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04. 02. 10. - 16:00

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04. 02. 10. - 16:00

Female genital mutilation remains problem, group warns

Between 6,000 and 8,000 women in Austria have been forced to undergo genital mutilation, according to Social Democratic MP Petra Bayr.

Bayr, a member of the Austrian Platform against Female Genital Mutilation, said today: "Many parents believe they are doing their daughters a favour by forcing them to undergo it."

She said the only way to change such thinking was to engage in awareness-raising and make it clear to parents that genital mutilation was neither called for by religion nor a pre-condition for finding a husband.

Rather, she added, genital mutilation was a violation of human rights that left its victims mentally and physically damaged for the rest of their lives.

Bayr added that her group was working with health personnel, migrant organisations and religious leaders to try to change the situation.

Such work, she claimed, had been bearing fruit. "The situation is better than before," and there was more counselling available, she said.

Bayr said the Platform wanted 6 February - proclaimed "International Day of Zero Tolerance of Female Genital Mutilation" at the Inter African Committee conference seven years ago - to become a UN commemorative day to increase public awareness of the problem.

The Platform will also begin a Europe-wide campaign against genital mutilation with an event on 17 February at Palais Epstein in Vienna.

Greens’ women’s spokeswoman Judith Schwentner called for asylum for all prospective victims of genital mutilation, "a serious assault on the physical and sexual integrity of women and a serious violation of human rights."

The Platform claims 155 million women around the world have been subject to genital mutilation, and Amnesty International says three million women a year, or 8,000 a day, are forced to undergo it.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has said the practice is most common in northern and western areas of Africa and is not restricted to Muslims.

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