What steps can we take to eradicate FGM in Ireland?

December 8, 2020

Background

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is internationally recognised as a gross violation of human rights and a form of gender-based violence.

According to the Central Statistics Office, 5,790 women and girls in Ireland are FGM survivors, and there are an estimated 1,600 girls deemed at-risk.

The practice of FGM is usually targeted at schoolgirls, with FGM ceremonies planned in their parents’ home countries to coincide with holiday breaks. In the current situation of intermittent opening/closing of school and travel restrictions; ActionAid Ireland believes, with the lack of opportunity to travel to home countries and confinement to family homes, there is a danger the practice will continue and indeed increase here in Ireland.

National Action Plan on FGM

ActionAid and other members of the National Steering Committee on FGM are calling on the Government to eliminate FGM in Ireland by committing to the development and implementation of a National Action Plan on FGM.

This comprehensive plan would involve a government-led response in collaboration with state-bodies, civil society groups and affected communities, as well as funding and supporting anti-FGM programmes and providing key targets and indicators to measure progress towards eradication.

Other policy suggestions put forth by the National Steering Committee on FGM include:

Establish an intergovernmental working group including the relevant government departments, civil society actors, frontline services and representatives from affected communities
Establish funding for a network of Community Health Ambassadors who work with affected communities to challenge FGM at a grassroots level
Implement fully Ireland’s obligations under the Istanbul Convention, promoting a holistic and integrated approach in relation to violence against women and FGM.
Training for healthcare and frontline service providers working with FGM-affected communities, including, for example, healthcare professionals, social workers, Gardaí and those working with asylum seekers.

Support

Over 10,500 people signed our petition calling on the Government to commit to ending FGM in Ireland.

We sent the petition to all TDs and Senators. The following politicians pledged support:

Senator Erin McGreehan (Fianna Fáil)
Senator Marie Sherlock (Labour)
Jennifer Whitmore T.D (Social Democrats)
Mairéad Farrell T.D (Sinn Féin)
Neasa Hourigan T.D (Green Party) submitted a Parliamentary Question asking the Minister for Justice, Helen McEntee, about the Government’s plans to end FGM in Ireland.

Minister McEntee stated this issue falls with Minister for Health, Stephen Donnelly T.D. We have asked him to comment on the issue but have yet to receive a response.

ActionAid Ireland and other members of the National Steering Committee on FGM – alongside members of the public – will continue to advocate the Government to eliminate FGM.

ActionAid Ireland’s project to end FGM in Ireland

ActionAid has been working on preventing FGM in Ireland since 2016. Our work centres around ActionAid’s ‘Reflection Action’ methodology. This focuses on empowerment and awareness-raising activities. It has been adopted by over 500 organisations in 70 different countries – all reporting positive results in the fight against FGM. In 2021, we will be working with people living in direct provision centres around Ireland by delivering online training to people from countries where FGM is commonly practiced.

Protestors at COP 28 in Dubai. Photo: Konrad Skotnicki.

Belfast Climate Change March, 2019. Photo: Trócaire.

The Profit Driving the Crisis

Despite their overwhelming contribution to global emissions, fossil fuel companies continue to attract significant financial backing—driven by their enduring profitability. This is starkly illustrated by the case of ExxonMobil, the top fossil fuel investment held by asset managers based in Ireland. In 2023, ExxonMobil reported €33.63 billion ($36 billion) in profit. That is almost twice the GDP of Botswana (€18.1 billion) and nearly three times Namibia’s GDP (€11.5 billion).

Ireland plays a hugely disproportionate role in facilitating investments into fossil fuel companies like ExxonMobil. In 2023, the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland generated an estimated 72.5 million tons of CO2e. This is more than the CO2e emissions for the entire country of Ireland—and more than ten times that generated by Sierra Leone.

The Global Human Impact

The climate crisis is here, now, and it is causing disproportionate harm in the Global South. In Bangladesh, rising sea levels and increasingly severe cyclones are displacing coastal communities, with projections indicating that 17% of the entire country could be underwater by 2050. The legally binding Paris Agreement on climate change explicitly acknowledges the importance of tackling private finance. Its three overarching goals are: keeping below 1.5C of warming; increasing adaptation and making finance flows consistent with low emissions and resilience.

This gives a clear mandate for action: both tax reform and corporate regulation are needed to tackle financial flows, and both nationally in Ireland and at EU level, ‘polluter pays’ taxes are lacking and regulation of the financial sector remains weak and fragmented. While EU regulation exists, it is designed more to nudge investors toward more sustainable investment practices by increasing transparency and reporting levels than to enforce strict standards. And it is moving in the wrong direction: the recently passed EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive excluded investments; and now the EU Commission’s Omnibus legislative proposal threatens to undo the limited gains made on climate plans, as well as blocking future attempts for stronger action at national level.

The Risk of Inaction

Fossil fuel investment is too profitable to remain weakly regulated. If Ireland continues with its current strategy of encouraging FDI at all costs, and relying on weak EU regulation, we are headed for catastrophe. The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly warned that every fraction of a degree beyond 1.5°C brings irreversible consequences: collapsed ice sheets, vanishing coral reefs, and extreme weather events that will make vast regions of the planet uninhabitable. And yet, companies are developing oil and gas fields that could push global warming beyond 2°C.

Our research found that 91% of the investments made into fossil fuel companies by investment managers based in Ireland were to companies that have plans for fossil fuel expansion like these. Ireland cannot afford inaction on this issue.

About This Research

The figures in this report regarding investment from Ireland are based on new research commissioned by ActionAid Ireland and Trócaire. In the paper, we uncover the scale of fossil fuel investment through Ireland, who the investors are, and in which fossil fuel companies they are investing. We analyse the current regulatory framework and explain why it is inadequate—and moving in the wrong direction. And we make specific recommendations for change, which are summarised below.

Summary of Recommendations

Regulate the private financial sector
Ireland must end its outsized role as an enabler of destructive fossil fuel investment. Ireland should introduce a strong gender-responsive national human rights and environmental due diligence framework which includes the regulation of investors with respect to human rights and the environment and climate. The transposition of the EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive could achieve this if downstream activities are included and the Omnibus proposal is rejected. Ireland should prohibit investments in fossil fuel expansion and require investors to implement climate transition plans consistent with a 1.5°C climate limit.

Endorse the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty
Ireland should endorse developing a Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty to curb fossil fuel expansion and commit to a fair and funded phase out of fossil fuels.

Support tax justice
Ireland should support bold and fair new global tax rules through the UN Framework Convention on Tax, should adopt all OECD BEPS measures, and should conduct an updated and comprehensive spillover analysis of its tax policy. Ireland should take coordinated action globally, at the EU level and domestically to introduce a range of new taxes to mobilise finance needed for climate justice, based on ‘polluter pays’ and social equity principles such as wealth taxes for the highest earners, climate damages tax on investors, fossil fuel production taxes and levies on aviation and shipping.

Finance a just transition
Ireland must also meet its fair share climate finance obligations under Article 9.1 of the Paris Agreement, and pay our ecological debt to the Global South. Ireland should support conditionality-free debt cancellation for countries on the front lines of the climate crisis, commit to a new UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt, moving debt negotiations from the IMF to the UN, and to a debt workout mechanism that is fully representative and fair.