If hitherto the EU’s official position on the practice of genital mutilations (a phenomenon that involves almost 150 million women worldwide) was one of opposition, but predicated solely on the need to safeguard reproductive health, now Brussels intends to go one step further and classify infibulation and excision practised on the female genital organs as actual violations of human rights. The change of policy also supported by the NGO “no peace without justice” forms part of the intention declared by the Commission’s senior representatives for policies for the development of the poor countries to increase the budgetary allocations to combat such practices, closer to the European citizen that might be thought in view of the fact that they also form the rule within some communities of immigrants. The Maputo Protocol for the rights of African women, signed in 2003, provided for a ban on “all damaging traditional practices”: of the 28 African states that practice genital mutilations, only four, however, have so far ratified the Protocol. For further information: http://www.npwj.org/?q=taxonomy_menu/1/13
