If I travel to another country and engage in an activity that is illegal there’s a good change I’m going to face some sort of penalty if I’m caught.

Here in Australia, commit the illegal act of female genital mutilation (also known as female circumcision), and we’ll not only excuse you – we’ll discuss modifying our laws to try and offer you a government sanctioned legal option.

Female genital mutilation is a practice routinely associated with Islamic cultures despite the practice having no religious significance.

Typically the procedure involves cutting and/or the removal or mutilation of the clitoral area of a woman’s vagina. This ranges from cutting out the clitoris to the extreme act of cutting out anything exterior and sewing up the area leaving only a small hole for urine and menstrual blood to pass through.

Needless to say this practice is banned in Australia however recently an idea to combat illegal ‘backyard’ procedures was set to be floated by the The Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians in June.

The idea is that female genital mutilation is going to occur in Australia anyway due to rampant immigration from regions where it is widely practiced.

To counter this a ‘ritual nick’ could be offered in a clinical setting to satisfy the cultural requirements of those wanting to engage in the practice.

RANZCOG secretary Gino Pecoraro said the policy would be discussed at next month’s Women’s Health Committee meeting.

“We will need to start to think about [its introduction] but we would have to speak to community leaders from Australia,” Dr Pecoraro said.

“If a nick could meet the cultural needs of a particular woman, then it might save her from going through what can really be drastic surgery.


What gets me is that we already have a method for saving
women from going through this ‘drastic surgery’. It’s called the law.

The motivation behind the proposed discussion of the alternative procedure is that

with the rise in Somali and Sudanese numbers in Australia, doctors are seeing more cases of young girls, and women, needing surgery after illegal operations.


This of course begs the obvious question of why the bloody hell haven’t these girls been placed into state custody and their parents arrested for child abuse?

Female mutilation is illegal in Australia and due to the age of the girls involved, parental permission must be sanctioned in order for the procedure to take place. This is regardless of whether it’s done via a backyard operation or clinical environment.

If parents bring their daughter to an Australian clinic or hospital post botched mutilation procedure then why don’t we have policy in place to deal with the situation legally?

As far as I’m aware nobody in Australia to date has been put up on charges for conducting female genital mutilation yet doctors are seeing more cases of it?

Something doesn’t add up.

Instead of bowing to hazardous unnecessary procedures why don’t we try enforcing our existing laws for a change. Sanctioning female genital mutilation is going to get us nowhere.

Proponents of the practice would argue that by allowing doctors to perform a relatively harmless nick lives would be saved. However we all know what happens once you leave the door to this sort of practice slightly ajar.

Does anybody really think that people would be running around completely disfiguring baby girl’s clitoral areas if all that was required to appease their cultural practice was a mere nip of the area?

Offer ritual nicks and it won’t be long before people are demanding government sanctioned legal ‘proper’ mutilation procedures on the grounds of cultural tolerance.

I acknowledge there’s also the potential issue of a crackdown leading to the eventual death of a child because the parents were fearful of legal repercussions of seeking medical attention. In answer to this I say roll out the murder charges.

One or two people being locked away for killing their daughter and the negative publicity this generates should be enough to largely curb the practice.

Part of the problem now is you can rock up to a hospital and despite having clearly performed the practice here in Australia, hide behind cultural sensitivity and have the Australian health system fix your mistakes.

This needs to change.

Present to a hospital with a gunshot wound and the police are called. Present with a female baby or child with severe clitoral trauma and it’s high time some hard hitting questions were asked of the parents.

The Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians’ proposed discussion on the issue appears to have been prompted by a recent American Academy of Pediatrics policy statement.

The policy statement was released in April and stated that

some physicians should be able to prick or nick a girl’s clitoral skin in order to “satisfy cultural requirements.” The group likened the nick to an ear piercing.


Following criticism from US advocacy groups and survivors of female genital cutting, the policy statement was rescinded on May 27th;

On Thursday the AAP stated the group will not condone doctors to provide any kind of “clitoral nick.”


Shortly after this announcement, the Royal Australian New Zealand College of Obstetricians’ also clarified their position on the matter;

The college for Australia’s obstetricians and gynaecologists says it does not support the “ritual nicking” of young Muslim girls and anyone suspected of performing such genital mutilation should be reported to authorities.

Dr Ted Weaver, president of the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RANZCOG), said media reports suggesting the college would review its policy were the result of a misquote.

He said the issue was likely to be discussed at a meeting next month, triggered by recent announcements made by the American Academy of Pediatrics, but a policy shift was not on the agenda.

“The college does not support – does not – support female genital mutilation, full-stop,” Dr Weaver said.


Although I find it hard to misinterpret the quote provided from Mr. Pecoraro above, ‘‘, I’m nonetheless glad to hear that a policy change is off the table.

As far as I’m concerned the only discussion that needs to be held on this topic is why aren’t people being arrested for child abuse?

Of course the answer’s quite simple. With most of the proponents for female genital mutilation in Australia coming from minority cultures in the third world, it’s a PR disaster for any government to uphold the law.

Regardless, cultural tolerance only goes so far. If you want to come to Australia and bring with you cultural practices that have already been established as illegal here, then you deserve wholly any legal repercussions. If this means splitting up families then too bad.

Female genital mutilation is child abuse. Period.

How about we stop ‘discussing‘ the matter and enforcing our laws for a change.



Related posts that might interest you:
  1. Are female passengers in danger on Taipei’s MRT?
  2. Senator Bernadi pushes for a burqa ban in Australia