Amina Ali: I’m a FGM victim, says candidate to be Labour MP

Amina Ali pictured at the Labour conference in Brighton last week
Jeremy Selwyn
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A London councillor seeking to run as a Labour MP has spoken for the first time about being a survivor of female genital mutilation.

Amina Ali, 50, the cabinet member for adults and health in Tower Hamlets, said she was taken aged eight to Somalia by a relative for the procedure. She is understood to be the first elected councillor to come out as a victim.

Ms Ali said today: “The reason I didn’t want to talk about it is that idea that you’re airing your dirty laundry in public. It’s one of those things where I was a bit worried people would just think I was jumping on the bandwagon.

“A lot of girls had it done in the Eighties. We had our own little support group. Then you don’t feel like you’re the only weirdo in the bunch. For a long time you think something is wrong with you.”

She is in the running to take over from MP Jim Fitzpatrick when he retires his safe Labour seat of Poplar and Limehouse before the next election.

FGM has been documented as taking place in 30 countries across Africa, Asia and the Middle East and is most commonly carried out on young girls aged between infancy and 15 years.

Ms Ali said that recent government legislation against FGM was working.

In February, a mother in east London was jailed for 13 years for inflicting FGM on her child, aged three, in the UK’s first successful prosecution of the crime.

Ms Ali said: “People are not doing [FGM] here as much. They have realised it is anti-Islamic. And they are terrified now. The legislation is really working. People are scared to do it.”

But she warned of cases where women were scared to leave their husbands out of fear that their partner will falsely tell authorities that their children are in danger.

Ms Ali said that wants to run for parliament because there are not enough MPs "who look like her".

She said: "I have lived in Poplar and Limehouse all my life. I grew up watching Canary Wharf go up. There aren’t enough people who sound like me and look like me in Parliament.

"I’m not someone who is just going to say ‘oh we need more affordable housing’.

"I live in an overcrowded house. I was born on a council estate, I still live on a council estate. I have been on benefits, I know what it is like. I know what it’s like to be a single parent and struggle. I know what it’s like to go to a food bank. I have lived that life.

"I got into politics because I didn’t want to be invisible anymore and I wanted to give people like me a voice. I think that parliament doesn’t recognise our underrepresented communities, be that BAME, working class, LGBT. We are invisible. Policy is done to us. I’m tired of people speaking for us."

Ms Ali is one of eight women who have announced their interest is running for the seat for Labour.

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