FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATIONS

Nicola Giovannini
Lista Bonino - Administrator
European Parliament

DESCRIPTION

Female Genital Mutilation, which consists in all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or injury to the female genital organs whether for cultural, ethnic, religious or any other non-therapeutic reasons, represents a destructive and invasive practice that is usually performed on girls before puberty (between ages four and twelve) but also affects newborns and young adults.

LOCATION

According to The World Health Organisation (WHO), on the basis of the information available from a few small scale studies, between 100 and 132 million girls and women have been subjected to FGM around the world. Each year, a further 2 million girls are estimated to be at risk of the practice. Most of them live in 28 African countries, a few in the Middle East and Asian countries, and increasingly in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, the United States of America and Canada due to the continuation of the practice by immigrants from countries where FGM is common.
With regard to Africa, the estimated proportion of women who have undergone FGM varies from 98 percent in Somalia to 5 percent in Zaire. A review of country-specific Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) shows FGM prevalence rates of 97 percent in Egypt, 94.5 percent in Eritrea, 93.7 percent in Mali, 89.2 percent in Sudan, and 43.4 percent in the Central African Republic. FGM is also found among some ethnic groups in Oman, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen, as well as in parts of India, Indonesia, and Malaysia.

CONSEQUENCES

Depending on the degree or the type of mutilation, FGM, as Health professionals testify, can have a number of short-term health implications (severe pain and shock, infection, urine retention, injury to adjacent tissues, immediate fatal haemorrhaging) and also long-term implications especially when unsterile health instruments are used (it can entail extensive damage of the external reproductive system, uterus, vaginal and pelvic infections, cysts and neuromas, complications in pregnancy and child birth, psychological damage, sexual pleasure dysfunction, and difficulties in menstruation). But FGM can also lead to death. In fact, the highest maternal and infant mortality rates are in FGM-practicing regions. The actual number of girls who die as a result of FGM is not known. However, in areas in the Sudan where antibiotics are not available, it is estimated that one-third of the girls undergoing FGM will die.
Conservative estimates suggest that more than one million women in the Central African Republic (CAR), Egypt, and Eritrea, the only countries where such data are available, experienced adverse health effects from FGM. One quarter of women in CAR and 1/5 of women in Eritrea reported FGM-related complications. Where medical facilities are ill-equipped, emergencies arising from the practice cannot be treated. Thus, a child who develops uncontrolled bleeding or infection after FGM may die within hours.

WHAT SHOULD BE DONE IN THE EU

To put an end to these practices, which constitute a highly serious offence to the physical and mental health of women and little girls, that no motivation of cultural or religious kind may justify, and a ritualized form of violation of women and children rights established by several international conventions, we call on the EU and its States members:

• to assure the banning of FGM as a crime against personal integrity, which exposes its perpetrators to penal sentences;
• to realize systematic surveys including comprehensive, country-by-country data on FGM in order to establish the significance of its expansion within the countries where FGM are traditionnally grounded and those where FGM are exported by immigrants coming from the first countries;
• given the fact that in most countries women with little or no education are more likely to support the practice and to have their daughters support it too than those with a secondary or higher education, it is necessary to promote public information, education and prevention campaigns in order to train health workers, teach individuals and communities about the health risks caused by FGM. These measures are very important in order to convince women to end a cruel and unacceptable practice, which violates the right of all girls to a free, safe and healthy life.
• furthermore to recognize that the risk to suffer FGM represents a criterion to provide asylum or humanitarian protection;
• consider the fight against FGM as an action having priority in the relations with countries where FGM is not banned through the Human Rights clause;
• and finally, to support local women's networks and associations that struggle for the elimination of these practices within the countries where they are justified by cultural and/or religious motivations.