This bill amends the Crimes Act 1961 to insert a definition of "female genital mutilation" that is holistic and up to date. Our laws were outdated, in that we only criminalised what, I guess, is now known as the worst kind of female genital mutilation. We've learnt now, through the education and the generosity of the communities that have come to us to speak to us about what this practice truly entails, that there are forms that we would, certainly under standing law, call lesser, less serious, minor, or ceremonial, and we know that the harm is still so immense both on the psyche of the young girls and women who are undergoing this type of harm but also physically. Others have spoken about the intense pain, the scars, and the sense of degradation that stays with women and girls. In fact, we know, with any patriarchal practice, part of the purpose of performing any kind of gender-based mutilation—and in this case there's nothing that can be ceremonial that isn't harmful when it is a cut or a piercing without consent and performed, most often, on very young girls.