Despite the fact that FGM is not a practice performed to Albanian women, we must criminalise the practice.
The new penalties should be imposed on this as Albania prepares to comply with the Istanbul Convention, an international legal mechanism for the protection of women’s rights, which Albania has ratified in 2016. By ratifying the convention must make a commitment to change its laws, to introduce practical measures and provide resources for the effective prevention of violence against women and domestic violence.
This means that Albanian criminal code needs to recognise the nature of violence against women as gender-based violence and all forms of violence which include sexual harassment, rape, forced and child marriage, crimes committed in the name of so-called ‘honour’, and female genital mutilation.
Female genital mutilation is characterised by the partial or total removal of a woman’s external genital organs when no medical reason for the procedure is indicated. It can cause severe bleeding, pain, shock, recurrent urinary tract infections, cysts and infertility. It also significantly lowers the feelings of pleasure experienced during sex.
A UNICEF report published in August 2016 said that at least 200 million women and girls alive today have suffered been subjected to the operation in 30 countries, mainly in Africa. The UNICEF report, however, does not say that such operations have been carried out in any of the Balkan countries.
However, current migration trends and a large number of refugees coming to Europe from African and Asian countries where this harmful tradition is still maintained may lead to the fact that this form of violence against women could be diverted to Albania.
It is good that the revision of the penal code will anticipate that Albania complies with the new Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Family Violence – known as the Istanbul Convention – is the first legally binding international mechanism in Europe aimed at dealing with violence against women and domestic violence.
Available data from large-scale representative surveys show that the practice of FGM is highly concentrated in a swath of countries from the Atlantic coast to the Horn of Africa, in areas of the Middle East such as Iraq and Yemen and in some countries in Asia like Indonesia, with wide variations in prevalence. The practice is almost universal in Somalia, Guinea and Djibouti, with levels around 90 per cent, while it affects only 1 per cent of girls and women in Cameroon and Uganda.
In 2015, in the UK A total of 1,385 cases of FGM were reported between July and September Some 758 were in London with 227 in the Midlands and east of England. But experts have warned these figures are just the ‘tip of the iceberg’’. Some 5,484 instances of the ‘brutal’ and potentially lethal practice were reported from October 2014 to September 2015, and experts say many other victims go unreported.
Human rights organisation Equality Now has previously estimated that 137,000 women and girls in England and Wales have been cut. It is estimated, however, that hundreds of thousands of women living in Europe have been subjected to genital mutilation and thousands more girls are at risk.
Most women and girls originating from countries in which the practice of FGM is widespread live in the following EU countries: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Spain, Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden Only next door to Albania, Greece, it is estimated that 25 % to 42 % of girls are at risk of female genital mutilation FGM, out of a total population of 1787 girls aged 0-18 originating from countries where female genital mutilation is practised.
Girls at risk of female genital mutilation in Greece mostly originate from Egypt, Ethiopia and Nigeria. These findings are from the latest research conducted by the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) on female genital mutilation in the EU.
It is noted that there is barely anything by the Health Ministry of Albania which is prepared to challenge FGM or report it if it happens within its borders. We have tried to reach lawyers, and MP’s to gain their commitment to start this imperative campaign but all remains silence at the moment. We also have contacted Blerta Balilaj Brovine as a representative of the WD Albania-Womens Demokracy Network Albania who confirmed that the FGM ban is not something that has been debated or discussed as another form of domestic violence in Albania.
As Albania has ratified all of the Convention which prevent torture, degrading and discriminatory practices, it must join other European countries to fight this harmful practice and domestic violence.
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