05/12/2008 Equality and Non-Discrimination
Strasbourg, 05.12.2008 – Council of Europe countries should do much more to help girls, mostly from immigrant communities, who are forced by their families to return to their countries of origin to be “forcibly married, circumcised or enslaved”, according to a draft report of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (PACE) approved today.
Antigoni Papadopoulos (Cyprus, ALDE), who prepared the report for PACE’s Committee on Equal Opportunities, pointed out that women from Hindu, Sikh and Muslim communities were particularly at risk, where “maintaining family honour or ancestral customs” sometimes took precedence over human rights.
Women could be forcibly returned by their families to enter into a forced marriage, to undergo genital mutilation or to be “resocialised” in accordance with their parents’ more traditional values, she said.
“Member states have a duty to do everything in their power to prevent and combat these practices and protect victims,” Mrs Papadopoulos said. “PACE has urged Council of Europe governments to agree a convention to outlaw the most serious forms of violence against women, including forced marriages. Now they need to act on this.”
In the draft report, PACE’s Committee on Equal Opportunities called for consular staff in third countries to “facilitate the return” of abducted girls by working with the authorities in the third country and local NGOs.
Mrs Papadopoulos cited the case of Fatoumata, a pupil at a lycée in France whose family kept her against her will in Senegal because they could not tolerate her associating with a young man who was not Senegalese or a Muslim. The girl’s school raised the alert, and the combined efforts of French and Senegalese authorities eventually led to her return to France.
Mrs Papadopoulos made a two-day visit to Morocco as part of her preparation for the report, where she met the Minister of Social Development, Family and Solidarity and other officials, and the consular staff in Rabat from twelve Council of Europe countries, as well as NGOs. She also prepared a questionnaire for parliamentary delegations in order to focus on the countries most affected by this problem.
The draft report is due to be debated by the Assembly during its April 2009 plenary session.
Draft resolution and recommendation (provisional version)
Contact: Angus Macdonald, PACE Communication Unit, tel. +33 6 30 49 68 20