STORTING (Nettavisen): – If Frida had been cut at the age of five, there would have been riots and protests. But when it is cut in Fatima, you think it is culture and get a completely different acceptance of it, says Dana Manouchehri to Nettavisen.
She is secretary general of the organization for Equality, Integration and Diversity (LIM).
– Is it a fear of touch because it is linked to religion and culture?
– Absolutely. But we are talking about cutting into healthy children. Healthy girls are stigmatized and give them health problems for life. It is probably the fear of touch that has led to a naive attitude, and this is how people get to take Norwegian children to their home countries and molest them.
This is female genital mutilation
Female genital mutilation is an operation that changes or removes external genitalia, and is an old tradition in several places in the world. Many call genital mutilation circumcision or sunna.
- Genital mutilation is harmful to health. The girls may suffer injuries for the rest of their lives. It is therefore prohibited in most countries.
- The procedure most often occurs when girls are aged 5–14, but is also performed on infants, adolescents and adult women.
- In Norway, all forms of genital mutilation are prohibited, including “sunna” circumcision. It is just as illegal to remove a little as it is to remove a lot.
- Persons who carry out or contribute to a girl or woman being circumcised can receive a prison sentence of up to ten years. Foreign nationals who are convicted of this can also be deported from Norway.
- The parents can be punished if their daughter is circumcised and it would have been possible for them to prevent the circumcision. This also applies if it happens in another country.
SOURCE: UDI
Throwing the whole family under the bus
– I find it very disturbing that no one has been convicted in these cases, says Silje Hjemdal (Frp).
She has asked Justice Minister Emilie Enger Mehl (Sp) about how many people have reported – and how many have been convicted of genital mutilation in Norway in the last ten years.
The answer is disappointing:
“In the period 2014–2023, 34 criminal cases of genital mutilation involving a total of 44 girls or women were registered. In the period 2014–2023, there have been no legally binding convictions for this type of offence.”
– I’m afraid there are large dark figures. These figures show four reviews per year. There is no reason to believe that number shows the whole picture.
– What do you know about the people behind the numbers?
– We do not know who is behind the reports, but we know that no one will be punished. And that increases the threshold for reporting, says Hjemdal.
– This is not a review you deliver and then go home for dinner. Here you throw the whole family under the bus. You distance yourself from the family, the culture, perhaps the entire network and the mosque you are associated with. And when we know that nothing more will happen, then you have taken a crazy step without getting any kind of impact, points out Manouchehri.
– It does not concern us
– If I’m being completely honest, this is a field that politicians only talk about when it’s “in”, but when it comes down to it, you’re not interested in doing anything about it because it doesn’t concern “us”, says Manouchehri .
– It is important that people understand that this is child abuse – before they start cutting. Here, grown people sit and practically dig in the abdomens of small children. We don’t have to wait until they have cut before there is an assault. The attitude must be the same as for ethnically Norwegian children. If you see something abnormal, you notify us. A five-year-old does not review himself, says Dana Manouchehri.
She believes the obligation to notify should be strengthened:
– In Great Britain, there is a 30-year-old case where the father was convicted because he was in the garden when his daughter was mutilated. And then the authorities thought he should have stopped it. It is not good enough that you “didn’t hear” that your daughter was cut, says Manouchehri.
– Is it stricter in the UK than here?
– It is much stricter. And we want to introduce that here. If you are aware that this is happening, then there must be a notification obligation. You can’t just close your eyes and pretend it’s not happening, she says.
Will check the body of schoolgirls
– We want a full body examination of girls in school to uncover this, says Hjemdal.
– And if the parents do not take the children for a health check, the parents must be visited so that the check can be carried out.
– Which children should this apply to?
– All girls of school age, says the parliamentary representative, before she concludes with:
– Genital mutilation is simply too damned.
