Helen M

Interesting item about FGM tonight. At a school reunion 20 years ago, one of the stellar graduates who had got into medicine told us she had to do a “mini circumcision” in her Melbourne GP clinic to stop girls being cut on local kitchen tables. Forward ten years and I met a group of early teens in Melbourne who had been sent on an extended holiday “overseas” to be readied for marriage. They were 11 & 12. An example of failure of cultural adoption by new arrivals because we promote Multiculturalism rather than Integration in our community, enabling kitchen table surgery to flourish in our midst. And the on going burden to our healthcare system is enormous- eg Sunshine & Northern Hospitals in Melbourne.