Resolution on Female Genital Mutilations
Brussels 1999
The 49th Congress of Liberal International assembled at Brussels from 3rd until 5th March 1999,
1. Considering:
Female Genital Mutilation is practised in more than 40 countries all over the world; More than 135 Million women and girls are affected by FGM; FGM is a violation of Human Rights and a lifelong threat to women’s health and wellbeing.
2. Recalling:
The Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action adopted by the World Conference on Human Rights, held at Vienna from 14th to 25th June 1993 proclaimed that gender-based violence and all forms of sexual harassment and exploitation, including those resulting from cultural prejudice, are incompatible with the dignity and value of the human person and which stresses the importance of working towards the eradication of any conflicts which may arise between the rights of women and the harmful effects of certain traditional or customary practices;
The Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development, which calls upon Governments and communities to urgently take steps to stop the practice of female genital mutilation and to protect women and girls from all such similar dangerous practices;
The Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, adopted by the Fourth World Conference on Women, which, inter alia, calls upon Governments to enact and enforce legislation against the perpetrators of practices and acts of violence against women, such as female genital mutilation, female infanticide, prenatal sex selection and dowry-related violence, and to give vigorous support to the efforts of nongovernmental and community organizations to eliminate such practices;
The joint statement by the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the United Nations Population Fund on female genital mutilation, which expresses a common purpose in supporting the efforts of Governments and communities to promote and protect the health and development of women and children by promoting awareness of the problem and by educating the public, health workers and those who carry out the practice, on all its health consequences. The Congress approves the courageous measures taken by Burkina Faso consisting in severely punishing in one hand the authors and accomplices of sexual mutilations but also any person who had been witness of such crimes without denouncing it to the entitled authority, and in the other hand in implementing institutions in charge of invigilation, raising awareness and supervising women exposed to such practices.
3. Urging:
To implement conscientiously the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women; the Nairobi Document Forward Looking Strategies for the Advancement of Women from the 3rd (1985) UN Conference on Women, plus the Beijing Declaration and the document Platform for Action from the 4th UN World Conference on Women.
The threat of FGM towards women should be accepted as a reason for granted asylum as this has been the case in the USA, Canada and other countries; Women who try to protect their daughters from the threat of FGM should be accepted as refugees, as this has been proposed by the High Commissioner of Refugees in a letter to the British Centre for Refugees, dated 8th July 1994.
