Amnesty Ireland launching End FGM Campaign

international | gender and sexuality | news report Monday March 02, 2009 14:59 by amnesty1

8,000 girls are mutilated every single day around the world.

You can help make it stop.

Log on to http://www.amnesty.ie/endfgm

This year Amnesty International Ireland is starting our first Europe-wide campaign against FGM.

According to UNICEF three million girls are subjected to Female Genital Mutilation every year. That’s over 8,000 a day.

It is not about religion. Though carried out in Christian, Jewish and Muslim communities, none of the holy books of any religion prescribe it. The practice predates both Christianity and Islam.

This is about oppression. It is about domination. It is about mutilating young girls because their society says women are ‘unclean’, that their sexuality must be controlled.

FGM is a custom in 28 African countries and some parts of Asia and the Middle East.

And it happens here, in Europe.

While many EU states do not compile statistics on FGM, those that do, like France, Germany, Sweden, Italy and Spain, suggest a minimum of one hundred thousand women in Europe have undergone Female Genital Mutilation.

The British Medical Association estimates there are between three and four thousand new cases in Britain alone every single year.

And it happens here, in Ireland
In 2006 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child noted “with concern that some immigrant communities continue to practice female genital mutilation in Ireland”.

Akidwa, a network of African women living in Ireland, estimates that over two and a half thousand women living in Ireland have been victims of FGM.

Hannah, from Sierra Leone, was ten when she was mutilated.

“When the operation began, I put up a big fight. The pain was terrible and unbearable… I was badly cut and lost blood… with a blunt penknife. After the operation, no one was allowed to aid me to walk… Sometimes I had to force myself not to urinate for fear of the terrible pain.

“I was not given any anaesthetic in the operation to reduce my pain, nor any antibiotics to fight against infection. Afterwards, I haemorrhaged and became anaemic. This was attributed to witchcraft. I suffered for a long time from acute vaginal infections.”

In January your MEPs voted in the European Parliament that the EU Commission should adopt a legal framework and a comprehensive strategy to deal with FGM in Europe. With your help, we can now push for this decision to be implemented.

Log on to www.amnesty.ie/endfgm to take action.

They're mutilating girls.

With your help, we can stop it.