Gender 
African emigrants fight to curb female mutilation in Europe

afrol.com, 29 November - Today, African campaigners gather at the European Union headquarter in Brussels to find out how Europe and Africa can work together against female genital mutilation. In Europe, so far there has been little effort to curb the forbidden but widely spread, harmful practice.

The European Parliament has named today as the International Day against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), and organises a special hearing to address the situation of female genital mutilation in Europe. African and feminist campaigners are urging the European Union to recognise that the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) is an abuse of fundamental human rights.

The practice of FGM, commonly known as female circumcision, involves the partial or complete removal of the external female genitalia. This unnecessary procedure is carried out among 28 countries in Africa and the Middle East for cultural reasons. The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that FGM has affected as many as 138 million women and girls in Africa and the numbers continue to rise at a rate of approximately 2 million per year. 

Due to migration and refugee movements, the issue of female genital mutilation is now a global concern. Most European countries have forbidden FGM by law. Only Sweden and the UK have specific laws against FGM, but other countries include in their child maltreatment legislation. However the practice is ongoing in all over Europe, and prosecutions have barely been made. Several countries also forbid taking girls abroad to have them circumcised.

At least 15 African countries also have outlawed FGM. These include Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Djibouti, Egypt, Ghana, Kenya, Somalia, Togo and Senegal, which banned the practice in 1999. Other countries, such as The Gambia, claim that FGM is "a part of the country's culture" (President Yaya Jammeh, as quoted in February this year). Although outlawed in many countries, these laws mostly are not enforced, so that in Somalia and Djibouti, still some 98% of girls aging 7 years or older have undergone FGM.

European countries so far have not been prepared to handle this problem, directly confronting basic rights and cultural values of modern Europeans. Whenever a concrete case is presented in the media, it provokes outrage, public debates and general condemnation. However, the legal system has not been able to follow up public outrage.

Norway: "Difficult topic"
In Norway, FGM among Gambians and Somalis caused outrage in October, as a 20 years old Somali girl, hiding from her parents, which want to take her and her two child sisters to Djibouti to carry out the mutilation, brought with her a secret camera asking three imams and a Gambian school councellor advice on the matter. All three advised her to undergo FGM, and their conversations were shown on national TV. Norwegian Minister of Children and Family, Mrs. Bekkemellom-Nordheim, immediately after the program "guaranteed their prosecution".

Talking to police officer Inger Sæter today, afrol.com was told that the Norwegian "Public Prosecutor had asked for an investigation." Mrs. Sæter confirmed that "in some ways, the investigations still are in process," but it was "a difficult topic". As there existed no actual complaint, the police had not interrogated the three imams. "We have been casting light on the problem in general, but are not investigating against concrete persons," Sæter said. Asked if one could expect any prosecutions, Mrs. Sæter told afrol.com it was far to early in the process to make conclusions about that.

Britain: "A scandal"
In Britain, FGM was made illegal by the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act of 1985. FORWARD, a UK rights group however estimates that there could be as many as 3,000 new cases per year in that country. Many of these women and girls do not know where to seek advice and medical assistance. Local authorities and statutory bodies are ill equipped to deal with the issues and inadequate service provision and prevention activities persist. 

A report of the UK Parliamentary hearing on FGM was published last week. It calls upon the government to amend the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act, to ensure that UK residents who take their girls abroad to have them circumcised, can be prosecuted under the UK Law. MP Christine McCafferty stated in the report that "it is a scandal that there have been no prosecutions under the UK law and that awareness of the law is minimal. The Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act (1985) is clearly ineffective and must be changed".

Sweden: "Takes time"
Sweden has been in the forefront of fighting FGM in Europe for some time, adopting an Act against Female Mutilation already in 1982, which also includes the right to prosecute parents taking their daughters abroad to have them circumcised. Although no one so far has been prosecuted, the Swedes have experienced one decade of dedicated programmes among immigrants to inform about the ills of FGM.

In Gothenburg, Sweden's second town, the social authorities launch an ongoing campaign seven years ago, creating networks within African immigrant environments with the aim of starting to break the taboo of talking about the practice. "The project has focused on making the issue visible, but also about that such things must be allowed to take time," says project leader Piret Esken in Gothenburg. "Health personnel and Somali women have sat side by side, discussing and translating information material with the help of a translator. This has though us much," says Mrs. Esken. Most Somali women and men had never earlier talked about FGM. These projects are believed to have reduced the practice significantly in Sweden.

France, though not having specific laws against FGM, is besides Sweden the only European country where FGM actually has been prosecuted. In Gothenburg, the police has been investigating against parents letting their young daughter being mutilated and in the French Paris region, a more than 25 cases have investigated or are under investigation.

Many of the mutilated African women living in Europe are now at the forefront of the campaign against the practice and are advocating for greater pressure on the international community to raise awareness of the issues and strengthen procedures to bring an end to this violence against women for good. The conference in the European Parliament is expected to urge Europe's governments to protect immigrant women living in the European Union by applying existing laws to protect individuals from violence. 

Source: afrol archives, FORWARD, Oslo Police and Gothenburg Socialstyrelse

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