Mobilising Health Professionals to End FGM

By Leila Lemghalef Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 6 2015 (IPS) - The International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) continues to engage health personnel in helping terminate the practice of altering or injuring the female genitalia for non-medical reasons.

Some 130 million living girls and women have undergone FGM, and three million girls are at risk each year, according to the United Nations.

Over 18 per cent of cases of FGM have been carried out by healthcare providers. The rate is as high as 74 per cent in some countries. Accelerating the abandonment of FGM is part of the new development agenda.

“The medical community’s active support for the rights of girls and women to be protected from FGM has been critical in achieving the renewed commitments of Member States as reflected in the recent United Nations General Assembly Resolution on this issue,” said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon in a message last week.

The U.N. Chief also spoke about inspiring steps that have been taken, in Mauritania for example, as a result of the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: Accelerating Change, which strives for the total abandonment of all forms of FGM within the next 2 ½ decades.

Jaha Dukureh, an FGM activist and youth mobiliser and FGM survivor, of Gambian origin, said: “The biggest success for me, what I see in The Gambia is we are now hearing the government saying that they are ready to do something about it,” adding that religious leaders are voicing change. “They’re coming out and saying FGM is not mandatory by Islam.”

In the U.S., she started Safe Hands for Girls support group for survivors. “We talk to community leaders, religious leaders, talking to them about the laws in the United States, and newly arrived refugees,” she said.

She highlighted that in a survey done by the Obama administration, in response to a petition she launched, newly-released results show that 513,000 women are at risk of FGM in the U.S.

“That’s three times an increase since the last time a survey was done in this country,” she said, mentioning that those figures do not surprise her.

“But now that we have those numbers, I believe that the U.S. government needs to step up and they need to do more,” said Dukureh.

Edna Adan Ismail, a nurse and midwife, and founder and director of a maternity hospital in Somaliland, said: “We have been advocating for governments in countries that welcome many immigrants, like the United Kingdom, like the United States, like Canada, to have a law in their embassies, and notice in their embassies, informing visa applicants that if a visa is granted to the applicant to enter these countries, are they aware that FGM is a crime, and is a violation against the human rights of women, and is an aggression against the body of young girls.”
She said “it would be one more deterrent, one more reason, one more opportunity, to protect young girls”.