Press Releases

Maria Rauch-Kallat, Minister for Health and Women: Measures by the EU Member States to combat harmful traditional practices

Austria’s Minister for Health and Women, Maria Rauch-Kallat, presented her initiatives on "Harmful traditional practices" at the informal meeting of EU Equal Opportunities Ministers today, Wednesday, in Brussels. All the Member States together will seek solutions to the problem of forced marriages, genital mutilation and so-called honour crimes. Harmful traditional practices are not necessarily linked to certain religions, but they do flourish in certain cultures. As a result of global migration, women all over the world are falling victim to these human rights violations", Rauch-Kallat said.

Minister Rauch-Kallat is making harmful traditional practices a Europe-wide issue for the first time, as experience shows that this problem exists in all EU Member States. The small number of known cases is only the tip of the iceberg – the estimated number of victims is very much higher but firm figures are very difficult to come by.

Austria has a pioneer role in combating harmful traditional practices and is taking an approach that targets the problem both through legislative measures and through action to protect the victims, coupled with information. There has been a very positive international echo to this strategy, with African and Asian countries as well as Turkey all expressing interest.

On the initiative of Maria Rauch-Kallat, EU ministers with responsibility for equal opportunities, representatives of the European Commission and the European Parliament and observers from non-EU countries have been invited to a conference on “Joint Action of Member States against Harmful Traditional Practices”.

The aims of the conference are:

• Exchange of best practice models among the EU Member States
• Legislative measures to combat harmful traditional practices
• Possible ways of ensuring protection for victims
• Collection of more, and targeted, data on harmful traditional practices in order to develop legislative strategies geared to needs
• Promotion of basic comprehension that all forms of harmful traditional practices affecting women and girls are a human rights violation and must accordingly be covered by criminal law
• Establishment of easily accessible support facilities for victims or potential victims
• Close cooperation with NGOs that have access to women from potentially affected communities
• Special initiatives, such as public awareness campaigns targeting groups which are most likely to have contact with potential victims: teachers, doctors, religious communities, police, social workers, etc.

"The protection of women and girls, education and awareness-raising reaching out to all concerned is a cross-cutting, international task", according to Rauch-Kallat. “Only concerted action by all concerned can put a stop to harmful traditional practices."

For this reason, Maria Rauch-Kallat, together with Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner, presented the international network against harmful traditions (NAHT) at the conference of equal opportunities ministers. The network is to be a platform for state representatives and NGOs to combat harmful traditional practices together.