Koenders spreekt op de conferentie geweld tegen meisjes (Engels)
Gelegenheid:Inleiding
Ladies and gentlemen,
You have just seen a short film of an impressive visit I paid last week to a health centre in Mali, a country that still hasn’t banned female genital mutilation. Supported by Dutch development cooperation, this centre is running a highly effective campaign against female circumcision. During my visit, I was informed at length about the way the campaign is being organised. The volunteers told me why the campaign is so important. They are now planning to take it to even the smallest villages in Mali.
During my visit to Mali, I talked frankly about female genital mutilation with the President, and with ministers and state secretaries. I also listened to people in the community. They explained how the practice of circumcision is taken for granted, how the tradition is passed on from mother to daughter. That circumcision is part of growing up. They also said that very few people dared to question the need for the ritual. The issue is totally off limits.
But the information and activities campaign run by volunteers and students breaks through the taboo. Using wooden models and plays, people are informed about the enormous health risks attached to circumcision. Risks many parents have never heard of – to their daughters' lives, their sense of enjoyment and future well-being.
Ladies and gentlemen,
The film shows that the issue of circumcision is highly complicated. It is cruel, a threat to health and a direct violation of women’s rights. Parents’ decision to have their daughters circumcised is informed by both individual and collective considerations. Collective in the sense that in communities where circumcision is practised, there is considerable social pressure on parents to have their daughters circumcised. Those who refuse to take part in the ritual face exclusion and discrimination. But the issue is also strictly individual. Every parent wants the best for their children. And because most Malians believe that circumcision is the key to the future happiness of their daughters, they have the ritual performed on them. Girls who are not circumcised will never find a husband. In Mali, this means that they have no future.
I spoke to fathers who did not want their women to be unhappy or suffer illness; I spoke to women who for years had been circumcisers, but were now opposed to the practice on principle: these are the best ambassadors in the campaign against female genital mutilation.
The campaign in Mali aims to persuade both individual men and women and communities as a whole to decide collectively to abandon the practice of circumcision. Because genuine change is only possible if the entire community puts a stop to it. This can be a successful strategy.
This is what happened in Senegal. In 1997 a group of women from the village of Malicounda Bambara called for an end to the practice of female circumcision. They had followed a course run by an NGO. In human rights workshops they learned about the right to health and the right to freedom from all forms of violence. They discussed their own responsibility in this matter at a very practical level. They saw examples of the irreparable damage circumcision does to the female body, and the mental distress it causes.
So there was change.
How could they have believed all that time that this physical mutilation was a necessary evil, a justifiable and essential part of growing up?
Through the media, they unleashed a veritable revolution; following the example set in Malicounda Bambara, villages all over Senegal decided to collectively abandon the practice of female circumcision. Since then more than 3000 Senegalese villages, 300 villages in Guinea and 23 communities in Burkina Faso have joined them. And some 5000 communities in Senegal have also abolished early marriages. This is an enormous success.
Malicounda Bambara has shown us that change is possible. Information and education can lead to the establishment of a new norm. A norm that ensures that parents make different individual decisions. The change in mentality needed for this to happen starts with the people in the villages where female circumcision is accepted practice.
I am convinced that the community approach is one of the most effective ways to put an end to what are euphemistically referred to as harmful traditional practices. They include female circumcision, early marriages, son preference and honour crimes.
The western world should not be overtly arrogant about this. It cannot bring about this cultural sea change. But the international community can lend a helping hand. I am certain of that. For example, by actively supporting local groups, so that they can put the prevailing norms and values in their own community up for discussion with the help of teaching materials, posters and campaigns.
It is essential that traditional and religious leaders play their part in bringing about this change of mentality. If they condemn harmful traditional practices, the community listens to them. It is important that they tell the community that the Koran does not require female circumcision. A good example here is the Sudanese Sheikh Ali al Hashim al Siraj. He has campaigned for the past twenty years against female circumcision. He has even written a book about it – Circumcision: Killing Girls Alive. And he has sparked discussion on the issue. We are working closely together with him and other religious leaders.
But it is even more important that legislation in the countries concerned discourage harmful traditional practices. Unfortunately, national governments are still doing too little.
As I mentioned before, Mali is the only country in the region with no legislation banning female circumcision. That is a serious problem, because mothers and grandmothers from neighbouring countries are bringing girls to Mali to have them circumcised. This is of course unacceptable, and I discussed the matter with Mali’s President Touré during my visit there. It was important, he said, to break through the taboo that surrounds the subject. I told him that he could count on my support, and that I object to circumcision on principle.
Ladies and gentlemen, for years the Netherlands has been fighting to improve the position of women, and to safeguard their sexual and reproductive health and rights. I have set aside 1.5 million euros from the Pact of Schokland’s MDG-3 fund for the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices (IAC). The Committee is active in 28 countries. Thanks to its efforts legislation against female genital mutilation has now been introduced in 16 countries. Dutch embassies in Burkina Faso, Benin, Mali, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Uganda, Egypt, Sudan and Yemen are working to combat female circumcision.
The Netherlands is doing everything it can to put gender equality on the global agenda. But we are a small country. We cannot change the world alone. That is why we are holding this conference. To draft targeted action plans, together.
For example, together we could invest in setting up a proper global registration system. Registering births is vitally important in preventing violence against women and girls. This is one of the most important recommendations made in Professor Pinheiro’s study. Because women and girls are lost if you have no means of proving they exist. They have no rights – like the right to education from the age of seven, and the right not to marry until they are eighteen.
Since the beginning of 2006 the Netherlands has been financing a UNICEF project in Mozambique which aims to eliminate the backlog in registering the birth of young children and new-borns, and to establish a permanent registration system in African countries. The embassy came up with the idea of setting up mobile brigades. The brigades travel from district to district, by bus, on foot, or even by hitchhiking, registering new-born children. When they started only ten per cent of children were registered; 70 per cent are now recorded in the system.
So, this is a very successful project that should be rolled out in many more places. Tailor-made, of course. Registering children also gives them access to healthcare services and legal protection. In short, it is an investment that ticks a number of important boxes. And, the key to success is: close cooperation between all parties, worldwide.
Ladies and gentlemen,
One of my policy priorities is equal rights and opportunities for women, MDG 3. The theme of this international conference is Violence against the Girl Child. Equal opportunities for girls and women begin with equal rights to physical security, first and foremost in the home.
I am looking for non-repressive means of securing opportunities for girls and women and ensuring their safety. What I mean is an approach like the one adopted in Senegal. A respectful approach that enables people to draw their own conclusions about female circumcision, and lead their own opposition to it.
I would like to see a world in which female circumcision and other harmful traditional practices no longer occur because parents no longer support them.
And I hope that, in the near future, Asian parents will be as happy with the birth of a daughter as they are with the birth of a son. Because they know that a girl’s life is just as valuable as a boy’s.
Ladies and gentlemen,
I started my speech today by looking at the situation of women in Mali. I was in Mali last week, and what I saw and experienced there is still fresh in my memory. But that doesn’t mean to say that I have lost sight of the many other forms of violence against girls and women.
- In East Congo, for instance, where rape is used as a weapon of war. Where soldiers humiliate the enemy by raping their women and children, scarring them both mentally and physically.
- And in Afghanistan, where childbirth is literally a matter of life and death – a certain kind of violence, one could argue: 1800 women between the ages of 15 and 45 die during pregnancy or in childbirth out of one hundred thousand newborns. In the Netherlands the figure is six.
- And in Guatemala, where a massive amount murders takes place leaving more than 6000 people dead annually, amongst whom a great number of women. And where women and girls are afraid to go to the police station to report abuse because they know that most policemen look down on women, and won't even register their complaint.
As long as girls and women are the victims of violence, whatever form it takes, there is still work for us to do. You can rest assured that the Dutch government will do everything in its power to combat these abuses, whether through development cooperation or other means.
I hope there will be time to explore this subject during the workshops today. We have seen how successful the community approach has been in various developing countries. As far as I am concerned, this approach should serve as a model for combating female genital mutilation among migrant groups in Europe. I sincerely believe it to be vital that a collective aversion to the practice grow among these groups too.
Wouldn’t it be great if Amsterdam’s entire Somali community were to sign a declaration condemning female circumcision? We should enter into dialogue with this group, and learn from innovative methods used in Africa itself – development cooperation in reverse, as it were.
A good example of development cooperation in reverse is the Senegalese organisation Tostan, representatives of which are here today, I believe. This organisation uses text messages to give people information and to persuade them not to have their girls circumcised. The organisation wants to extend the texting network to migrants in Europe, and opened an office in Paris last year. I wholeheartedly welcome initiatives like this.
Of course, this does not mean to say that we shouldn’t tighten up legislation and monitoring. But in preventing female genital mutilation, I am convinced that non-repressive measures are often the most effective.
My aim is that a Sudanese mother living in Rotterdam who is now convinced that female circumcision is wrong is able to withstand pressure from her family. So that there is no need to enter into a contract with her to ensure that she will not have her daughter circumcised on her next visit to her family in Sudan. Because she wasn’t even planning to have the ritual performed.
Professor Pinheiro made 12 recommendations in his report, providing plenty of food for thought. I very much look forward to seeing the plans you come up with today.
Real change can only come from within. It must be rooted in the communities themselves. Because the community sets the norm. The drive towards equal opportunities is already under way in communities all over the world. And we should respond directly to that. Internationally, political commitment to fighting violence against women and girls has never been greater. Let us act together, now!
Our common goal is to make sure women and girls all over the world have a decent life. Now and in the future. And to ensure that they get as many opportunities as their male counterparts. I have made the commitment, and I call on you to follow suit. Violence against girls is a crime, and we need to fight it together.
Let’s get to work.
Thank you.