The present joint shadow report is produced by GAMS Belgium and INTACT1, in coordination
with End FGM EU, in order to highlight the current situation and propose concrete
recommendations on the issue of prevention, protection, prosecution and integrated policies
concerning female genital mutilation in Belgium. Despite this report focuses only on this
harmful practice, its aim is not to single it out in isolation, but just to put emphasis on it while
still seeing it in the continuum of gender-based violence against women and girls and in a
holistic and comprehensive manner.
This report represents the Belgian 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 stems from our Guide on the Istanbul Convention as a tool to end
female genital mutilation. 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 which needs to be
addressed through prevention, protection, prosecution and integrated policies. It does not
only analyses the application of the specific FGM Article 38 of the Istanbul Convention, but
addresses the full range of articles in the Convention and how they are applied to tackle FGM
in Belgium.