Rolleiv Solholm
Monday, June 25, 2007
The Department of Justice has called the Public Prosecutor, the Director of Police and the Oslo Police to an urgent meeting at short notice this week to discuss the ongoing practice of sexual mutilation of girls with immigrant background. (Photo: Justice Minister Knut Storberget)
The meeting has been called after public broadcaster NRK TVNews aired shocking reports this weekend, showing that a large number of Norwegian-Somali girls have been sexually mutilated in their parents' homeland over the past three years.
In Norway, sexual mutilation of children has been a crime since January 1996, also if the operation is performed abroad. However, so far no one has been sentenced for such a crime.
The aim of the urgent meeting this week is to find ot if the police could be able to to do more in order to prevent parents from from sending their children abroad to be sexually mutilated, and prosecute those who do.
Opposition MPs have demanded that health personnel who discover cases where sexual mutilation has been carried out, will have an obligation to submit reports.
Family Minister Karita Bekkemellem says the Government will soon submit a plan of action on how to prevent the practice.
School vacation has just started in Norway, and the authorities fear that some parents have already planned to have their daughters sexually mutilated while on vacation in their homeland.
(NRK)
Source: Norway Post, June 25, 2007