Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by congratulating my colleague, the hon. member for Québec, for her courage and tenacity. Courage because she rose to demand new legislation on the practice of genital mutilation. Tenacity, because she continued to push for her bill despite a negative response from the Minister of Justice, since she was convinced that it was both appropriate and necessary.
I am therefore pleased to speak in this debate in support of Bill C-277, since I share the belief of my colleague and the large majority of women and men across Canada and in Quebec that the current legislation must be clarified and reinforced in order to protect women from these barbaric acts.
I share her conviction that the Minister of Justice's great sense of responsibility will lead him to concur that such a modification to the Criminal Code will be beneficial and to revise the decision he reached in April 1994.
The Minister of Justice's decision not to criminalize excision was based on two arguments: charges may be laid against those practicing excision under the present provisions of the legislation, and the intent is to focus on prevention.
I feel that those two arguments are too weak to justify the decision not to make any changes to the Criminal Code. I have nothing against prevention and information, far from it; one cannot be against what is right, but as Machiavelli said many, many years ago, virtue alone has no effect on man unless it is reinforced by a degree of deterrence.
Prevention is fine, but above all specific legislation needs to be passed to prohibit the practice of mutilating the genitals of women and girls. After all, what is there to prevent after the harm has been done?
At present, the Criminal Code prohibits anyone from assaulting, causing bodily harm to or killing another human being. The minister contends that these provisions are enough to prohibit all kinds of genital mutilations. I think not, because this legislation is too vague and does not deal specifically enough with excision. A person who performs or causes this kind of mutilation to be performed could use religious and particularly cultural arguments to justify this practice. Legislation such as the Canadian Multiculturalism Act and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms require that the various cultures be recognized and promoted.
It so happens that genital mutilation is a standard in many cultures, including Africa and Asia.
I do not think we all have to be lawyers to understand that the existing legislation is not as efficient as the minister would have us believe. Several provisions are likely to discourage a crown prosecutor from preferring charges or a judge from convicting to the full extent of the law in such instances, however few they may be.
Education and prevention are fine, but that is just not enough. Monitoring needs to be instituted to find, denounce and, more importantly, punish offenders for real.
Action is required. Existing provisions do not prevent such acts from being committed. Also, one can seriously question the effectiveness of a prevention policy consisting merely in information. The only choice left is for the legislator to make a special law to unequivocally criminalize the practice of such mutilations.
Bill C-277 is not that complex. It does not call for a complete overhaul of the system. It is just a few lines long. And let me quote the proposed amendment to be added after section 244. It reads as follows:
A person who: a ) excises or otherwise mutilates, in whole or in part, the labia majora, labia minora or clitoris of a female person; or b ) aids, abets, counsels or procures the performance by another person of any of the acts described in paragraph ( a ) is guilty of an indictable offence andliable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.
That is all. Two small paragraphs. That is all we need to settle this matter once and for all. I do not understand why the minister is reluctant to pass a bill that is so short but that would reinforce the current Criminal Code and make it much more of a deterrent.
Allow me to speak of this issue in a little more detail. According to studies published in 1993-94, between 85 million and 114 million of the women alive at that time had undergone genital mutilation.
According to some figures, the number of genital mutilation cases has increased by 2 million a year in nearly 40 countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. These procedures are performed on girls aged 4 to 10 on average. That is appalling.
Although impressive, these figures do not say anything about the trauma experienced by these girls, most of whom are quite young. They do not say anything about the pain suffered both during and after these mutilations or on the health problems many of the victims will face for the rest of their lives.
Often performed in unsanitary conditions by people without any real medical knowledge, these mutilations can have many adverse consequences, including haemorrhages, incontinence, abscesses, infections, traumas, shock and infertility.
Those who perform these procedures use improperly sterilized tools, if not plain kitchen knives. According to a document from the Canadian Advisory Council on the Status of Women, sugar, eggs, thorns and palm ribs are also used.
Very painful and often performed without anaesthesia, these irreversible procedures often result in traumas as well as sexual and psychological complications for the victims.
I do not think I need to continue describing this practice to give members a good understanding of what we are dealing with.
This practice is clearly unacceptable and should never be condoned. We must also ensure that those who perform these procedures are severely punished. Unfortunately, as I pointed out earlier, current legal provisions do not have enough teeth to be 100 per cent effective. We must ensure that this practice is no longer used in our society. The current legislation does not achieve that goal; prevention alone is not enough. However, Bill C-277 would certainly do it.
We could talk for a long time about the benefits and the merits of such a bill. But what is important is to understand that, in a country that claims to be democratic, these religious, cultural or other traditions are indefensible and reprehensible. As a self respecting society claiming to protect its individual members, it is immoral to condone such shameful atrocities.
Yet, and unfortunately so, this is what the Minister of Justice did by rejecting the suggestion to amend the Criminal Code so as to explicitly prohibit excision.
Bill C-277, which was introduced by the hon. member for Québec, provides an opportunity to correct the situation, once and for all, in a simple and efficient manner. France, Great Britain and Sweden have already outlawed that practice, while Norway and several American states have strengthened their legislation to that effect. The time has come for us to take concrete action. It must be made clear to Canadians and those who come to our country that genital mutilation is not only unacceptable as a matter of principle, but also not accepted and severely punished, since it is in fact a crime.