Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) in Asia will be addressed by the development of a new Asia Network to End FGM/C, across countries such as Brunei, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, Malaysia, Maldives, Singapore and Thailand.

Malaysia-based regional feminist NGO, the Asian Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW), and British charity, Orchid Project have joined forces to support the development of the network, which they announced on Sunday (June 2) at Women Deliver in Vancouver, Canada.

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% of girls have undergone FGM/C. UNFPA estimate that by 2030, a further 15 million girls in Indonesia will be cut 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,” said Sivananthi Thanethiran, ED of Malaysia-based ARROW, a regional NGO advocating for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of women and young people.

“What is lesser known is that there are many girls and women in Asia who are affected by the same practice. Because of the overall lack of advocacy in the region and pressure from the international community to end the practice in the region, 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. According to UNICEF (2018), 3.9 million girls are at risk of FGM/C annually, and 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 announcement of the Asia Network to End FGM/C follows the establishment of vibrant networks to end FGM/C in Europe, the US and most recently in Canada – where Women Deliver is taking place.

“The first step in this process is to invite organisations across the region to help shape the Asia Network to End FGM/C,” said Ebony Riddell Bamber, Head of Advocacy & Policy at Orchid Project. “We will build a vibrant network in partnership with international organizations active on FGM/C in Asia, including Sahiyo and Equality Now, as well as grassroots organizations across the continent.”

“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,” Riddell Bamber added. 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.

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

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.

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. “It is also important to frame FGM/C as a bodily rights and bodily integrity issue,” added Ms Thanenthiran.

Often, 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.

Support for the initial stage of development of the Asia Network to End FGM/C is being provided by Wallace Global Fund.

“No region of the world is immune from female genital mutilation/cutting, and advocates are increasingly speaking out against the practice throughout Asia,” said Susan Gibbs, Program Director for Women’s Rights and Empowerment at the Wallace Global Fund. “The practice remains poorly understood and largely hidden in the shadows. Wallace Global is convinced that the new Asia Network will play a powerful role in drawing attention to the issue and helping galvanize a regional response.”

Activists, researchers and organisations interested in being involved in shaping the network can contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

By: ARROW & Orchid Project

FEBRUARY 4 — Malaysia should ban female genital mutilation/ cutting (FGM/C), and work with health and religious authorities, and the community to end the practice immediately.

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 Wednesday.

“It has been a year since the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) Committee criticised Malaysia for practising FGM/C,” said Sivananthi Thanenthiran, Executive Director of the Asian Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women (ARROW), a regional NGO that champions sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and young people. “CEDAW committee members from Muslim countries like Egypt asked the Malaysian Government to revisit the 2009 decision by the National Fatwa Committee that made it obligatory, and urged the Government to abolish it.”

Rozana Isa, Executive Director of Sisters in Islam (SIS), said “Islam did not introduce circumcision of girls to the world. Circumcision of girls can be traced back to pre-Islamic traditions. Nevertheless, the modern Islamic world has made a clear stance that FGM, no matter how insignificant, has a clear harm factor and is categorically unIslamic.”

Dar al-Ifta al Misriyyah, which is among the pillars of the religious foundations in Egypt (and includes Al-Azhar Al-Sharif, Al-Azhar University, Ministry of Religious Endowments, and Dar al-Ifta al-Misryyah), had declared all forms of FGM, including female circumcision, to be religiously forbidden from May last year. The organisation said that banning FGM should be a religious duty of all Muslim countries due to its harmful effects on the body. Al-Azhar is considered the authoritative reference for Sunni religious authorities throughout the world, including Malaysia.

In February last year, the CEDAW Committee said that women’s rights had regressed in Malaysia, and urged the government to abolish FGM, which takes place in certain Muslim Malay communities. At the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva in November, the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry denied the practice of FGM, but said female circumcision was done on babies as part of a cultural obligation.

FGM refers to all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for cultural or other non-medical reasons. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has identified four types of FGM (details below). In Malaysia, Type 4 — pricking, piercing, incising, scraping or cauterisation — is common, and reports indicate Type I — also called clitoridectomy, which is the partial or total removal of the clitoris and/or the prepuce — is also common as described by doctors engaged in the practice.

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

In conjunction with the International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM, ARROW will be part of a Facebook Live discussion, “End female genital cutting globally: Activists in Conversation, on Feb 6 on Wednesday at 2pm GMT. Hosted by the Orchid Project, a UK-based charity, the discussion will include activists from Sahiyo, an India-based NGO, the US, and Kenya, to discuss how action at the grassroots can be supported, to end FGC globally.

The link to the event is http://bit.ly/2Fxoopf.

* Press statement by Asian Pacific Resource and Research Centre for Women.

** This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.

By: The Malay Mail