The Caged Virgin - Ayaan Hirsi Ali [58]
As with other forms of appalling violence against women, genital mutilation tends to stay in the sphere of public condemnation, United Nations resolutions, and other paper weapons. Concrete measures that would lead to banishing these practices seem a long way off. People have clung to the belief that, over time, the problem would disappear by itself, with economic development and the increasing availability of information and advice. Other concerns such as poverty, war, natural disasters, and AIDS are given a higher priority in these countries because of their more visible, immediate impact on the population as a whole.
In rich countries, where such calamities do not absorb all the attention, genital mutilation is associated with immigrants. When first brought to the public’s attention, it evoked shocked reactions. In the Netherlands, for example, the practice was immediately condemned and made a criminal offense. However, this has not stopped parents from Africa and parts of Asia from mutilating their daughters in the Netherlands or elsewhere in Europe. Moreover, the government is well aware that these parents take their daughters back to their country of origin in order to subject them to the ritual of mutilation there. There is no excuse for tolerating this practice.
A medical report for the government advised the government to combat female circumcision first of all through preventive measures and by an information campaign, using legal sanctions only as a secondary aid. However, enforcement of the law is of primary importance because of the gravity of the offense and the serious implications for the victims. So my party and I are in favor of introducing a screening program that could help prevent female circumcision. Girls from “high-risk countries” should be checked once a year to see if they have been circumcised.
In the present debate in the Netherlands about how genital mutilation should be stopped, some argue that it should be assigned a separate heading in the criminal code. This change could be interpreted to mean that genital mutilation is not formally against the law now, which sends the wrong message to those who inflict it on girls. Others call for a more “open discussion” of mutilation within the immigrant community, and a third group believes that if people are educated about the consequences of mutilation, they will stop.
In my view, the fight against genital mutilation, in the Netherlands and other countries such as Canada and the United States, is primarily a matter of enforcing the law. After all, genital mutilation falls under the criminal offense of “willful, grievous bodily harm” as well as an “unqualified practice of medicine.” Under our law, a doctor who has circumcised a woman, or assisted in such a procedure, can be brought before the medical disciplinary tribunal. Moreover, genital mutilation of girls falls under the definition of child abuse.
It is notable that no arrests have been made to date in spite of there being good reason to believe that girls who are normally resident in the Netherlands are subjected to ritual mutilation during the summer holidays, either in the Netherlands or abroad. It seems unacceptable, under the circumstances, that there is no monitoring of this serious crime. The Dutch government’s attitude toward genital mutilation seems to be one of passive tolerance: genital mutilation is prohibited by law, but in practice, the authorities turn a blind eye. Following up all the recommendations of the government medical report, management and coordination of all the institutions involved in the fight against genital mutilation, and facilitating dialogue and debate in the ethnic communities that practice genital mutilation do not necessarily guarantee that the parents of the girls at risk will comply with the law.
The government should be committed to introducing a screening program because it regards safety and the enforcement of law as two of its highest priorities. In the 2004 budget for the Department of Justice, we read: “An important contributory factor to public