WHAT IS FGM?

FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION

FGM is usually performed by professional circumcisers, women who are enjoying a high reputation in their societies. It is also performed by traditional midwives and occasionally by healers, barbers or nurses or doctors trained in Western medicine. The procedure is usually performed without anaesthetic and under poor hygienic circumstances. Knives, scissors, razor blades or pieces of broken glass are used as instruments among others.

DONATE NOW

Female Genital Mutilation (often referred to as FGM) is a destructive operation, during which the female genitals are partly or entirely removed or injured with the goals of inhibiting a woman’s sexual feelings and preserving her viginity till marriage. Most often the mutilation is performed before puberty, often on girls between the age of four and eight, but recently it is increasingly performed on nurslings who are only a couple of days, weeks or months old.

There are four known different types of Female Genital Mutilation:

Type 1- Excision of the clitoris prepuce (“Sunna-circumcision”) and of the clitoris or parts thereof.

Type 2- Excision of the clitoris prepuce, the clitoris and the inner lips or parts thereof. Type 1 and 2 are the most common types of FGM: 80% of the affected women have gone through these procedures.

Type 3- Excision of part of or all of the external genitals (“infibulation”, also referred to as “Pharaonic Circumcision”). Afterwards the remaining parts of the outer lips are sewn together leaving a small hole for urine and menstrual flow. The scar need to be opened before intercourse or giving birth, which causes additional pain.

Infibulation is mainly spread in the Horn of Africa and its neighbouring areas – in Somalia, Djibouti and Eritrea, as well as in the northern part of Sudan and in the southern part of Egypt. It is the most severe form of FGM and affects 15% of the women who suffered FGM.

Type 4- Uncategorized. Pricking, piercing, cutting or stretching of the clitoris or the labia, also burning or scarring the genitals as well as ripping of the vaginal opening or the introduction of corrosive substances or herbs into the vagina in order to tighten it. Plus: any other procedure, which injures or circumcises the female genitalia.

THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF FGM

WHO PERFORMS FGM

Credit- theguardian.com

Up to 500,000 girls and women living in the European Union are affected or threatened by FGM.
75,000 of them live in Great Britain, 65,000 in France, 30,000 in Germany.
The victims are migrants, whose families took along this practice when they immigrated.
In spite of the fact that FGM is in most European countries either directly or indirectly prohibited, the laws are either incomplete or they are not enforced. The only country in which legal proceedings in connection with Female Genital Mutilation have ever been instituted, is France.
Most European countries hardly invest in awareness training and in investigations.
There are no effective cross-border measures against Female Genital Mutilation. FGM is still not considered to be a European problem.
FGM is in hardly any European country a regular part of the vocational training of doctors, midwives and social workers.
No European country explicitly accepts the threat of genital mutilation as a reason for asylum.

FACTS - FGM IN EUROPE

Information gathered from desertflowerfoundation.org