Professor Tony Ryan:

I do not want to make a soundbite on what is a complex issue. In January I was in Sudan where up to 80% of women suffer female genital mutilation, FGM, or are cut, as it is called. I met three or four groups. The hospital we work with is the largest maternity hospital in the world where there are 35,000 deliveries a year, which is the total for the three maternity hospitals in Dublin and Cork University Hospital combined. Most of the women in the hospital have been cut. I met medical students, many of whom had been brought up in the United Kingdom where their fathers had been trained and I presume they had not been cut, but many of them were part of the advocacy groups which visited schools to try to discourage FGM. They were advocating against it. I met midwives and began to realise that the wives of many of the doctors to whom I had spoken had been cut, as had the midwives. I felt it was a shameful topic for them to talk about and that it made them uncomfortable. It was a deep cultural issue and not a comfortable one to raise.

I also met a doctor who was probably the world expert in repairing the extraordinary damage done to some females, not only in making the initial cut but also episiotomy cuts and repairs subsequent to having babies. I met the village midwives also who were paid to make the cuts when children were about six years of age and it was over and done with in about two or three minutes. As to whether they could have been prevented, the only persons who could have prevented them were the men, but they were up against a strong female culture that drove the practice. I am aware that legislation against the practice was introduced in most African countries, but that did not stop it taking place. The Sudanese President made it known publicly that his children had been cut and that was a huge driver in dealing with the practice in the country. It is a complex issue. It is very sad, very difficult medically and also culturally.