GREVIO Joint Shadow Report: Greece

The present joint shadow report is produced by the Diotima Centre and the End FGM European Network, 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 Greece. Despite this report focusing only on this harmful practice, its aim is not to single it out in isolation, but to put emphasis on the practice 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 Greek 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 the topic, which is too often neglected by State authorities, to the experts’ attention. This project stems from the Guide on the Istanbul Convention as a tool to end female genital mutilation, which was produced as part of a collaboration between the Amnesty International End FGM European Campaign (the predecessor of End FGM EU) and the Council of Europe. 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 analyse 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.