Wagner NickyHon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I too am very pleased to support this joint members' bill against female genital mutilation. I think it's exciting that this is a new way to bring a bill into the House and I congratulate the MPs Joanne Hayes Priyanca Radhakrishnan Jenny Marcroft and Golriz Ghahraman and of course all members of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians New Zealand group for the work that they did to get the bill to the House and for introducing a new collaborative and innovative way of legislating.The vast majority of New Zealanders consider female genital mutilation (FGM) an appalling practice. It's dangerous unhealthy and an abuse of young girls. It's often carried out in the name of culture and tradition and it's an example of a tradition that is violent and barbaric and has long outlived any rational argument for its use.I visited Ethiopia earlier this year with the Speaker's tour and with the previous speaker Angie Warren-Clark. We met with many women and women's groups to discuss issues that concern them. There are over 6 million people mostly families women and young children presently displaced in Ethiopia and life is enormously difficult: living in camps with poor access to healthcare poor access to food and generally a really unsafe lifestyle. Children suffer from malnutrition and poor health and there's a huge number of children who are stunted because of the lack of quality food. Stunted girls have lifelong problems with their health and particularly struggle in childbirth.We went to a place called the Hamlin Fistula Trust which was set up by a New Zealander Dr Reginald Hamlin which was there to repair the damage to young women that was done in childbirth. We visited their hospital we met with the young women and we saw for ourselves what remarkable work they were doing and how it changed the lives of these young women. We were also told that in Ethiopia almost 60 percent of young girls suffered from the custom of genital mutilation and particularly those in rural areas and villages.A woman's life after FGM is compromised—compromised by pain often infection and with a reduced quality of life. In some cases women are disabled for life and some even die. We all understand that violence against women and girls is totally unacceptable in any way and this is a particularly intimate and debilitating form of abuse that cannot be tolerated. As we've heard over 200 million women in the world today have undergone female genital mutilation and 3 million young girls—and I mean young; mostly under 15—are abused in this way every year.I want to make it very clear: there are no health benefits of FGM. It harms girls and women in every way. It's practised in over 30 countries in various forms using different tools and methods but all are intrusive dangerous and debilitating.Now FGM has been illegal in New Zealand since 1996 but the current definition is limited and needs to be updated. This legislation will align with the World Health Organization recommendations and best-practice advice. It will raise the issue of female genital mutilation in New Zealand. It will highlight its danger and our abhorrence of the practice.I believe that all New Zealanders want to protect young girls and women whether they're here or internationally and this bill will highlight this issue. It will help protect them from this form of abuse in the future. I commend this bill to the House.