250 million girls are at risk of female genital mutilation. The 6th of February, marks the international day against this practice. A day dedicated to raising public awareness against FGM, considered in Spain as gender violence. A scourge that is still practised in around 30 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East and, according to estimates by the World Health Organisation (WHO), more than 30 million girls around the world are at risk of undergoing it in the next decade. The television programme ‘Mijas hoy’ covered this problem on Monday.   To talk about it, Mónica López interviewed the councillor for Equality and Diversity of the Mijas Town Hall, Natalia Martínez (PSOE), and the trainer and worker of the NGO Rescate, Viki Hidalgo. According to the councillor, “it is a day that everyone should know about because it is an aberrant practice that takes the lives of girls and women and, therefore, we should not doubt that gender inequality manifests itself in such aberrant practices as this”. Hidalgo explained that “to put it in context, according to the WHO, female genital mutilation known as cutting, or ablation, consists of cutting all or part of the vulva. For the communities that practice it, this would be a rite of passage, but from a human rights perspective, we clearly see that the objective is to control the sexuality of women and girls. This practice is usually performed when girls are between 10 and 15 years old for different reasons such as religion, health beliefs and, above all, to control female sexual desire. A violation of human rights The NGO ‘Rescate’ is a Spanish non-profit association dedicated since 1960 to assisting refugees, victims of conflicts, violence and natural disasters in their countries of origin and destination, paying special attention to the most vulnerable, women and children. The instructor said that “the practice in itself implies a risk to life itself, but not only that, these women will su- ffer permanent pain, recurrent urinary infections or different types of scarring that involve a lot of discomfort when it is time to have sexual relations again”. For all these reasons, the United Nations considers it a violation of human rights, which is why the Sustainable Development Goals and the 2030 Agenda specifically include recommendations on its eradication, among other legislation. In this regard, Hidalgo said that “there are many affected countries that already criminalise it. It is inclu ded either in their constitution or in a specific law, but there are other countries that still allow it, as they do not have legislation in this regard, such as Cameroon, Indonesia, Liberia, Maldives, Mali and Somalia”. Mijas Town Hall Campaign The Mijas Town Hall also continues to work for this type of causes, so to conclude, the councillor said that “this campaign reaches the schools, mainly high schools, because we want to continue to raise awareness among our young people that this is a reality and that they know that it exists in some parts of the world and that, in the end, we have to fight for all of them, She added that “although in Spain there is no official data on this practice, it is true that families of migrants who live here go to their countries of origin on holiday and take the opportunity to carry this out on their girls”.

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