Your Excellency, Vice President of the Republic of Kenya,
Honourable Ministers and Members of Parliament,
Excellencies,
Distinguished guests,
Dear friends and colleagues,
I feel greatly honoured to be part of the opening of this Conference on Female Genital Mutilation. Who, then, am I to address you on this topic, I hear you ask yourselves? I’m a European, middle aged, married, father of five. I have no contacts with FGM in my immediate surroundings. I have a good theoretical understanding of poverty, exclusion and discrimination, but I have no personal experiences of it: I’ve been privileged to be born into a well-off society with rather fair and equal relations between men and women, boys and girls. I’ve been able to influence my own life as well as the life of others for many, many years. So, my life and my reality are different from poor and mutilated women in almost all respects. However, ladies and gentlemen, those are my credentials for addressing you.
This conference is a sign of change – and brave women are behind it. These women have challenged power and traditions, they have stood up for their right to have a voice to decide over their own lives, they have decided to work for change in their communities. But their struggle has not ended there. They have worked beyond the borders of their communities through work with national legislation.
We sometimes think that the voice of women is too low or subdued and not heard among decision-makers and people forming public opinion. But here in this conference, you are loud. Please remain loud. Continue to break the Silence!
You are, in the true sense of the word, empowered. Empowerment, I am sure, will be an important topic for discussion during this conference.
But I want to turn the perspective a little. I want to talk about men, those who make most decisions in societies. If your dog is aggressive, you can tell your guests not to play with it. But you can also do something about the dog. Can we change the behaviour of the dog?
The big question then is: can we men listen to the voice of women? Can we create democratic space that includes women and girls?
If we cannot, there is no genuine democracy. If we can, we will be part of the process of changing the situation of women, not least challenging power relations between women and men. Democratic space is needed in families, communities as well as in political institutions, such as political parties, district councils and the Parliament. Such space will challenge traditions that counteract women’s own decisions. It will challenge men; therefore many men will resist it.
The perspective of men tends to be the perspective of the powerful. Far too often, mutual dignity and equal rights is rhetoric. What is needed is to change the role of men. And that should imply a change of perspective. Those with power have a responsibility towards their sisters and brothers; the responsibility not to exclude people because they are less vocal, have less money or less influence.
The starting point is that no one person is more important than another. If we can all agree on this, it becomes obvious that men and women in decision-making positions need to work together to internalise the principles of Human Rights in enforcement of laws and in the practice of governance.
But, the sceptic will say, this is no longer primarily a matter of legislation. It is about changing attitudes and culture, and we are often told that you cannot change culture, at least not in one generation.
It is true that it takes time to change attitudes and behaviour. But it is possible. Do you remember the weeks after President Kibaki’s landslide victory? A matatu was stopped by corrupt police officers, the driver paid the officers as he was used to do, but the passengers decided that enough is enough! Corruption doesn’t belong in the new Kenya. That was an example of changed behaviour. It came overnight.
Let me give you another example. Some 25 years ago, the Swedish Parliament passed a law prohibiting corporal punishment, a habit that goes back thousands of years. When the law was passed, many people protested. Ten or fifteen years later, almost no one in Sweden would accept the idea of physically harming children as a means of child upbringing. So change is possible. Also radical change. Also rapid change.
Traditions are not always what they seem to be. Social attitudes and traditional beliefs are often confused with or misinterpreted as religious obligations. They are said to fulfil a social function, when in fact the only function they serve is to sustain power with those who have it, at the expense of the powerless. And this often means that men are unwilling to share power with women or children.
At times, lack of debate conserves outdated ideas and notions. A couple of years ago, in-depth interviews were made with a large number of the Somalis living in Sweden, by now largely Swedish citizens. The result:
• Not one of the women that were interviewed were in favour of keeping the practice of FGM.
• More surprisingly, not one of the men was either.
But the tradition was maintained. The women thought the men insisted, and the men thought the women did not object. The matter was never discussed. The myth prevailed.
So Female Genital Mutilation also exists in Sweden, despite the fact that it is illegal. Last year, there was a conference on this theme in Stockholm, where the Honourable Minister Linah Kilimo participated. I take this opportunity to thank her for the contribution she made in Sweden and I congratulate her for arranging this Conference in Nairobi. I also think that we, the men in this hall, ought to do more to help her in her struggle to eradicate this extremely dangerous and inhuman tradition. And this we can do by fighting injustices and discrimination whenever we see it. Be it in our work as legislators, civil servants, Ministers, or as family members and friends.
Change is a process, at times rewarding, at times tiring. But if we work together for the dignity, rights and voice of girls and women, there is no doubt of the outcome of these efforts:
Together we will break the silence and promote change!
