Es war damals ein bahnbrechender Erfolg, als das irakisch-kurdische Parlament nach Jahren der Lobbyarbeit endlich das Gesetzt Nr. 8 verabschiedete, das auch Genitalverstümmelung (FGM) unter Strafe stellte.
Dazu schrieb Irfan Allawi in Hudson New York am 27. Juni 2011:
The parliament of Iraqi Kurdistan registered an important victory against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) on Wednesday, June 22, when it passed, by a large majority, legislation banning the practice. The brutal and un-Islamic custom of FGM has now been criminalized in the Iraqi Kurdish region, even as Western European countries have vacillated on its prohibition.
The success of Iraqi Kurdistan’s anti-FGM law has been partly credited to sustained investigative and lobbying work by a German/Iraqi non-governmental organization, WADI. The group has conducted surveys, beginning in 2007, revealing the wide incidence of infliction of FGM among Iraqi Kurds. WADI has disclosed that more than 60 percent of women and girls in Iraqi Kurdistan have been subjected to genital mutilation.
FGM has been criticised widely as a medically indefensible form of abuse producing serious physical and psychological trauma. Anxiety, permanent discomfort, and infertility are common in females who have suffered the operation, which is typically carried out by untrained „specialists,“ usually older women, without hygienic protection.
Und Human Rights Watch kommentierte das Gesetz so:
A Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) law that bans female genital mutilation (FGM) is a crucial step in eradicating the practice, Human Rights Watch said today. The Family Violence Bill, approved by the Kurdistan parliament on June 21, 2011, includes several provisions criminalizing the practice, recognized internationally as a form of violence against women. Several studies by the government and non-governmental organizations estimate that the prevalence of FGM among girls and women in Kurdistan is at least 40 percent.
„By passing this law, the Kurdistan regional government has shown its resolve to end female genital mutilation and to protect the rights of women and girls,“ said Nadya Khalife, Middle East women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. „But the government needs a long-term strategy to deal with this harmful practice because criminalizing it is not enough.“
The Family Violence Bill also criminalizes forced and child marriages, verbal, physical, and psychological abuse of girls and women, child abuse, and child labor. The bill has to be ratified by the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government.
Mehr Informationen: Brochure: Handfull of Ash – The Campaign to eliminate FGM in Iraqi-Kurdistan
Wadi 
