Submission of GREVIO Joint Shadow Reports: Cyprus and Switzerland

08/07/2021

Together with our Cypriot member, the Mediterranean Institute of Gender Studies (MIGS), and our Swiss member, the Network against FGC Switzerland, we have submitted two shadow reports to GREVIO, in order to highlight the current situation and propose concrete recommendations on the issue of prevention, protection, prosecution and integrated policies on female genital mutilation in Cyprus.

Read the report on Cyprus and Switzerland.

While this report focuses only on the harmful practice of FGM, its aim is not to single it out in isolation, but to put emphasis on it while placing it within the continuum of gender-based violence against women and girls.

These reports represent a chapter of a wider coordinated effort of End FGM EU to engage all its members who are under GREVIO revision to present an FGM-focused report in order to bring to the experts’ attention the topic, which is too often neglected by State authorities. This project also stems from the Guide on the Istanbul Convention as a tool to end female genital mutilation, which was produced by the Amnesty International End FGM European Campaign (the predecessor of End FGM EU) and the Council of Europe. It puts in practice the Guide’s holistic approach by considering its full application to FGM as a form of violence against women and girls.

Photo credit: Council of Europe https://www.coe.int/en/web/istanbul-convention/10th-anniversary

Background information

The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence (known as the “Istanbul Convention”) is the first legally binding instrument recognising that FGM is also a European issue. It is shaped around the "four Ps approach" (prevention, protection, prosecution and integrated policies) to end violence against women and includes a specific Article (38) on criminalisation of FGM.

In order to ensure that correct national implementation is being independently monitored, the Istanbul Convention established the Group of Experts on Action against Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (GREVIO), a monitoring body which undertakes periodic revision of State Parties to the Convention.