The Committee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality adopted the own-initiative report by Cristiana MUSCARDINI (UEN, IT) on combating female genital mutilation (FGM) in the EU. It points out that according to figures compiled by the World Health Organisation (WHO), between 100 and 140 million women and girls worldwide have undergone genital mutilation, and, in Europe, some 500 000 women have suffered FGM. It is particularly in immigrant and refugee families that such circumcision is customary.
The committee roundly condemns FGM as a violation of fundamental human rights, as well as a savage breach of the integrity and personality of women and girls and therefore considers it to be a serious crime in the eyes of society. Reiterating its commitment to all the measures and policies proposed in the 2001 Resolution, it calls for an overall strategy and action plans aimed at banishing FGM from the EU and, to that end, to provide the means required – in the form of laws and administrative provisions, prevention systems, and education and social measures, and in particular, wide dissemination of information regarding the existing protection mechanisms available to vulnerable groups – to enable real and potential victims to be properly protected. This overall strategy must be accompanied by educational programmes and the organisation of national and international awareness raising campaigns.
Members also call for the following:
Member States should:
The report points out that Article 10 of Council Directive 2004/83/EC on minimum standards for the qualification and status of third country nationals or stateless persons as refugees specifies that gender aspects can be taken into account, but that these alone do not lead to the application of Article 10.
It urges firm rejection of pricking of the clitoris and medicalisation in any form, which are being proposed as a halfway house between circumcision and respect for traditions serving to define identity and which would merely lead to the practice of FGM being justified and accepted on EU territory. Members reiterate the absolute and strong condemnation of FMG, as there is no reason - social, economic, ethnic, health-related or other- that could justify it.
The committee stresses the importance of public programmes and social services aimed at both preventing these practices and assisting the victims who have been subjected to them (psychological and medical support including, where possible, free medical treatment to repair the damage).