FGM in Switzerland: between legality and loyalty in the transmission of a traditional practice

Abstract

ABSTRACTExcision and infibulations, otherwise known as ‘female genital mutilation (FGM)’, is recognised internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. The population affected by FGM in Switzerland is young and characterised by a first-generation migratory background. It is estimated around 14,700 women affected by excision or infibulation live in Switzerland. In 2012, a specific law against FGM was approved and the Criminal Code amended to include excision or infibulation as a crime (article 124), testifying to the Swiss government’s strong political commitment to eliminating FGM. Our study looked into this political context and the current public policy agenda with the aim to better understand the specific logic of the intergenerational transmission of FGM. In particular, this article discusses the reasons invoked by women concerning such a transmission, their attitudes about the new generation of daughters and their demands on what it is possible to do, in the present, to recover and to go forward after FGM.