Zero tolerance to female genital mutilation

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is one of the most brutal forms of violence against women and girls. Defiling, traumatic and wholly unjustifiable – it robs young girls of their bodily integrity and puts them at risk of a lifetime of health complications.

The UN, which has declared today to be the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation, defines FGM as comprising:

“all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.”

Two weeks ago, a UK report estimated that as many as 65,000 girls, aged 13 and under, in Britain are at risk of female genital mutilation and 170,000 are already living with its appalling consequences. Globally, it’s predicted more than 140 million women worldwide have suffered this tragic violation.

Female genital mutilation has no moral, religious or cultural justification and yet for years, decades even, we’ve allowed a collusive silence to grow around this savage practice – anxious, perhaps, not to be labelled as politically incorrect and allowing fears of cultural insensitivity to overpower and suppress our social obligation to stand up for women worldwide.

In doing so we’ve put thousands, if not millions, more girls at risk.

Given the severity of the injuries suffered by young girls forced to undergo this procedure, it seems difficult to imagine how anyone could have anything less than “Zero Tolerance”. And yet, unfortunately, many still do.

FGM is one of the most basal manifestations of gender inequality – a reflection of the deeply held prejudices about the role and value of women and girls; the fundamental, seemingly ineradicable inequality, shaped and reinforced by gender norms, stereotypes and expectations within society. Even in countries where there are explicit laws criminalising acts of FGM, it may still be tolerated in wider society – trivialised, justified or even treated as inevitable. In Kenya for example, despite the existence of state laws against FGM, Equality Now recently reported that over half of girls between ten and 21 years of age, in the Pokot region, have been subjected to FGM. In other countries, the prevalence of FGM is near-universal.

But this toleration is also much closer to home. Despite the fact the Tories say that violence against women is “at the heart of everything they do” – on the 11^th December last year Nirj Deva (MEP for South East England), Sajjad Karim (MEP for North West England) and Timothy Kirkhope (MEP for Yorkshire and the Humber) voted against a motion strongly condemning “the disgraceful practice of female genital mutilation”.

All are Tory MEPs. All are also men.

A further five Conservative MEPs  (Robert Atkins – MEP for North West England; Martin Callanan – MEP for North East England; David Campbell Bannerman – MEP for East of England; Giles Chichester – MEP for South West England and Gibraltar; and Daniel Hannan – MEP for South East England) and six UKIP MEPs (Stuart Agnew – MEP for East of England; Gerard Batten – MEP for London; Derek Clark – MEP for East Midlands; Nigel Farage – MEP for South East England; Roger Helmer – MEP for East Midlands; and Paul Nuttall – MEP for North West England) abstained; content to be complicit in the continuance of this brutal practice.

I think this is totally unacceptable and today I am writing to each of these MEPs – asking them to meet with me to discuss their shameful stance. And I’ll be asking David Cameron if he is proud of these views being represented – on his watch – seemingly on behalf of Tory voters across the UK. With the European elections approaching in May, it’s a chance for us all to make our feelings known.

Next week, the Shadow DfID Team – Jim Murphy, Alison McGovern and I – will also be travelling to Brussels to meet with officials and representatives from across the European Parliament to discuss solutions to these pervasive global challenges. We are fully committed to tackling FGM – as we are to tackling the many other grotesque forms of gender-based violence – in the UK, across Europe and around the world. And in the coming months we will be outlining our vision for a strategy to tackle violence against women and girls, that doesn’t just seek to treat the fallout from violence – something that the current UK Government has been criticised of – but that instead seeks to address the underlying causes, the pervasive nature of women’s subjugation to men across political, civil, social, cultural, and economic spheres. That stops violence at source.

Today offers a chance to reflect on the global challenge that we face, and extends a crucial spur to act – ensuring that not one more woman or child is subjected to this degrading and devastating debasement.

Zero tolerance should mean just that.

Gavin Shuker is the Shadow Minister for International Development, with specific responsibility for tackling violence against women and girls.