Female genital mutilation in France
Colette Gallard, family planning counsellor French Family Planning
Association 4 Irénée Square 75011 Paris France
The French Family Planning Association first protested to the World Health
Organisation in 1977 about its continuing silence concerning the genital
mutilation of girls in Africa and the Far East; that same year the French
delegate to the regional council of the Inter national Planned Parenthood
Federation brought the issue before its medical commission.
At the time, this protest was based more on feminist concern for the defence of
women's rights than on the family planning association's experience of female
genital mutilation; but over the next few years, with the arrival in France of
African immigrants' wives and families, mother and child protection centres and
family planning centres, where our members worked as counsellors, saw the
problem surface in a tangible way.
Some of these centres are in areas with high migrant populations, and coming face to face with the facts of female genital mutilation was often quite a
brutal experience. The social pressure of these traditions and their
psychological repercussions on women, as well as the physical damage inflicted,
were first brought home to me through seeing a happy, communicative little
Malian girl whom I had followed from birth, return from a "holiday" in Mali
rendered aphasic from shock (and needing several years of psychotherapy to
speak again); the traditions became very clear as I talked with her horrified
mother.
In France, in the family planning association as elsewhere, the first reaction
to the facts was to consider that westerners should not intervene in this
cultural issue. It was only after a long period of raising awareness among
medical and paramedical staff, magistrates, institutions, and the general
public that the problem began to be seen as something other than just an
example of folklore or a barbarous sign of under development.
Sadly, it took the death of two little girls in 1982 to bring the issue out
into the open and to oblige the authorities to take a stand on the perpetration
of these practices in France.
Methods of action
Action was undertaken in two main fields. Firstly, we aimed
at prevention. A paediatrician working at a mother and child protection unit
produced an information booklet on the different forms of female genital
mutilation and their medical consequences, particularly during labour.(ref 1)
This was for medical and paramedical staff and (a major priority) for
interpreters. Discussions were organised for the women who attended the
centres.
At the initiative of a working party set up by Yvette Roudy, minister for
women's rights, measures were proposed for information to be given through
French consulates to immigration candidates (generally men) and then, after
their arrival, through immigrant workers' associations by using leaflets and
illustrated material on general family legislation in France (non recognition
of polygamy, compulsory schooling, vaccinations, etc) as well as on the
prohibition of and punishment for female genital mutilation.
At the same time, hospital teams began studying the high incidence of caesarean
section among these women and the worrying fact that they sometimes refused,
despite difficult labour, to undergo such sections because of their fear of
having to restrict the number of their pregnancies afterwards.
The second method of action was penal repression. In France female genital
mutilation falls under Article 312 of the Penal Code: "grievous bodily harm to
a minor under 15"; but it was not until a white French woman mutilated her
daughter's sexual organs in a fit of dementia and was sentenced that female
genital mutilation of African girls too was accepted as grievous bodily harm by
the judicial system. Sentences can be from three months upwards in prison with
fines.
The first case came before court in 1982. At the request of African women's
associations the family planning association brought a civil suit; it was a
difficult decision to make for the association, whose activities are generally
educative and preventive rather than repressive. But the African women's
associations were afraid of losing credibility among their com patriots if they
were on opposite sides at court, and they pointed out that we would be racist
to accept female genital mutilation for black girls and not for white girls.
Since then, several cases have been before the courts, and sentences have been
passed on excisers as well as fathers-not, as previously, only on mothers.(ref
3)
Systems and scale
Today, ministries and public institutions feel directly involved. Prevention
kits (posters and leaflets) have recently been published and distributed by the
prefecture of the Ile de France as a result of the work of several
associations. Now used only in the Paris area, this material will soon be
available all over France.
Medical and social teams can and do report children at risk or who have
suffered female genital mutilation through the normal channels for cases of
child abuse; magistrates are increasingly prepared to take such cases
seriously. Priority aspects of care when a child appears at risk are support of
and information for the parents or mother, alerting school authorities when the
child is of school age, and avoiding "holidays" in the country of origin.
At the moment an estimated 100,000 immigrants live in the Paris region. This
figure is based on numbers of relevant immigrant residence permits for 1989.
Studies of national figures give 40 000 women and 14 000 young girls from
cultures practising female genital mutilation in France in 1989; the predicted
figure for girls in 1993 was 25 000.(ref 4)
If only half of these women are excised it can be said that 20000 women and
12500 girls living in France have either suffered female genital mutilation or
will do so. Of these, 90 per cent live in the Ile de France (Paris region);
most are from Mali, a few from Senegal.
In April 1994 I was present as the government funded representative of the
French family planning association at a conference organised at Addis Ababa by
the Inter-African Committee against Traditional Practices Harmful to Women's
and Children's Health. The French speaking states whose immigrants brought the
problem to France were among the 24 African states who manifested concern by
their presence. During the meeting they exchanged their experiences on means of
prevention of female genital mutilation, with the target of total eradication
for the year 2000.
I felt that this unanimous aim was the clearest demonstration of the progress
achieved through years of action and of intense effort to raise awareness in
the countries where female genital mutilation is carried out and among their
nationals living in France.