THL: 10,000 girls and women in Finland have undergone FGM
Finland’s public health watchdog THL says 3,000 girls risk undergoing the procedure, which involves removal of all or some of the external female genitalia.
There are currently as many as 3,000 girls in Finland who face the risk of being subjected to female genital mutilation or FGM, according to an analysis released by the National Institute for Health and Welfare on Friday.
The THL data indicate that more than 10,000 girls and women resident in Finland have undergone the procedure. FGM is mostly carried out on young girls between infancy and the age of 15, according to the World Health Organisation.
“In addition there are another estimated 650 to 3,000 girls living in Finland who are at risk of circumcision,” said THL specialist Mimmi Koukkula of the agency’s children and families unit. However she noted that officials do not believe girls have had the procedure carried out in Finland, rather they have been sent abroad for it.
“The large variation in [the estimate] comes from the assumption that members of second-generation [immigrant] groups are not circumcised or that circumcision is as common [in this group] as in the previous generation in the country of origin,” Koukkula added.
According to the Finnish League for Human Rights FGM is practiced in many African countries, as well as in parts of the Middle East and Asia. As a result of migration, the custom has spread to countries where it was not previously practiced.
The NGO said that the majority of FGM cases in Finland occur among communities originally from Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Kurdish regions.
Important to grasp scope of problem
So far, Finnish authorities have not systematically gathered any data on FGM on women and girls in the country.
“However we need to gather data because it is important to recognise the scope of the phenomenon in order to address it,” Koukkula noted.
Finland has attempted to improve data gathering by measures such as adding a section in maternal health care cards asking whether the expectant mother’s genitals have been circumcised.
“So we ask pregnant women about this in the maternity clinic and the information on the card is also passed on to the maternity hospital. The hospital collects information about the mothers who have been circumcised and who have had an FGM reversal into a database,” Koukkula explained.
https://yle.fi/uutiset/osasto/news/thl_10000_girls_and_women_in_finland_have_undergone_fgm/10523428
沒有留言:
發佈留言