Marcroft JennyJENNY MARCROFT (NZ First): Tēnā koe Madam Speaker. It's an absolute pleasure to be part of this historic day as together we unite to support women and young girls. This piece of legislation gives graphic detail about female genital mutilation and from the dictionary mutilate" means to damage something severely especially by violently removing a part.There is no easy way to talk about female genital mutilation. I am sure for those girls particularly the young girls and those women who have this procedure performed on them sometimes by their mothers—and even though they think it is the right thing to do both the mothers and the girls it is still a violent act. As we mark 16 days of activism to end gender-based violence we need to stand up against violence against women and girls. And today we are doing that here united in this House. Now this bill will amend the Crimes Act 1961 to update the definition of "female genital mutilation" as we call it; a much easier more palatable way: FGM. And we will ensure that all types of FGM are illegal in New Zealand. So this bill will ensure that all women and girls are protected from all forms of FGM. I'd like to acknowledge my co-sponsors of this bill: Jo Hayes Priyanca Radhakrishnan as well as Golriz Ghahraman. A thankyou also goes to Louisa Wall co-chair of the Commonwealth women's parliamentary group.Throughout the course of learning about FGM I found that I thought about my own daughter and imagined what it would be like for her if this was a practice common to New Zealand and I'm just horrified to even think about it. The fact that FGM is the belief that it prevents a young girl a young woman from being promiscuous—it's hard to imagine. The fact that it actually curtails a woman's sexuality—it's unbelievable in my reckoning. To kill off a sexual desire that a woman may experience it's not where we're at today in 2019. FGM is a clear breach of the UN's Universal Declaration of Human Rights and it is against the law in New Zealand and we are tightening up that law today. Louisa Wall mentioned male circumcision. With FGM there is no medical benefit in female circumcision. So that's something that we need to think about. It's all about violating a young woman a young girl and we just must stop it right now. Our legislation is currently 30 years old and so that's why we need to make sure that it becomes consistent and updated with the World Health Organization definition. Type four FGM will now be included with this amendment and type four includes all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes: pricking piercing incising scraping and cauterising the genital area.Type four has been performed. Back in 2011 there was a case of a young Indonesian girl where type four was performed while away on a holiday overseas but there was no prosecution that could be made under existing FGM legislation because it did not include type four. So the legislation that we pass through this House will in fact ensure that that form of FGM will become illegal as well. It's important to note that to empower and uplift women education must happen. And so the FGM Education Programme has been very uplifting and Louisa Wall went into great detail about that. So I would like to also mention that as well in my contribution. Empowering these women in their communities so that they can live wholesome full lives in every manner possible including a sexual life—that is important and that's something that we can all share today in giving voice to these women. This bill brings to light the human rights of girls and women. FGM is a manifestation of gender inequality and the empowerment of women is of utmost importance to the elimination of this practice. I commend the bill to the House."