The practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has severe health consequences for girls and women and is not only performed in far-away countries: at least 500.000 women and girls in Europe are living with FGM and an estimated 180.000 girls are at risk. Although FGM has been shown to have many harmful effects, both physical and emotional, the practice is sustained by tradition and carried out for non-medical reasons, constituting an extreme example of discrimination based on sex.

The European Parliament today urged the United Nations to call for a ban on FGM at its next General Assembly session. "Ending FGM strengthens the decisive battle for human rights worldwide", says Renate Weber (PNL, Romania), ALDE coordinator of the Civil Liberties Committee and one of the initiators of the European Parliament resolution. “A United Nations General Assembly resolution to ban FGM worldwide would step up the international community’s universal condemnation of this violation of fundamental rights. It will strengthen comprehensive legislation and should provide for effective sanctions against perpetrators performing the practice. "

Izaskun Bilbao Barandica (Partido Nacionalista Vasco, Spain), ALDE member of the Committee on Women's rights and Gender Equality stresses the importance of education: "An important means to prevent female genital mutilation is to empower girls and women by awareness-raising programmes. People who defend the practice of FGM base their belief on superstition and tradition, instead of facts. The myths they spread should be fought with knowledge and evidence-based information. This is an absolute priority and should be focussed especially on the victims. Not a single woman in the world should believe that genital mutilation is acceptable."

ALDE specifically emphasises the need to support civil society, and in particular women's organisations, working within their communities to end violence against women, including female genital mutilation.

The European Parliament urges the UN General Assembly to adopt a resolution at its Sixty-seventh session starting in September 2012 to end female genital mutilation worldwide, as requested by the African Union Summit on 2 July 2011, and to criminalize the practice. Actions of Member States are to be harmonized by  providing recommendations and guidelines for the development and strengthening of regional and international legal instruments and national legislations.