Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has confirmed that it will end funding for its flagship anti-female genital mutilation programme, The Girl Generation – Africa-Led Movement to End FGM, by October 2026.
The decision follows wider cuts to overseas aid and brings to a close a scheme launched in 2014 amid much moral self-congratulation.
It is important to state plainly what this is and what it is not. The ending of this programme is a matter of fact, not necessarily a humanitarian disaster.
Despite years of funding, publicity, and NGO activity, there is no clear, independently verified evidence that the programme has significantly reduced FGM anywhere. Its work has focused largely on messaging, advocacy, and “norms change”, rather than enforcement of law or measurable protection of girls.
Christian Voice has long warned that foreign aid often entrenches dependency, fosters corruption, enriches intermediaries, and exports Western secular assumptions under the guise of compassion.
1 Samuel 16:7 For the Lord seeth not as man seeth.
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FGM suvivor responds
Nimco Ali OBE, an FGM survivor who co-founded The Five Foundation and former government advisor on women and girls, wrote in 2023 that too little of Britain’s aid was making it to those in need.
“I am on the frontline of the work the Foreign Office says it funds and I can tell you UK aid funding to ‘help end female genital mutilation’ (FGM) has no evidence that a penny given has actually saved a girl from FGM,” she wrote in the Evening Standard.
“It is really hard for me to say this because I am a supporter of UK aid, but the truth is what we give has never truly achieved what it could.”
Ms Ali instead advocates for funding to be given directly to grass-roots organisations on the ground, who know best how to tackle the problem.
Meanwhile, Sarah Champion, Chair of the International Development Committee and Sarah Owen, Chair of the Women and Equalities Committee, wrote to Baroness Chapman, the Minister of Development, arguing that cutting the funding would put women’s lives at risk.
The letter, made available to The Telegraph, said: “Ending the funding for such crucial work tracking FGM presents a serious risk to women and girls globally [and] compromises the safety of women and girls in the UK, who remain at risk of being taken abroad to undergo FGM.”
Aid, activism and the iIlusion of moral authority
The Girl Generation exemplifies many of the problems inherent in modern foreign aid. Vast sums are channelled through international agencies and consultancies, producing reports, conferences, and careers, while outcomes remain vague and unverifiable.
Where progress against FGM has occurred, it has more often been driven by local law enforcement, education, and religious teaching not Western branding exercises.
Yet such programmes allow British elites to posture as moral instructors to other nations. The aid cheque becomes a sermon, and Britain casts itself as enlightened while others are portrayed as barbaric.
Romans 2:21 Thou therefore which teachest another, teachest thou not thyself?
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What does Britain actually stand for?
Imagine British officials lecturing African communities about genital abuse, only to be asked a simple question: Is the UK pro-sodomy? Pro-abortion? Pro-transgender ideology?
The question would not be unfair. Britain has aggressively promoted sexual libertinism, abortion, and gender confusion through diplomacy, education policy, and international pressure. These are not neutral exports. They are moral claims and profoundly anti-Christian ones.
James 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.
The contradiction is stark. Britain condemns one set of cultural practices abroad while aggressively advancing others at home that undermine sexual morality, family life, and the created order.
From preaching against FGM to practising it at home
The gravest hypocrisy lies closer to home. While FGM remains illegal in the UK, the NHS itself is now involved in practices that meet the moral definition of genital mutilation, even if rebranded with sanitised language.
So-called “gender affirmation” surgeries involve the irreversible alteration or removal of healthy sexual organs.
Puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones damage fertility and sexual function. These are not fringe practices but are increasingly embedded within NHS policy.
Isaiah 5:20 Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.
Britain lectures other cultures on protecting girls, while authorising medical harm to children in its own hospitals.
NHS ideology enforced, conscience suppressed
This moral inversion is enforced institutionally. NHS trusts now require staff to affirm gender ideology or face disciplinary action. Biological reality is treated as optional, while dissent is pathologised. Even court rulings affirming the law are resisted by activist lobbies determined to override sex-based protections.
Romans 12:2 Be not conformed to this world.
The NHS, once a place of care, is increasingly a vehicle for ideological enforcement — particularly where children are concerned.
A broader elite corruption of truth and the body
This is not an isolated issue. Across law, education, and healthcare, Britain’s ruling class has abandoned Christian moral foundations in favour of expressive individualism. Pornography is normalised.
Promiscuity is taught. Abortion is celebrated. Sexual difference is denied. Against this backdrop, lectures about FGM ring hollow.
Psalm 2:4 He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh.
The problem is not that Britain has ended an aid programme. The problem is that Britain has lost the moral coherence required to speak credibly about bodily harm at all.
No moral leg to stand on
The end of the anti-FGM programme merely exposes a deeper truth. Britain’s elites cannot claim the mantle of moral leadership while promoting sexual chaos, mutilation, and confusion at home. Aid cannot substitute for righteousness, and slogans cannot replace truth.
Proverbs 23:23 Buy the truth, and sell it not.
For Christians, the task is clear: reject the false moralism of the age, defend the created order, protect children from all forms of abuse — whether practised in villages abroad or hospitals at home — and speak the truth without fear or compromise.
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Read and pray
READ: Psalm 100:3; Prov 12:22; Prov 29:2; Eccl 12:14; Isa 5:20; Micah 3:2; Matt 18:6; Acts 5:29; Rom 2:1; 1 Corinth 6:19–20; Gal 6:7; Eph 6:13.
PRAY: For repentance among our leaders
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