One day, this evil practice of cutting girls will cease

http://www.guardian.co.uk/theobserver/2012/nov/25/letters-ban-female-genital-mutilation

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Abigail Haworth's passionate article, "The day I saw 248 girls being circumcised", Magazine, made difficult reading. Annually, three million girls are at risk of female genital cutting in Africa alone – many more worldwide. Haworth is right to point out the legitimacy conferred on the practice by changes to Indonesia's law. This week, the UN General Assembly's Third Committee may adopt a resolution to ban FGM globally. This could help bring pressure on the Indonesian government to change its law but will not change the "demand" from communities to cut their girls.

However, change is happening in West Africa, where a community-led movement of FGM-abandonment is spreading. We understand the UK's Department for International Development is working on a programme towards ending FGM globally. This is a significant step forward and one we can all support. This could be the last generation of girls to be cut, if only we can prioritise action and lift the silence on this taboo issue.

<strong>Julia Lalla-Maharajh</strong>

CEO & Founder, Orchid Project

London W1

<strong>Why we should stay in Europe</strong>

Your article, "Leave Europe and we'll become a renegade – without economic power", Observer editorial, has asked "those who believe in Europe need to start speaking out – and urgently".

We need to ask two critical questions: how is Britain to earn its money with the loss of vital manufacturing industry? And, how, if at all, Britain is going to exercise significant influence in the world? Our leaders are not telling the truth. We have only one option – to stay in Europe.

<strong>Tara Mukherjee</strong>

Brentwood

Essex

<strong>Now Obama must deliver</strong>

Your editorial ("Middle East: a tragic failure of political imagination") correctly highlights the pivotal role of the US, and more specifically President Obama, in turning a tragic failure into a much-needed success. In awarding the president the 2009 peace prize, the Nobel committee cited "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and co-operation between peoples".

In his acceptance speech, Obama acknowledged the controversial nature of the award, not least because he was "at the beginning, and not the end, of my labours on the world stage". Three years on and that controversy persists, exemplified by the perilous state of the situation in Gaza. With a mandate for four more years, it is now time for Obama to take the initiative, live up to the words of Dr King he used to close his Oslo speech and "refuse to accept despair as the final response to the ambiguities of history...reaching up for the eternal 'oughtness'".

<strong>Neil Macehiter</strong>

Cambridge

<strong>Just to get things straight…</strong>

Alexander Linklater, in his friendly account of an interview with me (New Review), made two mistakes, probably because I talk fast and keep changing the subject. The book whose publisher's deadlines I kept breaking was not <em>Fleck</em> (my Faustian verse play, published by Two Ravens in 2008) but <em>A Life in Pictures</em>, published by Canongate in 2010. He is also mistaken in thinking I ever "achieved the financial security" of the comfortable flat where I live. My wife achieved the flat years before we met and is pleased that I share it. For most of this century, my financial security has depended upon a Royal Literary Fund pension, which in the coming year I should be able to do without. No professional author will be surprised that having their books lectured upon in academies does not bring financial security.

An ambiguous statement in the article is my fault: "I was brought up to identify sexual intercourse with matrimony, which made me almost incapable of it." A friend asked if "it" was sexual intercourse or matrimony. After some thought I told him both, before I met the right woman.

<strong>Alasdair Gray</strong>

Glasgow

<strong>Give him a dressing down</strong>

I had to smile at Alex Bilmes article (Focus) where he stated that nobody should wear a suit without a tie. His eloquent arguments were somewhat undermined by the pictures: one of Tim Davie, acting BBC DG, minus tie, looking pretty suave, and one of Alex with his top half dressed as an estate agent and his bottom half as a young farmer. To borrow from his own headline it was "nothing short of a sartorial catastrophe".

<strong>Peter Phillipson</strong>

Chelmsford

Essex