Government urged to outlaw female circumcision
Some 2,600 women in Ireland are believed to have suffered FGM, or female circumcision, before coming to live here and support groups fear many of them will come under pressure to put their own daughters through the same ordeal.
“We know from other countries that immigrants are put under a lot of pressure from family back home to keep up the traditions of their native country and that the first visit back home after getting residency or asylum is a particularly dangerous time for parents with young girls,” said Sioban O’Brien Green of Akidwa, the African Women’s Network.
“We need legislation that would make it an offence to take a child abroad for FGM. Legislation allows the parents to say to family back home, if you want me to continue to send money home, I can’t be in jail. It allows people to say no and protect their children.”
FGM is performed on millions of girls in about 30 African countries each years, usually with crude instruments and no anaesthetic or medical help. The procedure, which can involve cutting off just the clitoris or all of the flesh surrounding the vagina, is carried out for a mix of traditional reasons, ostensibly as a right of passage but often to curb women’s sex drive and keep them “clean” for marriage.
Akidwa has so far worked with 300 GPs, hospital consultants and midwives as well as gardaí and child protection workers here to alert them to the signs, symptoms and problems associated with FGM, and says at the moment, there is no proof that the practice is being carried out on Irish soil.
“But we would never be so naive as to think it couldn’t happen — which is why we need legislation,” she said.
The National Steering Committee on FGM, which has representatives from the Health Service Executive, the Irish Family Planning Association, Amnesty, Barnardos, Irish Aid, the National Women’s Council and other children’s rights and immigrant support groups, yesterday published an action plan on FGM to coincide with International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.
In addition to calling for legislation, it also seeks better health services for women who have undergone FGM, a more sympathetic approach in the asylum process and efforts to encourage immigrant communities to abandon the practice.
PD Senator Fiona O’Malley, who chairs the Dáil all-party group on reproductive and sexual health, said Health Minister Mary Harney was in favour of bringing in legislation to deal with the problem.
“One area where we have fallen down is on legislation. The onus is on us in the Oireachtas to move forward with legislation,” she said.
Ms O’Malley also referred to the Pamela Izevbekhai case, where the Nigerian mother is fighting to prevent the deportation of herself and her daughters, Naomi, 8, and Jemima, 6, who she says face forcible FGM at home. She has already lost one daughter who died from the procedure.
“Discretion and humanity should prevail,” the senator said.
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