FGM victim urges others to seek help and support

A woman whose mother forced her to undergo female genital mutilation (FGM) at the age of nine has urged others like her to seek help.

Basma Kamel, 30, underwent the procedure when she was growing up in Cairo, Egypt.

She has since received support at a Birmingham clinic which she said helped her accept what happened and to realise she is not less than any other woman.

She believes many victims are unaware of the support available.

Ms Kamel said she grew up in a Muslim family in Egypt where she said a "huge number" of girls undergo similar procedures.

She said she had known little about the procedure when she was taken for it in January 2000, other than its name in Arabic.

FGM was banned in Egypt in 2008.

She was told: "It's better for your future to be a good wife and you're turning to be a woman now, so you have to be prepared."

The surgery, sometimes called female circumcision, is the deliberate cutting or removal of a female's external genitalia.

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In the UK it is a crime and is treated as child abuse.

Within hours of being cut, she began bleeding heavily and said she feared she would die.

She said her mother had told her every girl had to have the procedure.

"Since then I think I have a barrier between me and my mother. Because in her perspective she thinks this is what is good for her daughter, but with me I felt 'I'm going to die'," she said.

Ms Kamel said she was left feeling "incomplete" and support services were not available in Egypt, but she sought them out after moving to the UK at the age of 27 to study.

Physical and mental therapy had been a big help, she said.

"I still feel like I'm incomplete, but once I started to have the therapy I started to accept myself as I am now, like I'm not less than any other woman, I'm the same woman.

"I have, yes, parts missing from my body, but I can work on that mentally and this is how that works, so I wanted to focus on the mental health for myself and start to seek help and support."

She also said she felt "lucky" to have been granted the right to stay and is now studying for a Masters degree in "Woman and child abuse".

Alison Byrne works in one of a number of clinics that support FGM victims

One in five FGM referrals across England is in the Midlands region, figures uncovered by the BBC show.

Alison Byrne, a midwife at the Summerfield Clinic in Winson Green, Birmingham, specialises in working with the victims of female genital mutilation. The team she works in is part of Sandwell and West Birmingham NHS Trust.

She said: "Ladies can be suffering for many years sometimes and won't come forward because they feel a bit shy about coming and discussing things that are going on with them.

"Please don't be frightened to come forward, we're here to help and support you and please contact us."

"It's never too late, I mean I'm 30 and I'm starting to work on myself and you might be older or younger, but the sooner the better," Ms Kamal said.

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