Ahead of the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation on 6 February 2024, the European Commission and the High Representative/Vice-President reaffirm the EU’s strong commitment to eliminating FGM worldwide:

“Female genital mutilation is a violation of human rights and a form of violence against girls and women. Let’s be clear: these procedures are not done for medical reasons. Girls’ lives are at risk, their human rights are violated, and they are physically and psychologically scarred forever. There is simply no justification for female genital mutilation.

Communities, governments, organizations and international partners must join forces to protect the human rights, dignity and health of women and girls. The European Union will continue to work with international partners in a zero-tolerance approach to FGM and fight for a world where every girl and every woman is free from all forms of violence.

Last year, the European Union ratified the Istanbul Convention. This is a critical step that highlights that violence against women constitutes a violation of human rights.

Another important step will be enshrining the effective criminalization of FGM into EU law.

We are currently working on these rules and they will form part of a wider legal framework to combat all forms of violence against women. In our proposal to prevent and combat violence against women and domestic violence we propose to specifically criminalize female genital mutilation as an independent offence.

Contracts are currently under negotiation.

We are also preparing a recommendation to prevent, in the first instance, harmful practices against women and girls. In Europe and around the world, women and girls must be freed from female genital mutilation and all other forms of violence.»

Record

As defined by the World Health Organization, female genital mutilation includes all procedures for the partial or total removal of female external genitalia or other injury to female genitalia for non-medical reasons. It is a form of violence against women and girls and has serious physical and psychological consequences throughout their lives.

An estimated 190,000 girls in 17 European countries alone are at risk of FGM, while 600,000 women live with the consequences of FGM in Europe. Every year at least 20,000 women and girls come to Europe as asylum seekers from countries where they are at risk of female genital mutilation.

The European Commission is firmly committed to ending all forms of gender-based violence, including female genital mutilation both inside and outside the EU, as outlined in the EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy 2020-2024, its strategy EU Gender Equality 2020-2025, the EU Gender Action Plan III and the EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child, which aims to end violence against children.

In line with these policies and our commitment to end FGM in Europe and globally, we support and work with survivors, affected families and communities, experts and policy makers.

The criminalization of female genital mutilation is a requirement under the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (the Istanbul Convention).

This convention was signed by all EU member states and has been ratified by 22 member states to date. The convention entered into force for the EU on 1 October 2023. By acceding to this convention, the EU commits itself to ambitious and comprehensive standards to prevent and combat violence against women in the areas of judicial cooperation in criminal matters, asylum and of non-refoulement, as well as regarding its public administration.

In March 2022 the Commission presented a proposal on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, which specifically criminalizes female genital mutilation as a stand-alone offence.

The proposal is currently under negotiation. The Commission will also soon issue a specific recommendation on preventing and combating harmful practices against women and girls, including female genital mutilation, in 2024. The recommendation will include concrete proposals for actions to Member States and additional and specialized support for the protection of victims of harmful practices such as female genital mutilation.

The Commission’s programCitizens, Equality, Rights and Values ​​(CERV)’ provides funding to projects to tackle gender-based violence, including female genital mutilation. In November 2023 the Commission published a new call for proposals on preventing and combating gender-based violence. The deadline for submitting projects is April 24, 2024.

Harmful practices are among the call’s priorities, including female genital mutilation, intersex genital mutilation, forced abortion, forced sterilization, child and forced marriage, or honor violence.

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989), to which all EU Member States are parties, also condemns violence against children.

In 2021 the Commission adopted a comprehensive EU strategy on the rights of the child to strengthen the EU’s commitment to protecting children from FGM in EU Member States and globally, and to highlight the importance of education, of awareness and legal measures to eliminate the practice of female genital mutilation, with specific actions and recommendations to end all forms of violence against children.

In the context of external action and development cooperation, the elimination of FGM remains a key objective of the EU Action Plan on Human Rights and Democracy 2020-2024 and the EU Action Plan on Gender Equality 2021 -2025. This is reflected in the political dialogues, as well as in specific actions.

The EU and its Member States are a key donor to the joint UNFPA-UNICEF program to end female genital mutilation, having contributed a total of €18.5 million since 2016. The EU also contributed €60 million to support the “Team Europe» on sexual and reproductive health and rights in Africa and €23.5 million to the regional Spotlight Africa programme, which combats gender-based violence, including female genital mutilation in 18 partner countries.

The EU seeks to transform social and gender norms by working with men and boys, which is key to ending FGM and child marriage. By 2023, over 6 million boys and men have participated in dialogue and education sessions that strengthen positive masculinity and men’s commitment to prevent harmful practices and promote the empowerment of girls, thanks to approximately 900,000 religious, traditional and community leaders mobilized by the program.

Athena Papakosta