Schools

FGM-safeguarding in schools typically occurred when parents asked to take their children on holiday during term-time. Professional guidelines indicate that coming from an FGM-affected community, maternal experience of FGM and planned travel to an FGM-affected country do not, in themselves, constitute a level of risk requiring referral to social services. However, participants believed that Somalis in Bristol were referred to social services as a matter of course, simply because they were going on holiday, regardless of destination or length of stay.

Some mothers were asked by school teachers about their experience of FGM, directly contravening this guidance. Such encounters were reported as upsetting, invasive and offensive. They stigmatised, traumatised and alienated Somalis and their children, damaging their relationship with and trust in schools.

Home Visits

School referrals frequently led to unannounced home visits by social services and (often uniformed) police.

These visits received particular condemnation from participants and were seen to have a particularly negative impact on children who were left scared and traumatised. Safeguarding officers were described as failing to respect people’s rights to privacy and
autonomy, using formal interrogative styles such as detailed and lengthy questioning, the physical searching of property and at times the separation of family members (including children). Participants were required on these occasions to sign a ‘travel form’ - a declaration that they would not place their daughters at risk of FGM.

Participants described being compelled to sign the travel form in the face of implicit and explicit threats including preventing travel and exposing children to medical examination. No translations were provided and those whose English was less proficient were not provided with the opportunity to fully understand what they were being asked to sign.

A Suspect Community

Participants repeatedly stated that Somalis were treated like criminals during FGM-safeguarding. They felt distrusted, their intentions suspected and their needs ignored. There was a sense that the whole Somali community was unfairly targeted and had become a ‘suspect community’ (Pantazis and Pemberton 2009): a group considered by the state to be suspicious despite there being no evidence of criminal involvement.

Participants also described FGM-safeguarding policy as inherently racist and gave examples of how wider debates on FGM directly contributed to experiences of racist violence from the public. Participants believed that Somalis were targeted due to a perception that FGM was still highly prevalent and accepted among the Somali population. They argued that while FGM had been part of their culture historically, it was not condoned among Bristol Somalis.

Participants reported feeling alienated from their Britishness as a direct consequence of FGM-safeguarding. They also described the significant work which had been undertaken by local activists to reduce the incidence of FGM and voiced their concerns that this was being ignored in state-led approaches which fed into negative stereotypes about Somali culture. This encouraged a sense of victimisation and social dislocation from service providers and wider society and a feeling that these efforts had been in vain.

“We are trying to find our identity as British Somalis and we don’t want FGM to be part of that.”