ISSUE OF FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION (FGM): THE TRANSNATIONAL RADICAL PARTY ADDRESSES THE 52ND SUBCOMMISSION ON MINORITIES CALLING MEMBER STATES TO DRAFT AND ADOPT LAWS BANNING FGM AS A CRIME AGAINST PERSONAL INTEGRITY AND TO RECOGNISE THAT THE RISK TO SUFFER FROM FGM REPRESENTS A CRITERION TO PROVIDE ASYLUM OR HUMANITARIAN PROTECTION.

Geneva, 10.08.00 - FGM 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. In its intervention today delivered by Marina Sikora, TRP stressed how the practice represents a destructive and invasive behaviour that is usually performed on girls before puberty (between ages four and twelve) but also affects newborns and young adults.

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.

The TRP called on the Sub-Commission to realise systematic surveys including comprehensive, country-by-country data on FGM; 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; to recognise that the risk to suffer FGM represents a criterion to provide asylum or humanitarian protection; to 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 lastly to support local women's networks and assosciations that struggle for the elimination of these practices within the countries where they are justified by cultural and/or religious motivations.