This chapter provides an overview of female genital mutilation (FGM) and how it affects maternity care. FGM is when the female genitals are deliberately cut or injured without medical reason. It is deeply entrenched in gender inequality and is recognised as a human rights’ violation. An estimated 200 million women and girls worldwide live with the physical and psychological consequences of FGM. Four types are classified by the World Health Organization. Careful antenatal assessment should include diagnosis of FGM type, birth plan and safeguarding assessment. Women with FGM are more likely to have adverse obstetric outcomes than women without FGM. Women with Type 3 FGM may require a procedure called deinfibulation to open the anterior scar to facilitate childbirth. This can be carried out during the antenatal or intrapartum period. Many countries have made FGM illegal but the practice still persists across the world.

This chapter discusses interference in minority affairs when they engage in physical harm to others. Relevant considerations are the extent of harm, consent (or lack of) of those who are subjected to harm, parental care and responsibility, significance of religious and culture norms and values, and the extent to which a liberal society should intervene in group and individual affairs. It first analyses the practices of suttee, self-starvation, scarring, murder for family honour, female circumcision and female genital mutilation. It is argued that liberal intervention is justified in the case of gross and systematic violation of human rights, such as murder, slavery, expulsion or inflicting severe bodily harm on certain individuals or groups. Such norms are considered by liberal standards to be intrinsically wrong, wrong by their very nature. Physical harm includes cases of widow burning, female infanticide, murder for family honour, and harsh forms of female circumcision, deformation or alteration which are rightly termed female genital mutilation.