The following press release was published in BanglaNews24.com

KUALA LUMPUR: Asian activists and civil society have called for collaboration, resources and support to end female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) across the region in a new consultation report into the practice.

Launched online, the consultation surveyed activists and civil society organisations in Asia and found a strong demand for a supportive network to help end the issue, a press release said.

The consultation is spearheaded by Malaysia-based regional feminist NGO, the Asian Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW), and global NGO, Orchid Project.

Sivananthi Thanenthiran, Executive Director of ARROW commented: “The Asia Network to End FGM/C is set to actively lobby governments in the Asia Pacific to end the practice to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 on gender equality and empowering all women and girls. We would specifically look at SDG target 5.3 which relates to ending FGM/C.”

Responses came from across the Asian continent, including activists, community-based organisations, survivors of cutting, government, journalists and academics from countries including: Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and others, where FGM/C is known to take place, despite a critical lack of data available.

Religion was perceived by most of the participants in the consultation as a factor driving the continuation of cutting in their local contexts. Other significant drivers identified were FGC being considered a social norm within affected communities and gender inequality.

The consultation report draws on interviews with activists, researchers, religious scholars and grassroots organisations working on FGM/C or other areas of work such as gender-based violence and sexual and reproductive health and rights.

They are calling for greater political will to end FGM/C, including legislation and its implementation and enforcement, as well as broad awareness raising, direct work with affected communities, and work to challenge harmful social and gender norms. Results indicated high levels of support for a network amongst participating activists, organisations and allies, with an overwhelming 96% of participants wanting to join the Asia Network to End FGM/C.

Respondents identified numerous challenges to their work, from a shrinking civil society space to organisations and campaigners being threatened for their activism – which is an issue of concern that the Network will be seeking a role in addressing.

One civil society respondent commented: “There is a backlash concerning FGM in Southeast Asia before campaigning against it has even really started. FGM/C is becoming more acceptable, parts of the governments are defending it, and NGOs and activists are attacked, if not criminalised”

Civil society actors in Asia working on the issue were largely individual activists and community based organisations (CBOs), and mostly reported low levels of capacity, recognition, and lack of access to funding. They called for a forum to reinforce local advocacy messages at a regional level, as well as urging for the creation of an umbrella organisation to help to provide legitimacy and support greater prioritisation of the issue.

An Indian activist taking part in the consultation said: “The issue of FGM/C in Asia hasn’t gained much attention either nationally or internationally. An Asia network would be a strong voice to show a united front across the region to push policy makers, UN and donors to focus on the issue here.”

The consultation highlighted the lack of support, capacity and increasingly challenging contexts for those working on ending FGM/C in Asian countries. The consultation process also emphasised the need for research and evidence generation across the board.

“We are really grateful to regional stakeholders that have engaged with the Asia Network to End FGM/C so far.  The consultation has really confirmed the urgent need for improved research and evidence on how the practice is affecting women and girls across Asia, and how we can end the practice.” said Grethe Petersen, Chief Executive of the Orchid Project.

According to UNICEF (2018), 4.1 million girls were cut in 2019, with increasing numbers at risk each year. At least 200 million girls and women have been cut in 30 countries, however, this figure does not include many countries in Asia Pacific where FGM/C is known to take place, so the true scale of the problem is unknown because of these gaps in data.

The Asia Network to End FGM/C will establish a platform of NGOs, activists, and researchers across these countries to build stronger relationships and collaboration between organisations working across Asia. The platform will gather data and evidence on prevalence, take survivor needs and viewpoints into account, engage with religious scholars who can influence communities positively, and urge governments to report on the SDG indicator (5.3.2) related to FGM/C.

https://www.banglanews24.com/english/health/article/83219/Pan-asian-collaboration-needed-to-end-female-genital-mutilationcutting

Read the Asia Network to End FGM/C Consultation Report HERE

By: BanglaNews24.com

Activists have launched a new Asia-wide network to end the lesser-known practice of FGM in the region.

A dearth of data and transparency about female genital mutilation in Southeast Asia has stymied efforts to stop it. Global attention and advocacy on the subject have tended to focus on African nations. But now a new pan-Asia network aims to unpack the region’s FGM problem as it works to end the practice.

Around 200 million girls and women are estimated to have been subjected to FGM — the partial or total removal of their external genitalia. But this data on the practice is almost entirely drawn from African countries and doesn’t incorporate most Southeast Asian nations where FGM is also known to take place, including Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, the Philippines, and southern Thailand.

“People don’t usually think of FGM as something that happens in Asia. It still has an association with Africa,” said Sivananthi Thanenthiran, executive director of the Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW), a Malaysia-based regional advocacy group. Global meetings tend to be held in countries in Africa, where the practice is concentrated, and funding follows suit.

This premise was challenged in 2016 when Indonesia became the first Asian country to be included in the UN’s global report on FGM prevalence. The “dramatic increase” in the figures “unsettled governments” in Southeast Asia, Sivananthi said, as it showed FGM was more widespread than previously thought. Among the findings was the startling figure that nearly half of Indonesian girls aged 11 and under had undergone FGM.

In recent years victims of botched FGM procedures have spoken out in Singapore, while concerns have been voiced about the unregulated nature of the practice in southern Thailand. In Malaysia, a 2012 study found that more than 93 percent of Muslim women surveyed had undergone FGM.

To strengthen advocacy in the region, ARROW, in June, launched the Asia Network to End FGM/C in partnership with British charity the Orchid Project (FGC, female genital cutting, is a term some people use instead of FGM for reasons explored here). The network seeks to build collaboration between groups already campaigning to end FGM – focusing advocacy work on communities, religious leaders and governments to help eradicate the practice. It is also hoping to address the Asia data gap. Better evidence about the practice’s prevalence, especially governmental reporting, could go a long way to inform Asian advocacy on FGM.

Within Southeast Asia Indonesia has been the most pro-active in challenging FGM — a movement led by women’s rights groups but also at times by the state. In 2006, the government banned the practice (as many countries have, including at least 25 in Africa). But four years later it succumbed to pressure from religious groups, issuing a regulation allowing FGM if performed by medical staff.

The law has been “ambiguous” ever since, said Nina Nurmila, a gender and Islamic studies professor who also sits on Indonesia’s National Commission on Violence Against Women. She thinks FGM ought to be banned alongside a widespread public education campaign about the health risks. But the official advice now just refers Indonesians to an Islamic health council to provide FGM guidelines, effectively putting no bars on the practice. The country’s women’s minister announced a renewed campaign to end FGM in 2016, but opposition from religious leaders has only increased amid growing Islamic conservatism.

Yet the Quran makes no mention of FGM. Leading Islamic scholars worldwide have said there is no basis for the practice, which predates the rise of both Islam and Christianity. And FGM is not practiced in many Islamic societies while it is undertaken by some non-Islamic groups including Christians and Ethiopian Jews. But in Southeast Asia many Muslims believe the practice is compulsory.

In Malaysia, it didn’t help that in 2009 the National Council of Islamic Religious Affairs issued a fatwa that ruled FGM obligatory for Muslims. Unfortunately, there is almost no political will to correct the powerful religious lobby. Last year Malaysia’s Deputy Prime Minister Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, who is also a medical doctor, said FGM was a part of Malaysian culture – despite international consensus that cultural arguments cannot be used to condone violence against people. FGM has no health benefits and procedures can cause severe bleeding and problems including infections and childbirth complications.

The job of reframing the archaic practice as a humans rights issue rooted in extreme discrimination rather than a religious one has been left mostly to activists. The added problem in Malaysia is that FGM has been “normalized” by being offered as a routine medical procedure, said Azrul Mohd Khalib, head of the Galen Centre for Health and Social Policy, a Kuala Lumpur-based think-tank.

As in Indonesia, procedures are even offered as part of “birthing packages” in some hospitals, which further serves to legitimize them. In both countries FGM tends to be conducted at infancy, which activists say makes it a more “hidden” practice. Many women will not remember the trauma they underwent – unlike in countries where FGM is performed when a girl reaches adolescence in a more ceremonial and public manner that she can likely recount.

“For some reason the image is that FGC is not as traumatic as in Africa and is harmless,” Azrul said. “I completely disagree. An invasive procedure is an invasive procedure. You’re basically mutilating a child. And there is no religious justification.”

The new Asia network has started consulting activists around the region on how to move forwards. One strategy showing promise in Indonesia, said Risya Kori, a UNFPA gender specialist in Jakarta, is targeting young Muslims more receptive to change. The country’s growing female ulama (Islamic scholars) movement has also been a positive catalyst with more voices denouncing FGM, she said.

There are communities across Africa that are questioning and even abandoning FGM as a result of longstanding activism and the political will to enforce change. The hope is that Southeast Asian nations will soon do the same.

By: The Diplomat

PETALING JAYA: The US government's reluctance to defend the ban on female genital mutilation (FGM) is a "slippery slope" that Malaysia should avoid, say two women non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

Recently, US media reported that the Trump administration had decided not to defend a ban on FGM that was passed more than 20 years ago.

Business Insider said the ongoing case against doctor Jumana Nagarwala who allegedly cut the clitoral hoods of two seven-year-old-girls at the request of their mothers was the first test of the US law that bans FGM for non-medical reasons.

However, Michigan federal Judge Bernard Friedman ruled the anti-FGM law unconstitutional in November 2018 and dismissed the charges against Nagarwala.


The Justice Department had an opportunity to appeal the court decision, but Business Insider said they may not pursue it.

According to the Trump administration, there aren't adequate grounds to defend the law.

"The US’ reluctance to have a strong stance against FGM demonstrates an irresponsible lack of political will where sexual and reproductive health rights are concerned," Sisters In Islam communications manager Majidah Hashim said.

"This disappointing move, coupled with the fact that the US still has not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw) and Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), reflects a misogynistic disregard for the well-being of girls and women under the Trump administration," she added.

Majidah said minorities are the most vulnerable to FGM in the United States, as it is most common among its diverse immigrant communities.

"Malaysia needs to learn from the slippery slope that the United States has cornered itself into where the health and well-being of its citizens are concerned," she said.

"Many Muslim-majority countries have completely banned all forms of the practice, and we encourage Malaysia to urgently follow suit," Majidah said, adding that FGM is a harmful practice with no Islamic basis or any medical benefits.

Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (Arrow) said it was unfortunate that even the legal framework of developed countries such as the United States were inadequate in affirming and protecting basic sexual and reproductive rights of women and girls.

"It is regrettable that the US government does not have a comprehensive framework for gender equality in place in order to ensure progress towards recognising women's equal rights in society, which includes their sexual and reproductive rights," its executive director Sivananthi Thanenthiran said.

In Malaysia, the government had previously reaffirmed its stand that female circumcision was part of Malaysian culture.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail reportedly said that female circumcision in Malaysia was unlike the extreme FGM practised in some African countries, but would look into the issue.

By: The Star

KUALA LUMPUR, June 3 — Two major non-governmental organisations in Malaysia and the United Kingdom have teamed up to end the practice of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) in several Asia Pacific countries, including Malaysia.

The Asian Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW) based in Malaysia and British charity Orchid Project today announced that they have joined forces to work with grassroots organisations to end FGM/C in Malaysia, Brunei, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, the Philippines, Maldives, Thailand and Singapore.

“FGM/C is practised in over 45 countries globally, but the global focus has not responded strongly enough to the situation in the Asia region.  For example, in Indonesia 49 per cent of girls have undergone FGM/C,” the two NGOs said in a joint statement coinciding with their launch in Vancouver, Canada today.

The United Nations population fund (UNFPA) estimate that by 2030, a further 15 million girls in Indonesia will be mutilated if efforts to end the practice are not accelerated. 

“FGM/C has for long been presented as a traditional practice with harmful consequences for girls and women primarily taking place in Africa. What is lesser known is that there are many girls and women in Asia who are affected by the same practice,” ARROW executive director Sivananthi Thanethiran said in the statement.

She said the lack of advocacy in the region and pressure from the international community to end the practice in the region means that governments continue to shy from taking measures to end FGM/C, which is in direct contradiction of a number of human rights commitments.

Once established, the network will actively lobby governments in the Asia Pacific to end the practice to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 on gender equality and empowering all women and girls, and specifically SDG target 5.3 which relates to ending FGM/C.

“The first step in this process is to invite organisations across the region to help shape the Asia Network to End FGM/C,” said Orchid Project’s Head of Advocacy and Policy  Ebony Riddell Bamber, adding that they will work with other international organisations like Sahiyo and Equality Now, as well as grassroots organizations.

“Our goal is to create a platform to jointly advocate for change, and identify how best to support and amplify the great work underway at the grassroots to end FGM/C. If we don’t act now, many more girls across Asia will be subject to this harmful practice, and progress in ending FGM/C will be severely compromised.” she added.

According to Unicef, 3.9 million girls are at risk of FGM/C annually, and at least 200 million girls and women have been mutilated in 30 countries. However, this figure does not include many countries in Asia Pacific where FGM/C is known to take place, so the true scale of the problem is unknown because of these gaps in data.

Community and media reports indicate that FGM/C is prevalent in many Asian and Southeast Asian countries including Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Brunei, Thailand, the Philippines, Maldives, India and Pakistan.

The network will be a platform will gather data and evidence on prevalence, take survivor needs and viewpoints into account, engage with religious scholars who can influence communities positively, and urge governments to report on the SDG indicator (5.3.2) related to FGM/C.

FGM/C has several immediate and long-term health complications on women including infections, painful menstruation, urinary and vaginal problems, complications during childbirth and even death.

Proponents of FGM/C justify the practice on the basis of religion, or some unproven health benefit or claim that it doesn’t harm women and girls. But religious scholars from different countries are divided on this, and some Muslim countries have banned FGM/C through fatwas and the law.

By: The Malay Mail

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia should ban female genital mutilation (FGM) and work with health and religious authorities, as well as the community, to end the practice, says two women non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

“We appeal to the government to enforce laws that protect a woman's right to bodily integrity and autonomy, ahead of the International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM on Feb 6,” the Asian-Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (Arrow) and Sisters in Islam (SIS) said in a joint statement on Monday (Feb 4).


Arrow executive director Sivananthi Thanenthiran said FGM has long lasting physical and psychological effects on girls.

“Continuing the practice means further eroding Malaysia’s human rights record.

“We call on the government to abolish the practice and implement the recommendations of the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (Cedaw) Committee and the Universal Periodic Review (UPR).

“All Malaysian girls and women deserve to grow up free from harmful practices that endanger their health and well-being,” she said.

Sivananthi added that even Cedaw committee members from Muslim countries such as Egypt have asked the Malaysian government to revisit its 2009 decision by the National Fatwa Committee.

SIS executive director Rozana Isa said Islam did not introduce circumcision of girls to the world, adding that the practice can be traced back to pre-Islamic traditions.

Nevertheless, Rozana said that the modern Islamic world has made a clear stance that FGM has a “clear harm factor and is categorically un-Islamic”.

The government had previously reaffirmed its stand that female circumcision was part of Malaysian culture.

Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said that female circumcision in Malaysia was unlike the extreme FMG practised in some African countries.

Dr Wan Azizah, who is also the Women, Family and Community Development Minister, said that her Ministry would look into the issue.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) describes FGM as “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”.

In Malaysia, the most prevalent form of FGM among Muslims is Type I, where the clitoral hood is removed.

Some practise Type IV, a ritual form that includes pricking or nicking of the genitals.

By: The Star