In Europe, up to 80% of girls from the High risk-groups are being subjected to Female Genital Mutilation. These crimes only come to light whithin regular medical check ups. But if – like in Sweden – such cases are not being reported to the police and the perpetrating parents remain free, they are being encouraged to continue with these crimes

…and no protection of potential victims

In the Swedish town Norrköping, all 30 girls of a learning group have been subjected to Female Gentital Mutilation, as the Newspaper Norrköpings Tidningar reported at the end of June. All victims are members of immigrant families – mostly from Somalia – and have been mutilated in the worst possible way that includes the complete removal of the external Genitalia and the Sewing of the vaginal opening.

These crimes came to light within a pilot project for which Norrköping has been chosen to be the sample city and which includes the medical examination of girls at school. Since March, more than 60 cases of Female Genital Mutilation among minor girls have therefore been detected.

While it is obvious that regular medical controls of the girl’s intactness are the key to consistently identify the victims of FGM, these check ups are still not common in Sweden. Even more: In 2010, the Swedish municipality of Uppsala had been convicted by a federal court to pay 6.000,-€ compensation for prompting the examination of a girl against the will of her parents due to the suspicion of Female Genital Mutilation. The court judged this as a “discriminatory act”…

NO criminal complaint – NO prosecution of the perpetrators – NO protection of potential victims

Sweden has been the first country in Europe to explicitly criminalise Female Genital Mutilation (1982) and to inflict a penalty of up to ten years in prison in case of infringement. But in fact, the perpetrators have been allowed until now to mutilate their daughters without fearing any prosecution.

Even those 60 proven cases in Norrköping will not interrupt this inglorious tradition of letting the perpetrators go unpunished:

As the local police and the state attorney confirmed us, the relevant authorities did not press charges after detecting the girls being victims of FGM. For the police, it is therefore impossible to run the necessary investigations which could lead to appropriate court proceedings against the parents because of the instigation of a severe crime against their daughters.

There are two authorities responsible for this failure. The first one is the School Health Service that discovered the mutilations. Its head, Monika Sannebrink, informed us that her Service merely reported the cases to the Social Service – but she is not willing or not able to explain why she did not report to the police as well. (mehr …)