EU offers asylum to cut victims
By NATION Team and Agencies

Wednesday, December 13, 2000

Women who flee East Africa to escape circumcision may soon be eligible for asylum in the European Union.

This follows the recent presentation to the European Parliament of a draft resolution denouncing Female Genital Mutilation.

It coincides with a proposal in the United States to grant asylum to women who cite domestic violence as their reason for fleeing home.

Already, 318 of the European Union Parliament's 626 member states have appended their signatures to the document.

The draft resolution follows years of a campaign to lobby Europe into protecting women - mostly from the Third World - who choose to denounce the practice.

As many as two million girls are said to be at risk of female genital mutilation each year and it is still practised in 28 countries across Africa, although several of these have outlawed the practice.

A number of countries have banned FGM in the last two years, including Tanzania, Cote D'Ivoire, Togo and Senegal, but it is still widespread in Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan.

Speaking to participants at an International Day Against FGM at the EU Parliament in Brussels, Belgium, EU Humanitarian Aid Commissioner, Emma Bonino said the practice was going on within the EU, with Britain having the highest rate at 13,000 operations per year.

"We may consider making aid to recipient countries contingent on their commitment to fight the practice," said Ms Bonino.

In a related development, a local school which provides a safe haven for young girls threatened with forced marriage and female circumcision recently won praise from a British newspaper.

Kajiado AIC primary girls school, 65 kms south of Nairobi gives young girls who run away from home when threatened with forced marriages both a bed and education.