"Female genital mutilation" in Europe: Public discourse versus empirical evidence

Abstract

Media often report about circumcision of girls, or ‘female genital mutilation’ (FGM), in ways that present this practice as a burning social problem, albeit secretively performed among African immigrants in Europe. In this paper we discuss the construction of FGM as a widespread social problem in Europe. We contrast the public discourse on FGM with empirical data on FGM criminal court cases in Europe in order to see to what extent the public discourse agrees with evidence. We conclude that there is a discrepancy between public discourse and media representations, on one hand, and empirical evidence, on the other. We suggest that the scarcity of criminal court cases in Europe to a large extent can be explained by processes of cultural change after migration. Further, we emphasise the importance of access to context-specific knowledge during court proceedings in FGM cases.