- Based on research in 41 countries, a book released today, Female Genital Mutilation: A Guide to Laws and Policies Worldwide, provides a comprehensive analysis of human rights law and a comparative review of laws addressing FC/FGM developed so far by governments at the national level. FC/FGM is practiced in 28 African countries in the sub-Saharan and Northeastern regions. Noting the increasing global trend toward taking a legal approach to FC/FGM, co-editors Anika Rahman of the Center for Reproductive Rights and Nahid Toubia of RAINBO anchor such legal action within human rights principles.
"A 'rights' perspective on FC/FGM sharpens the focus on the underlying issues raised by this and other 'cultural' or 'traditional' practices - women's low social, economic and legal status and the importance of providing women with tools to empower themselves and demand their rights," says Rahman, International Program Director at the Center for Reproductive Rights.
FC/FGM violates a number of recognized human rights that are protected in international and regional instruments and reaffirmed by international conference documents. These rights include the right to be free from gender discrimination; the right not to be subjected to violence; the right to life, liberty, and security of the person; the right to recognition of the inherent dignity of the person; and the right of the child to special protections.
To fulfill their obligations with regard to FC/FGM, states can adopt a number of preventive or remedial measures. These include undertaking a review of laws and policies to ensure compliance with human rights instruments; adopting constitutional provisions against harmful traditional practices; enacting laws criminalizing the practice; and instituting programmatic approaches to stopping the practice, such as educational programs aimed at raising awareness of the harmful effects of FC/FGM.
Nine countries - Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Cote d'Ivorie, Djibouti, Ghana, Guinea, Senegal, Tanzania, and Togo - out of 28 in Africa in which FC/FGM is prevalent have enacted laws criminalizing the practice. All but Central African Republic and Guinea passed these laws after 1994. The penalties range from a minimum of six months to a maximum of life in prison. Some countries include monetary fines in the penalty. In Egypt, where there is no law specifically criminalizing FC/FGM, the Ministry of Health issued a decree declaring FC/FGM unlawful. As of January 1999, there had been reports of criminal prosecutions in a handful of countries, including Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ghana and Senegal. Seven industrialized countries that receive immigrants from countries where FC/FGM is practiced - Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, United Kingdom, and United States - have passed laws criminalizing the practice.
The Center for Reproductive Rights and RAINBO support the adoption of laws criminalizing the practice, but only if they are preceded and followed by education and outreach efforts aimed at curbing the demand for the practice.
In Senegal, for example, a long-term effort by women's and human rights organizations to eliminate the practice preceded passage of a criminal law forbidding FC/FGM in January 1999. Campaigns aimed at educating women about their rights to health and bodily integrity were conducted on an interpersonal level in rural areas. This resulted in broad-based support for a law criminalizing the practice.
While the authors recognize that international or national laws cannot substitute for the indigenous social movements necessary to stop FC/FGM, they stress the necessary role law plays in enhancing such movements. "A clear government commitment to upholding human rights is critical," says Rahman, "because it often serves as a catalyst for change by providing needed legitimacy to social justice movements at the community level."
Although the rights to culture and religion, and the rights of minorities have been invoked in support of the practice and in defense against its condemnation as a human rights violation, such a response contradicts the guarantees in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which protects women's equality without exemption for the cultural or religious practices of the community.
"The call to protect these rights must trump the competing claims of those who believe that governments should not intervene in the practice of FC/FGM," says Rahman. "Governments should be guided by treaty provisions requiring them to modify customs that discriminate against women, abolish practices that are harmful to children, and ensure a social order in which rights can be realized."
For further information, please see our Female Circumcision/Female Genital Mutilation (FC/FGM): Global Laws and Policies Towards Elimination factsheet or our FGM: A Matter of Human Rights handbook.
