Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I have pleasure tonight too in standing up in support of the Crimes (Definition of Female Genital Mutilation) Amendment Bill in its first reading. I acknowledge my colleague Jo Hayes who introduced the bill earlier today as co-chair of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians (CWP). I acknowledge the other co-chair Louisa Wall and all the other cross-party members of CWP who have recognised the need to make amendments to the Crimes Act 1961. It's the first time that legislation has been introduced into this House in the name of MPs from multiple parties. It's a tangible example of the value of cross-party work.We heard evidence from women from the FGM Education Programme who've been supporting other women who have had the female genital mutilation (FGM) procedures. If this House had seen the photos that we were shown you would know that anything we can do to prevent this happening to girls we must. These practices have absolutely no place in New Zealand society. It is cruel. It leaves young girls permanently maimed and at constant risk of infection and pain.The World Health Organization estimates that there are about 140 million women in the world who have had FGM from removal of the clitoral hood to the whole excision of the external genitalia before the vagina is sewn up with only a small hole left for urine and menstrual blood. It can be performed on females from babies through to young teens in the belief that this girl will grow up clean her honour intact along with her virginity as a way of preparing her for marriage. This happens to 3 million girls a year.FGM is also known as female genital cutting and female circumcision. The practice is found in 27 African countries and in Asia and in the Middle East. But it isn't only something that happens in those countries. There is now a helpline set up in the UK to support girls at risk of FGM in that country. One study estimates that there are 66000 women in England and Wales who are living with FGM and 20000 girls are at risk. It happens in the immigrant communities because those communities tend to stick together and they bring their customs with them. Now the child doesn't know any different so they simply do what they think is the right thing by their parents.This bill is actually quite small and it expands the definition to a fourth definition to accompany the three that are already in the Crimes Act 1961 which made it illegal to perform—and I quote—any medical or surgical procedure or mutilation of the vagina or clitoris of any person for reasons of culture religion custom or practice." I was inspired by a couple of women myself. One I'd like to pay tribute to: Diane Howe before she passed away was a very strong advocate for FGM procedures being banned across the world. But the other one was a book I read called Desert Flower and that was the autobiography of Waris Dirie. Now she was about five years old when she was left for several days in a make shift shelter in the Somali desert to recover from her operation. Like all the girls in her community she was left with no water there was no anaesthetic there were no antibiotics and certainly no pain relief. She had undergone FGM. Dirie says she lay there talking to God saying "Make me stay alive you owe me this now." Waris Dirie ran away from her life in the African desert just after she turned 13 and had been promised as a wife to a 60-year-old man. She was illiterate and poor and all she had with her was a ragged old shawl. She travelled alone across the desert to Mogadishu and this was the first leg of an amazing journey for this young woman who became an internationally renowned fashion model and then ultimately went to New York City where she became the human rights ambassador for the United Nations for the elimination of female genital mutilation. As she said as long as the problem stays under cover then nothing much happens or at least not fast enough; if we put it into the open if it's on TV and in the newspaper if we have politicians and religious leaders talking about it and saying "No" then we fight it together. We in this New Zealand Parliament are fighting it together today. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you Madam Speaker."