most of which are young people and their families. We have different projects that work with young men and young men in education and training. The projects work with all sectors of the community, including parents, Social Services and schools to remove barriers in education and assist young Somalis to achieve their maximum potential by making their learning experience more enjoyable. We cannot say that we work all over the country and all over the world because we do not have the capacity to do so, but we do have national and international links and partnerships. We are a small organisation but we think that our work has prevented thousands of girls from being circumcised.

Although, we are eradicating the practice, some parents take their children to Somalia and other parts of the world in the school holidays to have them circumcised. However, some parents also take their children - not to be circumcised, but to show the community that the circumcision has been done so the community will accept them. From this we can see that some parents do not want to circumcise their daughters, but they only want to be accepted by the community.

Our work with the community is unique; we can say that we have helped the young and the older generation to understand the different aspects of our work. Our aim is to educate women, children and their families. Every week we educate around 44 women in basic English. This is designed to help women who have not had the opportunity of an education and just like any other group of people, enjoy the chance to get together to learn and discuss important issues.

In 1994 some women said, "if we go back to our country tomorrow having stopped FGM in this country, what would happen to us and our children?" With this in mind we organised an international conference Change without Denigration. More than 400 people from all over the world attended the conference, with the full participation of the black communities we serve locally. We realised how very necessary it is to eradicate FGM in refugee's country of origin as well as in their adopted countries.

We are linking our work to Africa where we came from. I am a Somali woman and work for the Somali community, but we also help other communities that practice FGM. We have two research projects in East Africa, on the attitudes and experiences of Somali young people on female circumcision and the attitudes of the older generation (45-60 year olds). We had two young people, as well as the male and female key workers of our sister organisation to carry out the research. It was very successful, and we found out that some people admitted that they had had enough of the practice and they did not want to continue. There are also a lot of young men and women who are not going to circumcise their children in this country, but who are concerned about going back to Somalia in the future as the practice still goes on there.

We need help as an organisation. Our Management Committee has been very supportive in organising events. We need the Government to help us with funding, not just here but with the work we are linked with in Somalia/land. Unless we link the two works together, the practice will not stop in Europe. These women will go back in future and they will still practise it. I have been to Somalia on three occasions recently. I established an organisation called the Somali Rehabilitation Development Agency the first time I visited. I visited also in July 1991 during which I visited fifteen villages where I saw ten young girls being circumcised in front of me. I could not say a word because it was not my place. They told me, "you come from England and you are westernised. Your mind is gone." I went back again to Somaliland in December 1999 and I had the chance of meeting 33 women from different NGOs who understood me, and said, "why can't we work together on female circumcision and talk to other women?" A five-day research was successfully carried out.

There are many women who would like to stop the practice but have no means of stopping. The Bill in this country is working as far as the communities are aware of the penalty, but at the same time we need the Bill to be translated in different languages and monitored. FGM should be debated and discussed on the television by the local communities and religious leaders. FGM issues are very sensitive and should not be horrifically publicised by the media who are ignorant of the real issues.

We are also lobbying to have a law passed in our country, Somaliland. There are many strong women in Somalia who said that they would help. We have about seventeen people who have promised to help formulate it. We work with schools, social services and the police both in the UK and Somaliland. We are doing a lot of tremendous work. We have produced an FGM Strategy Policy which was produced in collaboration with the Social Services Psychology Team, hospitals and universities which could be used by other organisations. We have carried several research projects. At the same time, we have all kinds of information for the community and professionals who are themselves researching into this area. However, we cannot reach everybody. We need the help of the Government and other organisations; to eradicate this deep rooted practice we all have to work together, at the same time as being sensitive to the community involved. We are winning the trust of the women, and once we win their trust, the trust of the men will come. We are also winning the trust of the younger and older people. However, some people are stubborn too.

I worked with a family for six months to educate them not to circumcise their daughters. Once the mother agreed to stop, she will stop other women from practicing. The community functions by word of mouth; they go around and talk to each other. We are doing wonderful work with the community, linking our work back home. Many Muslim men are now trying to talk about the religious justification for the practice, mentioning what has not been said before even in the mosques, and even in our country. They tell the community that FGM is not Islamic and it has to stop. They say, "other Islamic countries do not practice it. What is the reason why we are practicing it?" But, I am sorry to say that at the same time many men say, "how would we trust girls if they were not circumcised?" Many men think that a girl's virginity is the stitched bit. We here all know it is not, but they need a lot of convincing - we have to convince the men.

I saw a Senegalese Imam yesterday who went to villages to educate the people on the issue of FGM. I would like to have that kind of man to go to every village in Somalia and Somaliland and come out and talk about it. I also met one of the researchers who seemed very confident about the research. Sometimes people say, "no, I am not going to stop circumcision. What is the problem? Why should we stop?" The researchers explained to the community and referred them to us for further information.

Chairman: Thank you very much. You have outlined a whole range of things that have to be done: training, education, research and so on. You have also said that you want more resources. If the Government have limited resources, but are prepared to put more resources into this project, where do you think they should go? Should they go to organisations like you that are doing all this community work or should there be a concentration in the health service? Where do you think the resources should go?

Shamis Dirir: First of all, the health services need the resources. All these women are going to the health service for help after infibulation, to have their babies and with health problems. But the community also needs the support to eradicate and stop. There is no unity in the work of FGM. If it is not there, everybody will take the law into their hands and we will not know who is doing what. We need unity. We could save a lot of resources by working together.

Recently we have been trying to organise an international conference either in Somaliland or elsewhere in Africa. We shall be preparing for this until 2001. We would like to collaborate with other organisations; we need to work together; we need more unity. If we had that we could spend some of the money on the Health Authority, some for the Health Service and some for other work. We need major research to see what we are doing and how we can work together. That might come from the Department of Health. Our two research projects are from the Department of Health but we need a larger research. We are the only organisation that is currently carrying out research work, and we need to be co-ordinate with other groups.

Alice Mahon: I was interested in what you had to say about going back to the home country, to Somalia. You mentioned the work of NGOs there. What are they doing to help promote this? Is there any truth in the reports we read about Medecins Sans Frontieres advocating that for this to be done medically. and in clinically controlled conditions, would be better than it being done in unhygienic conditions?

Shamis Dirir: The people I met with from 33 NGOs were mainly Somali. They were concerned with disability, women's health, child orphans, war, and such issues. None of them were working on FGM. We have opened a health centre there in order to do two things. The first is to detect all the children who are taken from here and safeguard them. The second is to help women advocate for themselves to stop Female Genital Mutilation. You can imagine a country recovering from war. Everybody is taking the law into their hands and doing all kinds of things. There are international organisations that are going there but are not doing much, if anything, in the area of FGM.

Lord Ahmed: I found your talk very interesting too. You mentioned that some people argue for Sunna. I am a Muslim. I am not aware of any Hadith saying that in relation to female circumcision. Which Sunna are they referring to?

Shamis Dirir: I have not read of it either, but I was shown a Hadith in which a woman was circumcising her daughter and a man said, "why are the daughters crying? Why are you doing that?" She said, "for money, I have to have something to eat for my children". He said, "don't cut too deep. It's enjoyable for men and bad for girls". This is what I heard. It is not what I know. This is what all the religious people are telling us. So maybe you could go back and look at it in another Hadith, but this is what I heard. At the same time I am saying that with female circumcision or Female Genital Mutilation, whatever we call it, it is no good either to break it or to cut it. I think a girl has to be tight as they come out of their mother. That is what I believe.

Lord Ahmed: Perhaps I can make one point. I know that from a total of about eight- to ten- thousand Hadiths, only about four thousand are authentic, where there is adjudication, in other words, there is evidence to back it up. I have heard of the same one, but there is no evidence to back it. That is the first point. Secondly, as a practice, he never approved of it anywhere in Islam. He never approved it.

Shamis Dirir: He never approved it. I agree absolutely.

Lord Ahmed: Although he never approved of alcohol, it took twelve years before he actually banned alcohol from the introduction of Islam. So this was one of those things that he neverapproved. Maybe in time he would have banned it if this practice had continued.

Shamis Dirir: It is a horrible practice and it should stop.

Baroness Rendell: In the debate in the House of Lords, or perhaps it was a Question - I cannot remember - I advocated encouraging young Somali graduates to enter social services so that they could go into the homes of members of the community who belong to their own ethnic group and dissuade them from female circumcision. That would be on the grounds that people would listen to their own ethnic group with more faith than they would perhaps to other people. What do you think of that?

Shamis Dirir: It is a wonderful idea. The Somalis are a deprived community in Britain. Now we have another six social workers coming into Tower Hamlets, so that is a wonderful thing.

Baroness Rendell: So it is happening?

Shamis Dirir: It is happening. We have about six social workers in Tower Hamlets who are going to be trained. It is better nowadays than it was before; people are listening.

Chairman: Thank you very much…