The European Union must do more to address the problem of female genital mutilation, members of the European Parliament and leading health and development agencies say.


The Donors Working Group on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C), a network of public and private international agencies campaigning against the practice, and members of the European Parliament are urging the European Commission to increase its financial commitment to stop the practice of FGM/C, also known as female circumcision.
Meeting at a two-day conference at the European Parliament this week, the working group which includes the World Health Organisation (WHO), the World Bank and the UN Children's Fund (Unicef) renewed its commitment for closer donor coordination, and called on the EU executive to work for the same.
Speaking at a seminar on 'Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A Call for EU Action' shortly after the donor group meeting, former European commissioner for humanitarian aid and Liberal member of the European Parliament (MEP) Emma Bonino called for ”zero tolerance” for the practice.
”We need a synergy of action and firm engagement by politicians, lawmakers, civil society, doctors, media and imams to bring about the elimination of female genital mutilation,” she said Wednesday.
”At the beginning the European Commission supported our campaign, but nothing has happened for some time. We have learned to do politics with little money but it is impossible to do politics with no money at all. We are now calling on European institutions to live up to their responsibility,” she said.
Circumcision can range from the stitching up of young girls' vaginas to the excision of the clitoris. The age and time at which the procedure is done differs from community to community: it can be carried out from as early as a few days after birth to immediately after the birth of a woman's first child.
According to Unicef, between 120 and 130 million women in 28 countries from Senegal and Mali to Yemen and Oman have suffered such mutilation. Most of the affected females live in Africa, but their numbers are growing in some parts of southeast Asia, Europe, North America, and Australia.
Experts say that besides being a human rights violation, FGM represents one of the most harmful practices against girls and women's health and dignity, and inflicts a lifetime of irreparable harm.
Laura Katzive from the New York-based Centre for Reproductive Rights says bodies such as the EU can help stop the practice of FGM by supporting the advocacy efforts of national non-governmental organisations (NGOs) in countries where FGM is practised. ”They could provide financial and technical assistance to NGOs that are working to influence their governments to stop FGM and promote women's equality, and could also promote public education and information sharing by supporting programmes aimed at making information about the harmful effects of FGM available and accessible to the general public,” she told IPS Thursday (Jun. 2).
Bonino is also pushing for the ratification of the Maputo Protocol, and lamented the fact that only six of 33 African and Arab nations that expressed support for the protocol had ratified the accord. The Maputo Protocol, adopted by the African Union in the Mozambique capital in 2003, covers a broad range of women's rights and requires signatories to ”condemn and prohibit” all forms of FGM.
It calls upon governments to adopt legislation to raise public awareness about the harm caused by FGM, to prohibit and punish all forms of it, to support women and girls who have undergone FGM, and to protect those at risk.
The protocol can only come into force once it has been ratified by 15 countries. Only ten states have ratified the protocol.
Such laws can be ”just cheap good conscience for countries, but it's high time that things change,” Bonino said. ”We have a very heavy workload.”
At its meeting the working group developed a pilot plan for action and identified some countries including Djibouti, Somalia, Mali, Sudan, Burkina Faso, Senegal, The Gambia and Kenya where greater coordination efforts will be undertaken to accelerate progress towards abandonment of FGM/C.
Experts also warn that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) of gender equality, education and maternal heath are being seriously hampered by the practice.
”The achievement of gender equality and the improvement of maternal health are being threatened by the continuing practice of FGM. This issue needs to be integrated into existing mainstream country programmes and should definitely be firmly on the EU's development agenda,” Dr Doyin Oluwole, director of population and reproductive health at WHO told MEPs..
Karin Landgren from the child protection unit at Unicef added that the issue needs greater prominence on international development agendas, and increased political support.
”We need governments to commit to the fight against FGM. Laws need to be implemented and enforced, there also needs to be open discussion, more education, and increased access to basic services,” she said.
But one of the biggest challenges in the fight against FGM is enforcing a change in traditional attitudes and rituals, she said.