Browsing by Author "Mähönen, Sara"

Female genital cutting (FGC) has become a current issue in Northern Europe through the increase of migration. Female genital cutting is the practice, in which parts or all of the female genitals are pricked, cut and/ or removed. Sweden reacted to female genital cutting considerably earlier than Finland. This can be explained by the later onset of immigration to Finland. Sweden passed a FGC specific legislation prohibiting the practice in 1982. Sweden has only one National Action Plan as of 2016, which was released in 2003. Finland does not have a separate FGC law but FGC is prohibited through the Criminal Penal Code. Finland’s National Action Plan is for the time period between 2012–2016. The Purpose of the thesis is to discuss and analyze the different ways Finland and Sweden have framed female genital cutting. This will be done by analyzing the National Action Plans of the two countries as well as other essential policies or legislations. The method used in this thesis is Critical Frame Analysis. The most fitting questions in regards to the data were chosen from the Critical Frame Analysis Methodology. The idea is to analyze the different ways both countries have framed FGC in order to gain a deeper understanding of how the issue is dealt with in Finland and Sweden. The Finnish and Swedish National Action Plans differ greatly from each other in both the structure but also in the content. In Finland, FGC has been dealt with more cautiously by framing female genital cutting in terms of sexual- and reproductive rights. The Swedish Action Plan is rather neutral but by analyzing the situation in Sweden as a whole, it becomes apparent that female genital cutting has been mainly framed as an issue concerning gender equality and honor violence. Sweden uses the term female genital mutilation. This study is its first in the Finnish context, where the Finnish Action Plan is used as the data. Furthermore, there has not been any research on FGC in Finland with Sweden, which has a comparative approach. In comparison to Finland, Sweden has been more active in research of female genital cutting. This thesis topic has become a current issue through the radical influx of asylum-seekers to Europe during 2015. Many of the asylum-seekers have ties to countries, where female genital cutting remains the norm. That will inevitably force officials in both countries to react to female genital cutting.