Written evidence submitted by Movement for Justice

Female Genital Mutilation

      Every woman who is escaping FGM, protecting her daughters from FGM or facing persecution because she refuses to act as a ‘cutter’ must be AUTOMATICALLY granted asylum if she comes to Britain.

      Reverse the ‘Burden of Proof’ in asylum cases. The burden of proof must be on the Home Office, not on the asylum seekers.         

1. Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is torture and child abuse. It is a cruel and extreme form of the subjugation of women through the direct suppression and control of their sexuality. In the countries where it has traditionally been practised it has deep roots in the subordination of women by patriarchal societies. Britain has publicly supported international declarations against FGM, a position in line with its support for declarations on the rights of women and children. It is the Movement for Justice’s submission that the Government’s fine words will have no meaning until and unless Britain’s actions are strengthening and not undermining the women who can actually end FGM - the women who are resisting the ‘cutters’ by any means necessary.

The fight to end FGM is international.

2. FGM is being questioned by growing numbers of women in societies where it has been long established, and that is happening because those countries are undergoing rapid change. They are increasingly integrated into the global economy and affected by international social developments through trade and investment, communications, urbanisation, education and migration. Africa and the other regions with a tradition of FGM are more exploited by the great capitalist powers and more integrated into the world market than they were under colonial rule. Their young people are increasingly connected socially and culturally with the rest of the world.  These changes are inevitably weakening the traditional social structures and systems of authority in which FGM plays a central part. More and more women in those countries (and in the expatriate communities in Britain and elsewhere) no longer see FGM as inevitable and are trying to avoid it for themselves or their daughters; some, a growing number, are challenging it directly or resisting it physically in ways that would have been unimaginable even a generation ago.
3. Every act of resistance is a challenge to the authority of community or tribal elders and conservative religious leaders; every successful act of resistance is a blow that encourages more resistance. The traditional elders and institutions become more desperate to hold on to FGM and women who oppose them face threats, the kidnapping of their daughters and torture. In some cases ‘cutting’ is directly linked to the rise of anti-gay scapegoating and bigotry: EB, a Movement for Justice member and lesbian from Kenya was born into a family that had rejected FGM; she was cut when her parents were alarmed by the evidence of her sexuality while her sisters were spared this fate. In some countries like Kurdistan social and political turmoil seems to be leading to a resurgence of FGM.
4. However the biggest obstacle for women who oppose FGM is the collusion of the governments and the police etc. with its continuation, even when it is formally prohibited by law. The governments in most of the countries concerned are themselves threatened by the effects of rapid economic and social change, even as they act as promoters and agents of change – as in many African countries where AIDS is creating an imbalance between young and old, agribusiness is dispossessing peasant communities and young people are reaching working age faster than economic growth can create new jobs. In order to maintain control in such fragile and explosive situations the governments generally rely on the co-operation and support of the traditional authorities of tribe, clan, religion etc. As a result they are unwilling to challenge FGM where it is part of traditional systems of authority, and unwilling to protect the women who oppose it.

Support the women who are standing against FGM

5. There are very many women, especially from Africa, who are living in Britain because they are resisting FGM. Some have managed to avoid FGM but have had to leave their countries before it is forced on them (often in connection with an arranged marriage); probably most are here to protect their daughters; a number are trained hereditary cutters who were tortured because they refused to carry on the practice. What they all have in common is that when they claim asylum they are routinely disbelieved and their claims are generally rejected by the Home Office and immigration tribunals. Many have been deported; many are living under the threat of deportation.
6. Maimuna Jawo, 43, from the Gambia and Josephine K, 63, from Sierra Leone, members of the Movement for Justice, are both hereditary cutters trained by their mothers to continue the practice. They were due to inherit a position of prestige and authority within their communities but refused to continue cutting, recognising it as torture. They both suffered abuse, violence and torture because of the stand they took, and both had to make the difficult choice to flee rather than surrender to the demands of the elders. For Maimuna that has meant separation from her children. For Josephine it meant leaving the job she loved as head-teacher of the local school. Both claimed asylum in Britain, and instead of receiving the protection they deserve both these brave women have received disbelief, calumny, and rejection after rejection from the Home Office and immigration tribunals. Both have endured months of incarceration in Yarl’s Wood detention centre and only Josephine’s determined refusal to get on a plane at Heathrow saved her from renewed torture in Sierra Leone.
7. Another Movement for Justice member, Amie B, also from the Gambia, sought asylum in Britain to protect her daughter, now 6, from FGM. Amie’s daughter was born in Britain. When she was 3-years old Amie returned to the Gambia with her husband, an accountant with a world-renowned company, but they faced mounting pressure to have their daughter cut and knew that the decision could be taken out of their hands. After eighteen months they made the hard choice that, for their daughter’s sake, Amie should bring her to Britain before the next round of cutting, leaving her husband and son in the Gambia. Amie claimed asylum immediately but, after waiting for more than a year, she got a refusal from the Home Office in January. The Home Office argued that, as educated people and as the mother and father, Amie and her husband could easily prevent their daughter being cut.
8. This wilfully ignorant argument flies directly in the face of the reality of the situation in Gambian society – and goes directly against a major ‘country guidance’ case heard in the Upper Tribunal in November 2012 - K and others (FGM) The Gambia CG [2013] UKUT 62(IAC). The Upper Tribunal accepted the evidence of a series of expert witnesses with extensive knowledge of Gambian society and explicitly rejected a Home Office argument that was identical to the one it used in Amie’s refusal – that educated parents who opposed FGM would have the power to prevent the extended family and community elders forcibly cutting their daughter. The Home Office is cynically forcing asylum seekers to fight near-identical cases individual-by-individual, knowing that most often their isolation, lack of resources, detention on ‘Fast Track’ in Yarl’s Wood or poor representation by their lawyers will allow it to deport them to the risks of FGM.
9. The betrayal of Maimuna, Josephine and Amie represents the Home Office’s general practice in FGM asylum cases. On paper the Home Office recognises that women and girls at risk of FGM qualify for protection. In practice the immigration & asylum system makes nonsense of that principle with decisions that tell women they are not at risk, using arguments that the women and all the country experts know to be untrue: that parents are in a position to stop a girl being cut; that you could avoid FGM by moving to another area; that FGM is not a problem in cities; that you could get police protection if you or your daughter is in danger of ‘cutting’; that if you are an adult you are ‘too old’ to be cut; that if you are educated you can easily prevent your daughters being cut.

Where we stand in the conflict

10. The Movement for Justice stands unequivocally with the women around the world who are resisting the cutters. The decisions the Home Office and Tribunals are making to refuse women seeking protection undermine all the women and girls who are trying to resist FGM in the countries where it is traditionally prevalent (and in Britain too). When Britain refuses FGM-related asylum claims or deports women who have escaped or resisted the cutters it discourages and disheartens many more women who want to see an end to this torture. It is telling women that they can’t escape the cutters or win change and telling the governments of those countries that they can ignore Britain’s denunciations of FGM. In the conflict between the upholders of FGM and the women who are resisting it the actions of British immigration system are tipping the balance of forces AGAINST the opponents of FGM.
11. Maimuna Jawo of the Movement for Justice has become this country’s leading fighter against FGM because she refuses to be silent about the British Government’s hypocrisy, its racist abuse of the rights of asylum seekers and immigrants, and its complicity in maintaining FGM, and other forms of oppression and persecution. She is building a movement to fight injustice and racism and win equality. She is speaking out at public forums, in colleges and on demonstrations. Last year she was interviewed by the TV journalist Sue Lloyd-Roberts, who has done so much to expose FGM, for a report first broadcast on Newsnight report on 3rd September 2013. Maimuna spoke about her history in the Gambia and the injustice of her treatment in Britain. Lloyd-Roberts travelled to Maimuna’s village in the Gambia, spoke to her family and interviewed cutters and Gambian anti-FGM campaigners. An extended version of the report was broadcast on the BBC news channel’s Our World (under the title of Dropping the Knife) and on CNN. It was watched across Africa, from the Gambia to Tanzania.
12. Maimuna was flooded with messages of support from women in Africa who were inspired and encouraged by her stand. Many expressed their alarm and concern when they heard on the TV report that she is still under threat of deportation; they told her that they were praying for her not to come back. Women from Maimuna’s village have told they pray for her to stay in Britain because her absence means their daughters are safe from cutting. Maimuna has done more to fight FGM internationally than any of the Government’s empty words – but she has not been granted asylum and still faces the possibility of deportation. Her deportation would be a blow to every woman who has been inspired by her courage and would have the cutters rejoicing.

End the Miscarriage of Justice. Reverse the Burden of Proof in Asylum Cases.

13. Britain must ensure that from now on it weights the scales in favour of the women resisting FGM in Africa and the other regions where it is practised, and not against them. The single most effective and necessary change is for every woman who is escaping FGM, protecting her daughters from FGM or facing persecution because she refuses to act as cutter to be automatically guaranteed protection and support if she comes to Britain – and not put through hell by the Home Office, disbelieved, detained, left destitute or deported. That will strengthen the position of every woman in any of those countries who is trying to avoid or resist FGM and send a clear signal to their governments that Britain is seriously committed to its eradication.
14. To make the necessary change to practice requires a fundamental change in the asylum system. At present, like all asylum seekers, the women claiming asylum from FGM are expected to prove a negative – prove that they are not lying. That means there is an assumption that they are lying. The ‘burden of proof’ in asylum cases is on the asylum seeker, while the Home Office does not have to prove anything. In any other area of law the burden of proof is laid on those in authority. In criminal law the prosecutors have to prove the defendant guilty beyond all reasonable doubt; if a worker brings a discrimination claim to an employment tribunal the employer has to prove that he or she has not discriminated. It may not work perfectly, but the principle in these situations is that justice can only be achieved if the legal system ‘levels the playing field’ - mitigating the inequalities in wealth and power between the state and the citizen, the prosecutor and prosecuted, the employer and the worker etc. This principle has been won through historic struggles. Asylum law is the only area where this principle is reversed. Asylum seekers are uniquely discriminated against by the legal system, with the result that every asylum case is a miscarriage of justice, even for those who eventually ‘win’. 
15. Justice for women resisting FGM, as for all those seeking protection from persecution, requires that the burden of proof in asylum cases must be on the Home Office, not on the asylum claimant.  That fundamental and essential change is the most significant action Britain can take towards ending the torture and abuse of FGM.        

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