By Betzy Brize | Opinion From the very moment a child is forced onto a cold surface, limbs pinned, mind screaming, as a razor blade breaks skin and innocence, violence enters the body. In the case of Shamsa Arrawe, the Somali‑British TikToker whose story traumatised a generation, that blade was the start of a lifetime of pain. She was six. Her cousin was seven. Both were cut with no anesthesia, no consent, and no law stepping in. When Shamsa came to the UK, the scars were still fresh. Today she speaks openly of how that trauma shaped her, and how she fights back through activism, reconstructive surgery paid for in Germany, and candid testimony to millions online. That single word, violence, captures the physical trauma, the stolen consent, and the silence that follows. We must begin every sentence of resistance with it.

Violence in Plain Sight : Why We Call Female Genital Cutting What It Is Under the pretense of culture, religion, or hygiene, parents and traditional practitioners systematically inflict Violence on children’s bodies. Over seventy percent of Gambian women aged 15 to 49 have undergone FGM, many before the age of five. In 2015, The Gambia banned the practice, yet enforcement remained lax. In March 2024, lawmakers dared to send a bill repealing that ban to committee. By July, the repeal attempt was shelved, but only after months of public trauma and political theatre. Meanwhile, families continue to smuggle razor blades behind locked doors, shattering limbs and lives in the dead of night. That Violence inflicts more than immediate agony. It carves scars, deep, raw, and permanent, across flesh, memory, and identity. The pain is not momentary. It echoes through marriages, births, and funerals. It fractures intimacy. It distorts self-worth. It implants silence where there should be voice. And the worst part? These wounds do not stop with one body. They are inherited. They are passed like heirlooms. They shape the mother who was once the girl held down. They shape the daughter taught to smile through pain. This is not just violence. It is generational trauma, ritualized and renamed as love. A recent study highlighted that women who undergo FGM have higher risks of chronic pain, birth complications, PTSD, depression, and sexual dysfunction. One survivor, underscoring how normalized this is, said she only learned to call it “Violence” during her university thesis in the UK . In comparison, Western societies gift male infants rites of passage with minimal ritual cutting in hospitals, celebrated with cake. Intersex children in Germany were once subjected to non‑urgent clitoral and penile surgeries, Violence carried out by white‑coated doctors, sanitized by the language of medicine. The institutions justified these as cosmetic or culturally neutral. Only in recent years did Boston Children’s Hospital halt most such procedures . While the cultural, religious, and medical contexts may differ, the absence of consent is the common thread. If ripping away a girl’s genitals is criminal, why is cutting a boy with parental consent normalized?  Why Violence Disguises Itself as Tradition FGM is not an accident of poverty or ignorance. It is a deliberate, inherited system of Violence designed to control, suppress, and silence female bodies. Practiced across cultures and continents, it survives because the people who enforce it call it protection. But the truth is uglier. They say it's for purity, because girls must be clean, obedient, and less tempted by desire. They say it’s to prepare her for marriage, because no man will marry an uncut girl. They say it’s culture,  because mothers, grandmothers, and midwives have done it for generations. Some even say it’s religious, but no scripture demands a girl be mutilated. At its core, FGM is about power. It is the surgical enforcement of patriarchy. It is a system where a woman’s body belongs to everyone except herself. The blade becomes a rite of obedience. It creates a girl who is taught to suffer in silence, to smile through pain, and to pass the blade to the next daughter. That is not culture. That is generational Violence.

  Violence with Lasting Scars Consider Fatou Baldeh, cut at age eight, who later earned a master’s degree and returned home to found Women in Liberation and Leadership. Fatou’s work rescued girls from razor blades, challenged mosques, and educated communities. Yet when parliament debated repeal, she had to relive her trauma, publicly asking: Why have we been forced to relive our screams? One story stands out. In early 2024, a four‑year‑old girl in The Gambia was cut behind her mother’s back . Her mother went to the police, but was told filing was suspended due to “national debate.” Months later, a medical examination—reported by The Washington Post and NPR- confirmed partial removal of her clitoris, validating the mother’s fears. Justice stalled while violence stayed legal because “culture.” That is not tradition. That is state‑sanctioned violence. The long‑term outcomes are horrifying. Infection, keloid scars, obstructed labor. Babies die. Mothers bleed out. Survivors speak of being haunted and unwhole for life. This is not ceremony. This is violence. Western Complicity: How We Normalize Violence at Home While activists wage war on FGM in Africa, Western societies turn a blind eye to equally violent traditions on male and intersex bodies. Male infant circumcision is legal almost everywhere. Intersex surgeries, brutality of a different name, were routine in North America and Europe. Even after Germany passed legislation limiting cosmetic genital surgery on infants, exceptions remain broad . Parents sign consent forms, doctors perform surgeries, and taxpayers pay. Nobody calls it ritual or culture. Nobody screams “barbaric.” Yet the knife cuts the same, if not deeper, because it is cloaked in white coats. If we outlaw FGM, we must question all non‑consensual genital cutting. Any cut without consent is mutilation.

The Silence: Our Collective Cowardice in Facing Violence Politicians pass laws against FGM but rarely fund enforcement. Parents excuse, “It’s tradition.” Doctors comply under cultural pressure. Activists are labeled Western puppets. In The Gambia, protest permits are denied. Civil servants stay neutral . Even President Barrow refused to clearly condemn repeal. In the UK, Shamsa Araweelo's public testimony met with a difficult question: “Why bring your shame to our country.?” Silence becomes safe. Silence protects the blade. The hypocrisy is staggering. We champion consent in sex, in data, in adult medical care, yet turn away when the victims are young and vocal. Our schools teach bodily autonomy only after adult age. Our culture gives toddlers no voice. We are complicit. How to End This Once and For All First, legislate equality. All non‑consensual genital cutting of minors must be criminalized. No exceptions, no carve‑outs for race, religion, or culture. Second, fund enforcement. That means police training, prosecution, and community protection programs. Prosecutions must not be symbolic; they must be consequences. Third, invest in education. Work through schools, mosques, local forums. Engage religious and community leaders. Invest in survivors like Fatou who can tell real stories. Fourth, protect whistle‑blowers. If a mother tries to save her child and gets ignored by police, that must be a crime. Fifth, require hospitals to stop intersex cosmetic surgery and call it what it is: abuse. Finally, change the narrative. End the guilt. Stop hiding behind tradition. When we speak truth, we show courage. When we call out injustice, we refuse to be complicit. Violence Has No Culture If a child cannot say yes, and we cut them anyway, that is not tradition. Tradition ends where cruelty begins. Culture does not legitimize a child’s scream. That scream cannot be edited into a heritage film. The scream is pain, pure and unfiltered. We’ve banned torture in war. We’ve outlawed genital crimes in adults. Now we need the same courage for children. The tools may be sanitized. The rhetoric may hide behind religion. But the blade draws blood the same way. That is not medicine. That is violence. And until we say that clearly, we are all complicit.