Research

Together with Dr. Refaat Karim (plastic surgeon) I visited the clinic Women Safe in Paris upon invitation of Dr. Pierre Foldès. He is the founding father of clitoral reconstructive surgery after Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C). We started early morning with a cup of coffee and moved into deep discussions from the very first minute we met.

Together with Dr. Refaat Karim (plastic surgeon) and Judith Dekker (gynecologist) I wrote an article that was published in a Dutch Medical Magazine about clitoral reconstructive surgery after Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting. We claim that this surgery should be covered by basic health insurance in the Netherlands.

From the 29th of October until the 4th of November 2018, I was in Israel for a business trip. The main reason for my visit was a research project that I am currently developing in relation to the successful elimination of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) in Israel.

From the 11th until the 14th of September 2018, I was in London for a business trip. The main reason for my visit was the launch of a report on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) and the law. A couple of weeks ago I received the invitation below from Thomson Reuters Foundation, 28TooMany and Latham & Watkins.

In May 2018, my case note was published in Jurisprudentie Vreemdelingenrecht, a Dutch journal that publishes on asylum and refugee law. A couple of weeks ago, I received an invitation of Mr. G.E.W. Westendorp of the Foundation Migration Law Netherlands (Stichting Migratierecht Nederland) to write a case note on the recent views expressed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child pursuant to an individual complaint.

At the 6th of February, the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, UNFPA Regional Office for West and Central Africa published a study I authored. This report is an analysis of legal frameworks on FGM in several countries in West Africa (including Burkina Faso, the Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal and Sierra Leone).

In 2012, the European Institute for Gender Equality commissioned a study to map the current situation and trends of Female Genital Mutilation in 27 EU Member States and Croatia. I was part of the core team of this large-scale research project on FGM. The report is published in 2013.

My first publication for a UN agency is this report for UNFPA entitled 'Implementation of the International and Regional Human Rights Framework for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation'. The study was a collaboration with Fordham University and published in 2014.

My PhD thesis was nominated for the prestigious 'Willem Nagel Dissertation Price' by the board of the Dutch Society for Criminology.

When I returned back home from my five-month field study in Senegal, I was interviewed by the student magazine of Tilburg University about my experiences. The title of the interview is 'Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting is done out of love', which is a nice summary of my main research findings.