THE Women, Family and Community Development Ministry is holding discussions with the Health Ministry on female circumcision. 

Minister Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail said her ministry is engaging with the Health Ministry on the issue.

“We are in the midst of discussion with MoH because so far, it is actually something that is cultural. We had this issue for a long time… we are not the same as Africans and their mutilation practice.

“But we will discuss and look at it and if it doesn’t give any benefit, then we should do something,” she told reporters at the Parliament lobby today.

Yesterday, the Human Rights Commission of Malaysia (Suhakam) slammed the statement made by government officials at Malaysia’s third Universal Periodic Review (UPR), where they claimed infant female circumcision was a “cultural obligation”. 

Suhakam chairman Razali Ismail said the comment was “unconvincing and misleading”.

At the event last week, a Women, Family and Community Development Ministry representative denied that FGM was practiced in the country. 

He said Malaysia objected to practices that harmed female infants and, therefore, does not practice FGM. 

He, however, said female circumcision for babies was allowed as part of cultural obligations. 

The UN World Health Organisation considers female circumcision as a form of FGM but Muslim groups have disagreed with this. – November 15, 2018.