Review article
FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION: MANIFESTATIONS, MEDICAL FEATURES AND REGULATION WITHIN THE SCOPE OF THE CRIMINAL LAW
Barbara Herceg Pakšić
; Faculty of Law, Osijek
Eugen Jakopović
Abstract
Evoking a response to genital mutilation on women and girls and implementing applicable laws and regulations are complex challenges with a multicultural background. It is a particularly sensitive issue with controversial cultural features standing in the way to existing human rights standards. Critical reviews of this phenomenon refer to interpretation of female genital mutilation as a means of social control over women in societies that are highly patriarchal and patrilineal. The paper deals with manifestations, etiology, medical and psychological consequences for the victims as well as with legal regulations of female genital mutilation worldwide and in the Republic of Croatia. There are two facts that contributed to the contemporariness of the issue: firstly, the Criminal Code has introduced a definition of a new criminal offense to prohibit female genital mutilation and secondly, the fact that Croatian criminal legal theory has not dealt with this topic so far. For this purpose, the paper researches on categorization of genital mutilation act, states medical consequences of such practices, presents regulations within criminal law in different countries, and in the end discusses the appropriate response to this phenomenon in the Croatian Criminal Code as well as suggests changes regarding existing incrimination.
Keywords
female genital mutilation; medical consequences FGM; regulation within the scope of the criminal law
Hrčak ID:
147841
URI
Publication date:
30.8.2015.
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