There are calls for increased data collection on the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Australia after a court upheld a travel ban on a migrant family in New South Wales.
It comes after reports the unnamed family was refused permission to leave Australia with their young daughter after NSW Police ‘covertly’ recorded a conversation between family members that appeared to suggest the girl was about to be taken abroad for female genital mutilation.
The unidentified couple, both born overseas, reportedly arrived in Australia 10 years ago.
The Australian reports the family had been fighting the ban on leaving the country since 2014, after the birth of their second child, a daughter, and returned to court last Monday seeking permission to travel abroad for a family wedding.
The husband and wife are said to have denied the claims from the translated transcript of the recorded conversation, saying, they were talking about a friend’s daughter.
In a statement to SBS World News, the Department of Family and Community Services (FACS) said it “sought a Family Law Watch List order [travel ban] in relation to this family in November 2014 to protect the child from the risk of being taken overseas and being subject to female genital mutilation”.
“Since that time, FACS have been working with the family in an attempt to address this risk. In July 2017, FACS conducted a further risk assessment and concluded that the risk of the parents subjecting their daughter to female genital mutilation was now low and there was no danger of this occurring.”
The statement further outlined FACS’s views on the travel ban.
“In deciding to support the family’s request for the court to lift the travel ban, FACS also considered the decision of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions not to prosecute the parents in relation to female genital mutilation.”
“Ultimately however the court refused the application to have the Family Law Watch List order discharged. So the travel ban remains in place.”
In March 2016, three people - a retired nurse, a mother of two girls and a Dawoodi Bohra community leader - were each sentenced to a maximum 15 months in prison after Australia’s first criminal prosecution for female genital mutilation.
More data collection needed
“FGM is recognised as a form of child abuse under the law,” said Associate Professor Yvonne Zurynski, from the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit at University of Sydney and the Childrens’ Hospital at Westmead.
She cites a study from earlier this year which showed that 59 girls, between five months and 18 years, had undergone female genital mutilation in a four year period to 2014.
“Most of the children were born overseas, but interestingly there was one child who was born in Australia but the FGM had occurred in Indonesia, so that child had been taken out of Australia and had FGM performed in Indonesia.”
“We don’t have ongoing data collection on this and there’s no funding to collect that sort of data. So we really don’t know what the scope of the problem is. For instance, in the UK, there’s a data collection through the NHS and the data are available publicly but we certainly don’t have that sort of data in Australia.”
Yvonne Zurynski says they surveyed paediatricians across Australia, “but of course, not every child with FGM is going to present to a paediatrician. There may be other cases where children are seen by general practitioners or other medical professionals, and we simply don’t know how many children in Australia have undergone FGM.”
“Doctors, in a sensitive way, need to be working with families but they also need to contact child protection authorities when they see a case,” she said.
Crimes Act
In a statement, NSW Police said, “The State Crime Command’s Sex Crimes Squad has detectives specially trained in the cultural and religious sensitivities of the issue to investigate reports of female genital mutilation.”
“These detectives work collaboratively with other government agencies, including Family and Community Services (FACS) and NSW Health, and a range of non-government agencies and support services.
“Uner the Crimes Act 1900, Section 45, it is an offence for a person to excise, infibulate, or otherwise mutilate the whole or any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person.”
A person can also be charged if they aid, abet, counsel, or procure a person to perform any of those acts on another person. This includes arranging to travel overseas for the procedure.
The maximum penalty for this offence is 21 years imprisonment.