This paper critically examines the disproportionate impact of Sweden’s legal and policy measures aimed at detecting and prosecuting ‘female genital mutilation’ (FGM) within immigrant communities. Despite three criminal court cases related to FGM performed in African countries, forced genital examinations—central to many investigations—have not resulted in any prosecutions. This raises significant concerns about the effectiveness and proportionality of current practices. Drawing on an archive of police case files and interviews with professionals involved in FGM investigations, we explore how legal frameworks, while intended to protect children, apparently indicate a pattern of over-policing and structural injustice. Our analysis highlights the disconnect between policies rooted in suspicion and control and the cultural shifts occurring within affected communities, where attitudes toward the circumcision of girls have evolved due to migration. We argue that Sweden’s reliance on invasive measures risks exacerbating the marginalisation of immigrant groups and underscores the need for more nuanced, trust-building approaches. The findings call for a re-evaluation of current strategies to ensure that interventions are proportionate and sensitive to evolving cultural contexts, while still protecting the rights and well-being of children.

Traditional female genital practices, though long-standing in many cultures, have become the focus of an expansive global campaign against 'female genital mutilation' (FGM). In this article, we critically examine the harms produced by the anti-FGM discourse and policies, despite their grounding in human rights and health advocacy. We argue that a ubiquitous 'standard tale' obscures the diversity of practices, meanings and experiences among those affected. This discourse, driven by a heavily racialised and ethnocentric framework, has led to unintended but serious consequences: the erosion of trust in healthcare settings, the silencing of dissenting or nuanced community voices, racial profiling and disproportionate legal surveillance of migrant families. Moreover, we highlight a troubling double standard that legitimises comparable genital surgeries in Western contexts while condemning similar procedures in others. We call for more balanced and evidence-based journalism, policy and public discourse-ones that account for cultural complexity and avoid the reductive and stigmatising force of the term 'mutilation'. A re-evaluation of advocacy strategies is needed to ensure that they do not reproduce the very injustices they aim to challenge.

Denna kunskapskatalog är ett resultat i ett forskningsprojekt som finansierats av forskningsrådet Forte 2020-2023: Samhällets åtgärder vid misstänkt könsstympning i Sverige: en proportionalitetsanalys av myndigheters handläggning av misstänkta fall, genomfört av professor Sara Johnsdotter och lektor Lotta Wendel vid Malmö universitet.

Katalogen är ett komplement till befintliga riktlinjer och handledningar som erbjuds av Socialstyrelsen, Jämställdhetsmyndigheten och andra myndigheter som erbjuder vägledning och stöd för professionella i olika samhällssektorer när dessa ska hantera ett ärende som gäller misstänkt könsstympning. Katalogen kan vara till stöd i den bedömning som professionella har att hantera vid misstanke om olaglig könsstympning. För många länder är det stora skillnader i praktiken beroende på geografisk region, och etnisk eller religiös bakgrund. Sådana faktorer bör därför beaktas i riskbedömningen i enskilda fall.

Innehållet har tagits fram efter diskussion med polisutredare, åklagare, socialutredare och särskilda företrädare för barn som har intervjuats i projektet. Vi resonerade om vad vi från forskningshåll skulle kunna bidra med, som skulle fungera som stöd i hanterandet av misstänkta fall. Just mer detaljerad information om vilka former praktiken tar sig i olika länder efterfrågades. Även vården har efterfrågat kunskap av det här slaget.

Det huvudsakliga innehållet i den här kunskapskatalogen handlar således om praktiken i olika länder: hur stor andel av flickor och kvinnor som berörs, i vilka regioner och i vilka etniska och religiösa grupper det är vanligast, åldrar då flickor omskärs, vem som vanligen utför omskärelsen samt något om vilka normer som gör att traditionerna upprätthålls.

I slutet av denna publikation finns hänvisningar till några internationella publikationer som kommit ur forskningsprojektet. Katalogen ges ut av Centrum för sexologi och sexualitetsstudier vid Malmö universitet och kan laddas ner fritt från mau.diva-portal.org.

• The scarcity of criminal court cases on FGM aligns with research indicating that migration often leads to abandoning the practice.
• The prevailing public discourse around FGM paves the way for epistemic injustice.
• An analysis of Swedish FGM prosecutions reveals a risk that stereotypes based on ethnicity and religion may influence court decisions.
• The legal handling of suspected cases must be conducted in accordance with the rule of law.

“Sex as self-injury” is a well-established concept within Swedish society and is a new label for categorizing sexual risk-taking. The phenomenon has been discussed in Sweden since 2008, and about a decade later the concept appeared for the first time in Swedish scientific literature. “Sex as self-injury” is not yet an idea accepted by the international research field, but it can be assumed that it will eventually reach the international arena: the discourse about “self-destructive sex” has the potential to be established as a new diagnostic category of sexual dysfunction through “concept creep.” In this article, based on an analysis of media material from Sweden, we argue that the burgeoning discourse around “sex as self-injury” leads to a further strengthening of the normative division between “good” and “bad” sexualities, as described in Gayle Rubin’s work on a sex hierarchy.

In this chapter, we discuss how cultural expertise can be used to neutralize stereotyped images of minority cultures in court in female genital mutilation/cutting–related cases because, wisely employed, it may counteract possible negative effects of typification and judicial stereotyping.

In Sweden, as well as in an international context, professionals are urged to acquire knowledge about possible health effects of female genital cutting (FGC) in order to tackle prevention and care in relation to the practice. While professionals are guided by policies and interventions focusing on medical effects of FGC, some scholars have cautioned that many popular beliefs about health risks rest on inconclusive evidence. The way professionals understand and respond to health information about FGC has in this context largely been left unexamined. This article aims to provide a qualitative exploration of how professionals in Sweden approach adolescent sexual and reproductive healthcare encounters in relation to acquired knowledge about FGC, using menstrual pain as an empirical example. The analysis shows that there was a tendency in counselling to differentiate young migrant women's menstrual complaints from ordinary menstrual pain, with professionals understanding pain complaints either in terms of FGC or as culturally influenced. The study shows how professionals navigated their various sources of knowledge where FGC awareness worked as a lens through which young women's health complaints were understood. Biomedical knowledge and culture-specific expectations and assumptions regarding menstrual pain also informed counselling. Finally, the article discusses how FGC awareness about health risks was used constructively as a tool to establish rapport and take a history on both menstrual pain and FGC. The analysis also recognises potential pitfalls of the approaches used, if not based in well-informed policies and interventions in the first place.

This chapter focuses on cultural variation regarding sexual activities and erotic practices. First, there is a presentation of how research data on these questions have been collected historically, acknowledging scientific and moral shortcomings of such compilations. Then, an empirical example—heterosexual intercourse—is used to show that there is wide cultural variation even in “dominant” sexual practices around the world. Sexual script theory is presented to introduce the overarching theoretical lens, social constructionism, that most scholars in the social sciences and humanities use to understand and describe sexuality. Cultural variation in views of acceptable sexual expressions may create challenges in multicultural societies, and this is discussed with respect to the fraught issue of sexuality and children. The chapter ends with a discussion of cultural change and globalization, pointing to current and future directions in anthropological approaches to understanding human sexuality.

“Female genital mutilation” (FGM) or “female genital cutting” (often FGM/C) are the most widespread terms to designate nonmedical practices that alter or affect the external female genitalia. Medical consequences are often classified into immediate and long-term complications. FGM/C in some form is practiced in more than 30 countries, primarily in Africa and Asia, and there is vast variation as regards motives and age of the girls who undergo the procedure. FGM/C is illegal in Europe, North America, and Australia, and in most high-prevalence countries in Africa. Few cases of illegal FGM/C procedures have reached criminal courts in the west. A growing body of research demonstrates that cultural change regarding FGM/C attitudes and practices among migrant communities may be an important explanatory factor. Current contested issues include how the prevalent zero-tolerance approach to FGM/C is in line with the general acceptance of male circumcision, intersex surgery, and cosmetic female genital surgeries.