Kvinnelig omskjæring / kjønnslemlestelse i Norge

Action plans are used as a political tool to implement measures in priority areas. Over the past 20 years, Norway has initiated a total of six action plans against female genital mutilation (FGM). Based on document analysis of policy and measures, we find a clear shift in the measures from dialogue and rights to control and health care. Despite recommendations to integrate measures into the action plans against domestic violence, they remain as a separate focus area aimed at immigrant families.

How do health and refugee service-providers reflect and practice their duties to provide knowledge to newcomer from countries with high prevalence of female circumcision? How do they balance their duties and responsibilities between prevention, averting and health care? Based on interviews with 46 service providers, the chapter show a tendency of limited focus on healthcare, and that service providers often miss updated knowledge and professional support, particularly in small municipalities.

This chapter demonstrates how services like the police, the child protection services, and the medical system collaborate to avert and identify genital mutilation and find evidence strong enough to penalize those guilty when the procedure has been performed. The police experiences enormous challenges in order to get someone brought before the court. How to interpret signs that mutilation has been performed, or is about to be done? In addition, the child protection services efforts to avert genital mutilation has consequences that are experienced by the family as punishment by the system, even when no criminal act has taken place.

Legal rules set requirements for public administration’s handling of cases of female circumcision. The public administration has a duty to implement measures to prevent circumcision, and case processing shall take place in such a way that discriminatory considerations are not given weight. This chapter provides knowledge about the legal regulation, and analyses discrimination law issues related to the topic, particularly in light of the Anti-Discrimination Tribunals’ practice in such cases.

This article analyses reflections on female genital mutilation (FGM) among newly arrived young Somali women in Norway, who took part in a discussion group. When the young women talk about FGM, they make use of different interpretational repertoires; both those learned when growing up in Somalia, and new interpretational repertoires they learned in exile. We analyse changes in the way the young women view FGM after coming to Norway, and relatedly, their changing views on gender roles and sexuality.

Many teachers find it uncomfortable to talk about circumcision with young women from countries where the procedure is widespread. Following qualitative interviews with 21 young women with such backgrounds, it emerged that young women talk little about circumcision with friends and family, and many found thematizing the topic uncomfortable. This silence increases the need for knowledge, particularly for girls and women who have been exposed to the procedure.

What are the major changes in Somali-Norwegians relationship to female genital cutting, and what are the main hindrances? In a study we found negative attitudes to the practice, but still minimal engagement. We also found that most participants perceived the practice as dwindling, while they at the same time upheld many of the practices underlying values. Lasting abandonment of all forms of female genital cutting therefore demands broader input.

Why is it difficult to change attitudes towards female genital mutilation? What happens when a person is confronted with knowledge that contradicts the norms and traditions that the person internalized as a child? What inner resistance does new knowledge meet? Through descriptions of women’s experiences from seminars in Norway, we gain insight into how new knowledge about genital mutilation meets resistance and barriers, for so to be internalized on a deep mental level that changes entrenched attitudes.

This chapter presents a systematic review of 131 unique comparative primary studies about the consequences of FGC on the physical and psychological health of girls and women. The results show that many girls and women with FGC, especially those with the most extensive type, experience not just one, but several FGC-related acute and or chronic health problems from childhood and adolescence and into adulthood.

This chapter presents research-based knowledge from Norwegian studies about long term consequences of female genital mutilation. The results show a high incidence of gynecological complaints and pregnancy complications such as emergency caesarean section and severe birth tears. Specialized health care is offered; however, this is limited to gynecological examination and surgical deinfibulation. Attention is required to assure the availability of current health services for women across Norway, as well as an expansion of services to include pain management and psychosexual counselling.

This chapter highlights challenges to healthcare access faced by girls and women exposed to female genital cutting. Results indicate unmet psychological and sexual healthcare needs and that sexual norms heavily influence the acceptability of healthcare interventions. Lack of health competency, shame, communication difficulties, perceived powerlessness, and negative experiences with healthcare providers result in delayed access to appropriate services and long-term suffering.

This study explores the factors addressed in folk psychology in The Gambia for protecting the girl-child from the potential traumatic stress of female genital cutting (FGC). The type and quality of the psychological care was analyzed and compared with principles for crisis and trauma intervention. The event is placed in a meaningful system of understanding, and the stress is dealt with in a traditional way that to a great extent follows empirically based and evidence-based principles of crisis intervention.