FGM violates the right of women and girls to the highest attainable standard of health, the right to physical integrity, and life. Credit: Shutterstock

By Juliana Nnoko
Jan 28 2026 (IPS)

Gambia’s Supreme Court is considering whether a law protecting women and girls from female genital mutilation (FGM) is constitutional. The practice, common in Gambia, often involves forcibly restraining girls while parts of their genitals are cut, sometimes with the wound sewn shut.

FGM constitutes torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment under international human rights law. It can result in death or life long health problems such as infections, fetal deaths, obstetric complications, and psychological effects. Now the Supreme Court will decide whether women and girls will continue to be protected from such harmful practices.

Religious leaders and a member of parliament failed to get parliament to overturn Gambia’s 2015 FGM ban in 2024. They have taken their fight all the way to the Supreme Court, contending that the ban violates constitutional rights to cultural and religious freedom. This effort isn’t just a setback for one small West African country—it’s part of a global backlash against women’s rights that threatens to unravel decades of progress protecting women and girls from a widespread form of gender-based violence.

There’s no medical justification for FGM, according to the World Health Organization. Medicalization of FGM, in which the procedure is carried out by health personnel, does not reduce the violation of human rights. Regardless of where and by whom it is performed, FGM is never safe.

There's no medical justification for FGM, according to the World Health Organization. Medicalization of FGM, in which the procedure is carried out by health personnel, does not reduce the violation of human rights. Regardless of where and by whom it is performed, FGM is never safe. Nonetheless, over 230 million girls and women have undergone FGM, with about 63 percent of these survivors (144 million) in Africa

Nonetheless, over 230 million girls and women have undergone FGM, with about 63 percent of these survivors (144 million) in Africa. In Gambia in 2020, nearly three-quarters of women and girls between 15 and 49 reported having the procedure, with almost two-thirds cut before age 5. This isn’t an abstract human rights issue—it’s a public health crisis affecting millions of women and girls and the consequences follow them for life.

FGM violates the right of women and girls to the highest attainable standard of health, the right to physical integrity, and life. Women and girls who have experienced FGM face complications during childbirth, chronic infections, psychological trauma, and in some cases, death. In August 2025, a one-month-old baby girl bled to death after FGM was performed on her.

The government’s 2015 ban was a breakthrough. Gambia joined dozens of countries recognizing that FGM violates fundamental human rights, the rights to health, bodily integrity, and freedom from torture. The government even adopted a national strategy to eliminate the practice entirely by 2030, aligning with global Sustainable Development Goals. The government’s implementation of the ban and the strategy has been slow and now faced with challenges.

The Supreme Court is hearing arguments that should chill anyone who cares about human rights. Media reported that one witness, a prominent Muslim leader, attempted to justify the violence against women and girls, saying that “female circumcision” is part of Islam and isn’t harmful. When asked about two babies who died from the procedure, he replied: “We are Muslims and if someone dies, it’s God’s will.” He went on to say that the practice’s benefit is reducing women’s sexual desire, “which could be a problem for men.”

The plaintiffs’ courtroom arguments don’t hold up to scrutiny. There’s no requirement for FGM in Sharia (Islamic law). It’s not part of the Sunna (Prophetic traditions) or considered an honorable act. The practice predates Islam and isn’t universal among Muslims—it’s a cultural practice that some communities have incorrectly linked to faith.

Moreover, framing FGM as a constitutional right to religious freedom is misleading. The Gambian constitution restricts rights, including religious or cultural, that impinge on other people’s fundamental rights and freedoms, such as to life, from torture or inhuman treatment, and nondiscrimination.

Gambian organizations, including the Network Against Gender Base Violence and Women in Liberation and Leadership (WILL), are fighting this case. Civil society organizations mobilized survivors, community leaders, and women’s groups across the country to defeat efforts to repeal the law in Parliament in 2024. The opposition to the case is coming from women and girls whose lives literally depend on maintaining these protections.

“This is happening despite individuals being harassed, particularly on social media, for speaking out against the case creating an atmosphere where many survivors, including women’s rights defenders, are now choosing to be silent,” said Fatou Baleh, an anti-FGM activist, FGM survivor, and founder of WILL.

Gambia has ratified the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, its Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (Maputo Protocol), and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. Article 5 (b) of the Maputo Protocol explicitly prohibits all forms of FGM and medicalization of the practice.

In July 2025, the government signed the African Union Convention on Ending Violence Against Women, which was adopted earlier that year, reaffirming its commitment to adopt and enforce legal measures to prevent harmful practices and protect survivors, reinforcing the constitutional duty to uphold the FGM ban.

The health and well-being of girls and women in Gambia now rests with the Supreme Court. However the court rules, the government needs to invest in ending FGM through comprehensive education programs, community-led initiatives, strong enforcement of existing laws, and medical and psychological support for survivors to protect hundreds of thousands of women and girls’ lives.

Juliana Nnoko is a senior women’s rights researcher at Human Rights Watch.

When silence allows the practice to go unchallenged, it reinforces the assumption that FGM is a cultural tradition rather than a human rights violation. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

By Kaata Minah
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone, Mar 5 2025 (IPS)

Over 200 million women and girls around the world have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM). This is the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons.

The largest share of these cases is happening in Africa. FGM has lifelong consequences, including complications during childbirth and painful sex. It also disrupts girls’ education and often serves as a gateway to child marriage, trapping them in cycles of poverty. There is a clear pathway to change this.

In Sierra Leone, 83 percent of women aged 15–49 have been subjected to FGM. The practice is deeply tied to the Bondo Society – a female secret society that is integral to the cultural identity of Sierra Leonean women; where girls are prepared for womanhood. The Society is defended as a powerful space for sisterhood and solidarity.

But sisterhood cannot come at the cost of girls’ bodily autonomy. Cutting a girl’s genitals in the name of tradition is not a rite of passage, it is violence – and it must stop.

The data is clear; 71 percent of girls who undergo cutting do so before the age of 15. Passing this legislation will ensure that the rights of girls are legally protected and perpetrators are held accountable - which in turn would have a deterrence effect

If we are to end this harmful tradition, we must first break the silence that perpetuates the practice. Growing up, FGM was not debated, questioned, or acknowledged in my household. Although my mother is a member of society, she did not subject me and my sister to this horror. Just the same, we also never spoke about it.

Looking back, I see her silence not as indifference but as survival. A quiet act of defiance against a harmful practice in a society that socially and culturally punishes outright defiance. Nonetheless, silence can be complicity.

When silence allows the practice to go unchallenged, it reinforces the assumption that FGM is a cultural tradition rather than a human rights violation.

There are survivors and activists who refuse to stay silent. They are using creativity and innovation to challenge societal norms perpetuating the practice, pushing for open dialogue towards mitigation, and ultimately eradicating the practice.

These include integrating the fight against FGM with advocacy for universal education. Additionally, leveraging technology to tell stories that vividly capture the dual realities of FGM – that is, the beauty of cultural traditions and the brutality of the practice. Such initiatives are crucial in the fight to end the long-standing practice.

But dialogue is not enough. Progressive legal and policy frameworks must galvanise the cultural shift. On paper, there has been some progress.

At the recently concluded African Union Heads of State Summit, African leaders adopted the AU Convention on Ending Violence Against Women and Girls, which proposes a comprehensive, legally binding framework for the prevention and elimination of all forms of violence against women and girls, including FGM.

It calls for addressing root causes, strengthening legal and institutional mechanisms, and promoting a culture of respect for human rights, gender equality, and the dignity of women and girls. It builds on the Maputo Protocol, which Sierra Leone ratified in 2015.

This is Africa’s comprehensive legal instrument on the rights of women, which eliminates harmful practices and provides for the right to reproductive health, dignity and security of persons, among others. Yet, despite these commitments, the country has yet to pass domestic legislation ending female genital mutilation.

There is, however, an opportunity to do so with the Child Rights Amendment Bill, which seeks to amend the Child Rights Act of 2007. Here there is the welcome proposal to explicitly prohibit the cutting of minors.

The data is clear; 71 percent of girls who undergo cutting do so before the age of 15. Passing this legislation will ensure that the rights of girls are legally protected and perpetrators are held accountable – which in turn would have a deterrence effect.

This will significantly reduce the depressing statistics on human rights violations of children and the widespread deleterious implications on their lives.

Ending FGM is possible, but it will need a concerted effort with varied strategies. The bottom line is that we must refuse to stay silent and challenge harmful norms and narratives that endorse the practice.

Additionally, the citizenry must demand progressive laws and their full implementation to ensure the safety, dignity and rights of women and girls. Until this happens, most women and girls in our country will continue to suffer preventable harm to their health and lives.

Kaata Minah is an African feminist activist, and 2024 Impact West Africa Fellow dedicated to achieving gender equality through transformative feminist education and community-led initiatives.  Kaata has experience in policy advocacy, program design and management, feminist education, and event management. Kaata drives campaigns that challenge power structures, foster movement-building, and promote social justice and gender equality. Kaata’s commitment extends into academia, where she volunteers as a lecturer at the Institute for Gender Research and Documentation (INGRADOC) at the University of Sierra Leone (Fourah Bay College).

In Africa, an estimated 55 million girls under the age of 15 have experienced – or are at risk of experiencing – FGM. Credit: Shutterstock

By Stephanie Musho and Esther M Passaris
NAIROBI, Oct 20 2023 (IPS)

The tips of our fingers have densely packed nerve endings. That is why a miniscule paper cut activates our pain receptors and causes stubborn pain for a day or two. Now consider that a clitoris has over 10,000 nerve endings. It is the human female’s most sensitive erogenous zone, explaining the sexual pleasure it elicits at the slightest touch. A paper cut on your clitoris would be agonizing yet does not compare to the pain of female genital mutilation – or FGM.

The consequences are devastating and far-reaching, permeating social, political and economic facets of daily life. Consider that the current and future financial cost of health care alone for women living with conditions caused by FGM is USD 1.4 billion   annually.  Yet,  over 4 million women and girls remain at risk of undergoing this violation.

Unlike male circumcision that has been found to reduce transmission rates of HIV and sexually transmitted infections, FGM has no medical benefits. It is simply a function of patriarchy meant to sexually control women.  The consequences of FGM are dreadful.

Unlike male circumcision that has been found to reduce transmission rates of HIV and sexually transmitted infections, FGM has no medical benefits. It is simply a function of patriarchy meant to sexually control women.  The consequences of FGM are dreadful

Survivors have spoken out on what sex is like after this heinous mutilation:  they feel no sexual pleasure, only excruciating pain. Childbirth is even worse as they are more susceptible to complications, increasing the prevalence of maternal mortality and morbidity by way of obstructed labor, fistula, post-partum hemorrhage, sepsis and ultimately death. The psychological effects are extensive too, resulting in, among other things, depression, crippling anxiety, and even suicide.

Worse still is that the repercussions extend beyond physiology. FGM is often a precursor to child marriage, cutting off the prospects of a girl or young woman actualizing themselves. It is further compounded by conflict and climate crises. In such contexts, bride price is deemed to be an ‘easy escape’ from economic hardships. This false perception makes an already bad situation worse.

In Africa, an estimated 55 million girls under the age of 15 have experienced – or are at risk of experiencing – FGM. This is despite the existence of robust laws and policies that criminalize this violation in at least 28 countries on the continent. For example  50% of these 55 million girls are found in three countries – Egypt, Ethiopia and Nigeria, and all three countries have criminalized the practice. This disregard of the rule of law can be attributed to deeply entrenched cultural dogma, founded on patriarchy that perpetuates the clashing of harmful culture with the legal code.

Additionally, African women and girls in the diaspora, such as those among the 11 million Africans in Europe and 2 million in the U.S., continue to suffer, with little to no legal protections in place. Aggravating this is that undocumented migrants have little recourse, as seeking protection from FGM would expose them to detention and deportation.

Besides, an emerging trend in the fight against FGM is the contention with cross border FGM. This is where communities travel outside of territories with stringent laws that criminalize the practice to carry out the violation elsewhere to avoid prosecution. This is termed ‘vacation cutting’. It is consequently imperative that FGM is criminalized everywhere, for there to be progress towards our shared global sustainable goals.

The fight to end this scourge is made harder by the medicalization of FGM where health professionals conduct the practice in place of traditional ‘cutters’; in a fallacious and inadequate attempt to mitigate the damaging impacts of FGM.  In fact, a qualified medical doctor recently filed an application in the High Court challenging the prohibition of FGM, citing criminalization of the practice as a violation of bodily autonomy and an infringement of a woman’s right to uphold her culture. This is a reiteration of the need to double down efforts to eradicate the practice as there are those among us that remain committed to the continued relegation of women and girls, and their entrapment in vicious dependency and poverty cycles in the name of culture.

It is then evident that ending FGM requires an armory of varied strategies. This begins with the understanding that when a country becomes party to an international legal instrument, it consents to limitations to its sovereignty and must therefore fulfil its obligations under international law.

This includes those under African Charter on People’s and Human Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa – commonly known as the Maputo Protocol, for African States; and the United Nations Convention on the Elimination on all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), among others. These are important tools towards much needed universal criminalization of and ending FGM.

The world is currently at the midpoint of the sustainable development goals (SDGs) set to elapse in 2030, and all indications point to a completely off-track trajectory – if not regression. If the current rate of progress continues, it could take nearly 300 years to attain gender equality.

While some could argue that it is unrealistic to succeed in 7 years, it is certainly possible to accelerate action and shorten this depressing forecast. We must therefore accelerate action and truly leave no one behind. This means protecting those at risk of this horrendous violation of women and girls. Additionally, a needed increase in financial investments; and it makes financial sense to make them since ending FGM saves economies the costs of the attendant consequence.

The time is now to focus on FGM because while there are ongoing efforts to reform the global financial architecture towards financing for development, these have been heavily centered on climate action.  Whilst this is indeed important, the relegation of other goals in this pursuit runs the risk of pushing them – including those on women and girls further to the periphery. These spaces must be expanded towards intersectional collaboration towards financing and meeting our people and planetary goals.

Additionally, there are at least 40 general and presidential elections slated for next year. Fifteen elections are in Africa; 7 in the Americas; 8 in Asia; another 8 in Europe and 2 in Oceania. It is an opportune time for the electorate to demand the inclusion of gender and health rights like ending FGM in manifestos as a start.

People can appraise track records and thereafter hold elected leaders accountable to their commitments including on increased budgetary allocations and transparency in expenditure. Good governance is indeed central to these efforts.

Ultimately, ending FGM requires a concerted effort, a global push with full solidarity where everyone has a responsibility to act. If the rights of women and girls are not prioritized and intersectionality leveraged, as deliberated on at the just concluded International Conference on FGM, we will ultimately fail to achieve Agenda 2030 in its entirety and possibly even our health and gender goals in our lifetime.

Stephanie Musho is a human rights lawyer and campaigner; and an Aspen New Voices Senior Fellow

Hon. Esther Passaris is a Member of Parliament in the Republic of Kenya and a member of the Pan African Parliament 

In 2012, the United Nations General Assembly designated 6 February as the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, with the aim of amplifying and directing the efforts on the elimination of this practice. Credit: UNFPA

By Catherine Russell and Natalia Kanem
NEW YORK, Feb 4 2022 (IPS)

“Multiple overlapping crises are putting millions of girls at increased risk of female genital mutilation. “Countries already grappling with rising poverty, inequality and conflict are seeing the COVID-19 pandemic further threaten years of progress to end the practice, creating a crisis within a crisis for the world’s most vulnerable and marginalized girls.

“Even before COVID-19, 68 million girls were estimated to be at risk of female genital mutilation between 2015 and 2030. As the pandemic continues to shutter schools and disrupt programmes that help protect girls from this harmful practice, an additional 2 million additional cases of female genital mutilation may occur over the next decade.

“Rapid population growth in some countries is expected to further increase the number of girls at risk, adding urgency to the global effort to eliminate the practice by 2030 as set out in the Sustainable Development Goals.

“Female genital mutilation harms girls’ bodies, lives and futures. It is also a violation of their human rights. Only united, concerted and well-funded action can end the practice everywhere.

“As the global community adopts programmes to reach girls and women impacted by the pandemic, there is an urgent need to accelerate investment to end female genital mutilation. Some $2.4 billion are needed to eliminate this practice in 31 high-priority countries. Specifically:

• • Investment in the empowerment of girls and women, and in adequate services and response for those affected and at risk of female genital mutilation

• • Investment in building partnerships and mobilizing allies – including men and boys, women’s groups, community leaders and even former practitioners of female genital mutilation – to help eliminate the practice.

• Investment in developing and enforcing national-level laws and strengthening institutions.

“So far, progress has been clear and measurable. Today, girls are one third less likely to be subjected to female genital mutilation than 30 years ago, and in the last two decades, the proportion of girls and women in high-prevalence countries who oppose the practice has doubled.

“Those gains now face an unprecedented challenge. Global efforts must keep the momentum moving forward and build on years of progress to end this harmful practice completely.”

Dr. Natalia Kanem is UNFPA Executive Director and Catherine Russell is UNICEF Executive Director.

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By Marty Logan
KATHMANDU, Dec 10 2021 (IPS)

I suspect that most of you have at least heard of female genital mutilation, or FGM. It’s a practice that happens in numerous African countries, in which girls’ genitalia are removed or cut, for cultural or religious reasons. FGM has been condemned globally for years and campaigners continue working to end it.

But what might surprise you is that FGM happens in Asia too. And not just in one or two countries. According to today’s guest, Keshia Mahmood from Malaysia-based non-profit ARROW, the practice occurs in as many as 13 countries in both Southeast Asia and South Asia. That shocked me. I think I’m pretty well informed, and I lived in Malaysia for four years, but I didn’t know about FGM happening there. Interestingly, the United Nations joint programme to eliminate FGM works in 17 countries, but none of them are in Asia.

Keshia explains why FGM in Asia — which she refers to as FGM/C, or female genital mutilation or cutting — has been so under-exposed, but how that started changing after its elimination was included in one of the Sustainable Development Goals, whose deadline is 2030. Still, ending it will be a huge challenge, in part because practising communities believe that it is a much less invasive version of FGM than those performed in African countries. Another impediment is the growing medicalization of the practice, which lends it an air of legitimacy.

Keshia also discusses a new initiative co-led by ARROW called the Asia Network to end FGM/C, and some of the avenues it is pursuing to support partners working on the ground to end the practice. They have their work cut out for them: every year more than 1 million girls in Asia are cut in the name of culture and religion.

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Nov 23 2021 (IPS)

Thirty percent of women and girls suffered physical or sexual violence in their lifetime, most frequently by an intimate partner. And more than 70 percent of all sold, bought and enslaved victims of human smuggling and trafficking are women and girls — three out of four of them are sexually exploited.

These are just some of the brush strokes of a gloomy picture on the still prevailing violence practiced against women and girls, one of the most widespread, persistent and devastating human rights violations, which remains largely unreported due to the impunity, silence, stigma and shame surrounding it.

These are figures drawn from recorded cases. Thus, it is not hard to imagine that the numbers and percentages are much higher.

Is an international day enough?

Every year, 25 November marks the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women. According to this year’s, in general terms, it manifests itself in physical, sexual and psychological forms, encompassing:

• intimate partner violence (battering, psychological abuse, marital rape, femicide);

• sexual violence and harassment (rape, forced sexual acts, unwanted sexual advances, child sexual abuse, forced marriage, street harassment, stalking, cyber- harassment);

• human trafficking (slavery, sexual exploitation);

Like in previous years, the 2021 International Day will mark the launch of 16 days of activism that will conclude on 10 December 2021, which is International Human Rights Day.

Different forms of violence against women and girls

According to the World Day, the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women issued by the UN General Assembly in 1993, defines violence against women as: “any act of gender-based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.”

In this, UN Women –which works to develop and uphold standards and create an environment in which every woman and girl can exercise her human rights and live up to her full potential– reports that fewer than 40 percent of the women who experience violence seek help of any sort.

Low- and lower-middle-income countries disproportionately affected

UN Women also reports that, globally, violence against women disproportionately affects low- and lower-middle-income countries and regions.

And that 37 percent of women aged 15 to 49 living in countries classified by the Sustainable Development Goals as “least developed” have been subject to physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence in their life.

Also, 22 percent of women living in “least developed countries” have been subjected to intimate partner violence in the past 12 months—substantially higher than the world average of 13 percent.

According to this world entity, adult women account for nearly half (49 per cent) of all human trafficking victims detected globally. Women and girls together account for 72 percent, with girls representing more than three out of every four child trafficking victims. Most women and girls are trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation.

In the Middle East and North Africa, 40–60 per cent of women have experienced street-based sexual harassment.

Meanwhile, 1 in 10 women in the European Union report having experienced cyber-harassment since the age of 15.

Also meanwhile, at least 200 million women and girls, aged 15–49 years, have undergone female genital mutilation in 31 countries where the practice is concentrated. Half of these countries are in West Africa.

There are still countries where female genital mutilation is almost universal, where at least 9 in 10 girls and women, aged 15–49 years, have been cut. (See: Daughters of a Lesser God (II) 200 Million Girls Mutilated)

Moreover, 15 million adolescent girls worldwide, aged 15–19 years, have experienced forced sex. In the vast majority of countries, adolescent girls are most at risk of forced sex (forced sexual intercourse or other sexual acts) by a current or former husband, partner, or boyfriend. Based on data from 30 countries, only one per cent have ever sought professional help.

Add to all the above that 1 in 5 women are married before reaching the age of 18. (See: Daughters of a Lesser God (I) 800 Million Girls Forced to Be Mothers).

Any hope?

By September 2020, 52 countries had integrated prevention and response to violence against women and girls into COVID-19 response plans, and 121 countries had adopted measures to strengthen services for women survivors of violence during the global crisis, but more efforts are urgently needed.

UN Women also reports that at least 155 countries have passed laws on domestic violence, and 140 have laws on sexual harassment in the workplace.

“However, even when laws exist, this does not mean they are always compliant with international standards and recommendations, or that the laws are implemented and enforced.”

All the above facts and figures are not only shocking; they reflect the scary reality of millions of women and girls in yet another case of the staggering inequalities prevailing in the world.

Female Genital Mutilation is a ‘violent act’ that, among other dramatic consequences, causes infection, disease, childbirth complications and death. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

By Baher Kamal
MADRID, Nov 5 2021 (IPS)

While male circumcision is spread mainly among Muslim and other religious communities, and it is apparently accepted by some medical spheres, more than 200 million girls have already fallen prey to a dangerous, abhorrent practice, which is carried out in the name of social and religious traditions: Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

Such a human rights violation is mostly carried out on young girls between infancy and age 15, is one stark evidence of gender inequality. Nevertheless it is not legally typified as a “crime” nor is it a relevant focus of wealthy societies’ feminist movements.

Although primarily concentrated in some 30 countries in Africa and the Middle East, FGM is a universal problem and is also practiced in some States in Asia and Latin America. Moreover, FGM continues to persist amongst immigrant populations living in Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand

Furthermore, it is far from being stopped—in fact some 70 million more girls are right now at risk of being mutilated by the year 2030.

What is all about

“Female Genital Mutilation is a ‘violent act’ that, among other dramatic consequences, causes infection, disease, childbirth complications and death,” said on this silenced practice the executive directors of the United Nations Population Fund UNFPA and UN Children’s Fund UNICEF in a joint statement.

In order to denounce this violation, it should be more than enough to report some of the key facts and conclusions that world health and human rights experts have compiled for the United Nations Organisation.

Frightening facts

These following ones are just some of the key facts presented by the World Health Organization (WHO) on the occasion of this year’s International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation.

— Female genital mutilation involves the partial or total removal of external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.

— The practice has no health benefits for girls and women. And it is a violation of their human rights.

— FGM can cause severe bleeding and problems urinating, and later cysts, infections, as well as complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths.

— More than 200 million girls and women alive today have been cut in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where FGM is concentrated.

Deep-rooted inequality

According to the UN: “This violent, harmful practice reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women and girls… The practice also violates their rights to sexual and reproductive health, security and physical integrity, their right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and their right to life when the procedure results in death”.

No health benefits, only harm

According to thw World Health Organisation, FGM has no health benefits, and it harms girls and women in many ways. It involves removing and damaging healthy and normal female genital tissue, and interferes with the natural functions of girls’ and women’s bodies.

Generally speaking, risks of FGM increase with increasing severity (which here corresponds to the amount of tissue damaged), although all forms of FGM are associated with increased health risk.

Immediate complications can include: severe pain; excessive bleeding (haemorrhage); genital tissue swelling; fever; infections e.g., tetanus; urinary problems; wound healing problems; injury to surrounding genital tissue; shock and… death.

Long-term complications can include: painful urination, urinary tract infections); vaginal problems (discharge, itching, bacterial vaginosis and other infections); menstrual problems (painful menstruations, difficulty in passing menstrual blood, etc.).

And scar tissue and keloid; sexual problems (pain during intercourse, decreased satisfaction, etc.); increased risk of childbirth complications (difficult delivery, excessive bleeding, caesarean section, need to resuscitate the baby, etc.) and newborn deaths; need for later surgeries, and psychological problems (depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, low self-esteem, etc.).

In addition to the fact that most of the girls and women who have been subject to FMG live in numerous African countries, and some in Asia, they are also increasingly found in Europe, Australia, Canada and the United States; primarily immigrants from Africa and Southwestern Asia, according to the UN Children’s Fund UNICEF, UN Population Fund UNFPA and UN Women.

Also among migrants and refugees

The world bodies’ experts also report that, although primarily concentrated in some 30 countries in Africa and the Middle East, FGM is a universal problem and is also practiced in some States in Asia and Latin America. Moreover, FGM continues to persist amongst immigrant populations living in Western Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand.

But what is behind the practice of girls genital mutilation?

According to WHO, the reasons why female genital mutilations are performed vary from one region to another as well as over time, and include a mix of sociocultural factors within families and communities.

The most commonly cited reasons are: where FGM is a social convention (social norm), the social pressure to conform to what others do and have been doing, as well as the need to be accepted socially and the fear of being rejected by the community, are strong motivations to perpetuate the practice.

As well, FGM is often considered a necessary part of raising a girl, and a way to prepare her for adulthood and marriage. And it is often motivated by beliefs about what is considered acceptable sexual behaviour.

As importantly: female genital mutilation aims to ensure premarital virginity and marital fidelity. In many communities it is believed to reduce a woman’s libido and therefore believed to help her resist extramarital sexual acts. Where it is believed that being cut increases marriageability, FGM is more likely to be carried out.

What else to say about such an act of cruelty…? Maybe to reiterate that it is in many cases committed in the name of social tradition and religious beliefs whose self-proclaimed male representatives use to justify by saying that mutilating girls is the way to “purify” them… by reducing their sexual appetite and keeping it all for their own!

Egyptian women protesters behind bars. Credit: VOA News

By Nimco Ali and Reem Abdellatif
CAIRO, Egypt, Oct 27 2021 (IPS)

The fate of Egyptian women and girls delicately hangs in the balance as the country continues to have one of the worst records in the world for gender equality. With oppression often state-sanctioned, Egyptian women face a daily struggle against sexual harassment and other violations of their basic human rights, including institutionalised violence.

Today, African Women Rights Advocates (AWRA) and The Five Foundation, The Global Partnership To End FGM, have come together with Equality Now, Democracy for the Arab World Now and several prominent voices from the region and beyond, to demand that the Egyptian government takes immediate steps to fix this situation.

It needs to take clear action to enhance the rights of women and girls in all areas of life, including by ending child marriage and banning articles that perpetuate sexual violence and gender discrimination in the text of the country’s laws.

The signatories to an open letter are also demanding that the Egyptian government enforces laws against female genital mutilation (FGM). With 27.2 million affected – around 90 percent of the female population – Egypt has one of the highest number of survivors of FGM in the world, yet the government is failing to act effectively.

It’s clear that if and when perpetrators are eventually arrested and convicted, they are given extremely short and suspended sentences, such as when 17-year-old Mayar Mohamed Moussa was killed in 2017 — and just over one year ago when yet another girl, 12-year-old Nada Hassan Abdel-Maqsoud, died in a private medical clinic in Manfalout.

In 2013, 13-year-old Soheir al-Batea’s killer Dr. Raslan Fadl only spent a couple of months behind bars in 2016, after evading arrest for three years. The anti-FGM law was strengthened earlier this year, but we know of first hand reports of clinics in Cairo still openly offering to medicalise the harmful and sometimes deadly practice.

Furthermore, women cannot fully claim their basic right to bodily autonomy in a state where public laws do not criminalise marital rape or virginity testing. The government has made no effort to address domestic violence in Egypt, which has been long tolerated and accepted in society.

Egyptian women and girls have had enough. In the last couple of years, they have come forward in unprecedented numbers to break the fear barrier and reveal harrowing lived experiences with sexual abuse.

Survivors demanded justice and called on the state to help end impunity for perpetrators of sexual harassment. However, their pleas for bodily autonomy fell on deaf ears when in January 2021, the Egyptian cabinet proposed a personal status bill that would strip women of their basic rights even further.

Human rights activists and grassroots women protested the regressive proposal, which would have given fathers priority over mothers in child custody. It would also have allowed fathers to prevent mothers from travelling abroad with their children.

In matters of marriage, a male guardian such as an uncle, father or brother would have had to sign a marriage contract on behalf of the wife. Although this particular draft law is now unlikely to be passed, signatories of the Open Letter want more clarity to make sure it does not reappear in a new format since the law was proposed by the government as opposed to one political party representative.

In Egypt, the internet remains one of the only public avenues of alternative expression; and yet Egyptian female social media influencers who are unaffiliated with the state or ruling elite have been targeted with arrests.

Since 2020, authorities launched a highly abusive campaign against women social media influencers and have prosecuted over a dozen of them under vague “morality” and “public indecency” laws, accusing the women of violating “family values.”

When famous influencer Haneen Hossam was acquitted after her arrest, authorities re-arrested her in 2021 and charged her with “human trafficking” for merely using social media in ways that challenged patriarchal norms.

Regional and global women’s rights activists who are familiar with Egypt’s bureaucratic and oppressive history towards women maintain that this is a state-sponsored crackdown to rein in female social media influencers by resorting to sexist “morality” charges that violate women’s rights to freedom of expression, bodily autonomy, and non-discrimination.

Donors and corporations investing in Egypt should also take note of all of these violations against its female population, and provide support where it’s critically needed – particularly to grassroots women activists.

The prosperous, fair, and peaceful vision that the United Nations and global powers hold for “Generation Equality” cannot be achieved when the Arab world’s most populous nation grossly undermines its women and girls.

Egypt must live up to its role as a beacon of hope and civilization, and so the Egyptian government must be held to account to carry through the changes that are needed so that young girls are free to live dignified and fulfilled lives.

Later this month, Egypt will have an ideal opportunity to do so, when it will be asked to be part of a review by the United Nations Committee on the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

Egypt’s economic transformation is already happening. It is one of the leaders in the region in terms of attracting foreign direct investment, but its potential will never be fully realised until its government allows the female half of its population to be safe, free and be able to contribute socially and economically to the country’s future.

Reem Abdellatif is Director & Chief Operating Officer of the African Women Rights Advocates movement (AWRA). Nimco Ali is CEO of The Five Foundation, The Global Partnership To End FGM.

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Masooma Ranalvi is the founder of WeSpeakOut and has campaigned to end FGM/C.

By Mariya Salim
NEW DELHI, India, Feb 6 2021 (IPS)

Survivors of female genital mutilation or cutting (FGM/C), are determined to share their stories to end this practice – even though they face ostracisation by their communities.

Masooma Ranalvi, an FGM/C survivor and founder of ‘WeSpeakOut’, an organisation committed to eliminating FGM/C or khafd/khafz/khatna explains that FGM/C is practised by various communities in India but is prominently practised among the Dawoodi Bohras.

However, speaking out against the harmful practice has not been easy for Ranalvi and the many others who have dared to relive their childhood memory of being ‘cut’ and share it with the world to end it some-day.

“There is a culture of fear around this issue, a culture of silence. Many do not speak out as there are social boycotts against who do – unofficially declared but carried out by the community,” says Ranalvi in an exclusive interview with IPS.

“Twenty years ago, even burial rights after death would be denied to those who dared to differ and economic sanctions against families who did not comply and spoke out,” says Ranalvi, who has been a leading voice in pushing for a legal and social end to FGM/C in India and across the globe.

According to a study conducted by ‘WeSpeakOut’, of the two million people who belong to India’s Bohra community and its diaspora, nearly 75%-80% of Bohra women are subject to FGM/C.

Ranalvi is also a petitioner in the legal action initiated in 2017 by lawyer Sunita Tiwari.

Tiwari filed a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) in the Supreme Court of India seeking a ban on FGM/C among the Dawoodi Bohra Muslim Community. This practice, which has been the community’s best-kept secret and practised by many others worldwide, is increasingly being spoken about, especially by the survivors.

Mariya Taher is the co-founder of Sahiyo an organisation aimed at ending FGM/C across the globe.

FGM/C involves the partial or total removal of external female genitalia or other injuries to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. Religion, culture, and tradition are often cited as motives for those practising it. There are about 92 countries where FGM/C is practised out of which 51 countries have expressly prohibited it under their national laws in some form or another.

In Asia, however, there is not a single country which has a law enacted to prohibit the harmful practice.

Based in the United States, Mariya Taher has co-founded Sahiyo, a non-profit working to end the practice globally and among the Bohra Community. She is a survivor and has been active passing state-level legislation in Massachusetts against it.

“It took five years to do so, but this past August 2020, we were able to pass a law. I am currently working with a group in Connecticut to pass a state law there. In the U.S., while we have a federal law, we also need state legislation, only 39 states have laws against FGM/C at this point,” Taher told IPS.

Aarefa Johari, journalist and co-founder of Sahiyo, adds that “enacting legislation against FGM/C has to be preceded by, accompanied and after that followed by intense and robust community activism at the grassroots level. It needs education, awareness and dialogue.”

Aarefa Johari is a journalist and co-founder of Sahiyo

A survivor, she believes that though “a law against FGM/C is vital as a deterrent and as a means of making the State’s stance on the practice clear, laws alone cannot bring an end to deep-rooted social norms.” This would require a long-term commitment and legal intervention to change the community’s mindset, Johari says.

Since many within the various communities use religion to justify the practice, it is important to note that there has been extensive research and writing around the issue by Islamic scholars and others, based on Quranic texts and Hadith (a collection of traditions containing sayings and actions of Prophet Muhammad) which discredit the practice as Un-Islamic.

Karamah, Muslim Women Lawyers for Human Rights, in a study published on FGM/C, concludes that FGM/C is a harmful practice that lacks religious mandate.

“The Qur’an does not provide a single verse or instance in which female khitan (FGM/C) is mentioned as obligatory or desirable. Furthermore, contrary to general belief, there is no single authentic hadith of the Prophet that requires female khitan.”

Ten-year-old Munira’s (name changed) aunt held her hand and took her to the basement of her empty house one Sunday evening promising to play a game with her. Little did Munira know the prize of this game, where she was asked to lie on a table with her underpants down and her lips sealed by her aunt to prevent her screams being heard, would end in her being scarred for life. She was ‘cut’ by a member of her family. This memory resonates with most survivors of the practice.

“It is never easy for anyone who has experienced some form of gender-based violence to share their story … My process took years, and it involved me first learning about it, then writing about it. The first thing I ever wrote was for the imagining equality project,” Taher says.

“It took many years after that project for me to get comfortable to share it on camera or to be interviewed by the media about my experience. But even as I grew comfortable, I experienced multiple forms of backlash.”

The impact on her immediate community meant that some of her relatives stopped speaking to her.

“Our movement (to end FGM/C) itself has faced backlash both publicly and privately from the community – we are trolled a lot online, there are attempts to constantly discredit the stories of survivors and silence those who speak up,” says Johari.

The trolling has not stopped the campaign to end FGM/C.

“It is important to emphasise that this is a sign of the importance of our work, and we get as much (or more) positive support from community members as we get negative brickbats,” Johari adds.

Many women and some community members against FGM/C sadly choose to remain silent in the interest of the ‘larger cause’, given the Islamophobic climate that exists.

Taher says that it is difficult not to see the intersection of oppressions when working on FGM/C, Islamophobia, unfortunately, being one of them.

“Particularly with the false assumption that only Muslims practice FGM/C. FGM/C is global … occurs in every continent in the world except Antarctica. And where FGM/C does occur in Islamic communities, it is a very small minority,” Taher says.

“The truth is FGM/C is a social norm justified in all sorts of ways – religion, health, social status, marriageability, tradition, culture, etc. This social norm was started before the advent of Islam and Christianity – meaning it pre-dates those religions. Yet, in doing this work today, speaking out against Islamophobia as well as xenophobia is vital when working on FGM/C.”

Ranalvi said the decision to turn to legal action only happened when all else had failed.

“We knocked at the doors of the courts when all attempts at dialogue with the clergy and leadership within the community failed. The support of enacted laws and of institutional bodies to give power to our resistance and enable us to take control over our bodies and help end this violation, is imperative,” adds Ranalvi.

As the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation on February 6th nears, it can only be hoped that FGM/C, a widely prevalent but dark secret that violates women’s human rights and practised by various communities across the world, ends.

Mariya Salim is a fellow at IPS UN Bureau

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Excerpt:

Zigunchor in Senegal’s southern Casamence region has the highest literacy rate in the country but here gender-based violence such as such as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is still practiced. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
HYDERABAD, India, Jul 7 2020 (IPS)

Growing up in Senegal’s southern Casamence region — a conflict zone —  Fatou Ndiaye, now 43, often heard gunfire and watched fearfully as she saw people flee their villages. But what she dreaded more than a flying bullet was Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).

In her Wolof community, village grandmothers or professional circumcisers cut off the genitals of girls as young as 7 with a sharp blade. Ndiaye wanted to speak out against this but did not have the courage. But one day 13 years ago, she met Aissatou Sall, a fellow Senegalese woman who used storytelling to raise awareness against FGM.

“Connecting with her and hearing her stories taught me a lot about cutting. I learnt how women’s rights were often violated under the disguise of religious norms and traditions. And it gave me the courage to tell my family that I would speak against FGM and every harmful practice from now on, with or without their support,” Ndiaye, who has since become a professional storyteller herself, tells IPS. Occasionally, she also makes documentary videos in order to raise social awareness in her community.

Like Ndiaye, thousands of Senegalese women and girls are learning to take a stand against gender-based violence like FGM, child marriage, stoning and menstrual taboos through communication platforms that include storytelling, community counselling, mobile apps, art, poetry and videos.

GBV and girls’ education in Senegal

Statistically, when compared to its closest neighbours, Senegal has a much lower rate of gender-based violence (GBV), especially FGM. The average education rate is also much higher that its neighbours.

According to data published by the United Nations Children’s Fund, eight percent of women 20-24 years were married or in union before age 15 and 29 percent of women 20-24 years were married or in union before age 18. In addition, 24 percent of Senegalese girls and women aged 15 to 49 years have undergone FGM, while in Mali, Gambia, Mauritania and Guinea Bissau its 89, 76, 67 and 45 percent respectively for the same age group. 

However, within ethnic minority communities the numbers are almost as high as they are across the border, says Molly Melching, the founder of Tostan — one of the longest-running and most influential NGOs in Senegal working to curb FGM through community awareness and non-formal education. 

Based in Dakar, Tostan works across Francophone Africa and also in Somalia and Djibouti.

According to Melching, more and more Senegalese have been rejecting FGM thanks to a coordinated ground movement focused on community awareness raising, which is spearheaded by several civil society movements.

There are other forms of GBV, such as child marriage, which have a high prevalence in the country.

UNICEF data shows “eight percent of women 20-24 years were married or in union before age 15, and 29 percent of women 20-24 years were married or in union before age 18”. 

“In Senegal, the national literacy average is 51 percent. But there is a disparity between boys and girls. 70.7 percent of boys go to school while for girls the number is 63 percent. Almost all the girls who drop out of school [do so] because of early marriage,” Fatou Gueye Seck, coordinator at Coalition des Organisations pour la Défense de l’éducation Publique (COSYDEP), a Dakar-based NGO promoting free and inclusive education, tells IPS.

Ending GBV with Non-formal Education

Melching, who has been working in Senegal for four decades, tells IPS that most families here have relatives across the border who share a common set of values and cultural practices. To address a contentious issue like FGM, which is embedded in the value system, it is important to educate the entire community so that the knowledge can also be shared.

Tostan has been educating communities, including smaller minority groups living in far-flung regions, using a rights-based approach and a diverse package of communication tools, including guidebooks in the local language and mobile-based learning modules.

“Let’s be honest: there is no social change unless the community is directly involved. Nobody likes it if you go to them and say ‘this is wrong about your culture and that is wrong about your tradition.’ So, you have to work in a way where the space is open for the community to freely involve and engage to think and act,” Melching tells IPS.

At Tostan’s human rights-based Community Empowerment Programme (CEP), community members attend classes on human rights. They also learn about their right to health and the right to be free from all forms of violence. They also discuss the responsibilities they share to protect these rights in their community.

In sessions on health, they learn about the potential, immediate, and long-term harmful consequences of the practice and discuss ways to prevent these health problems in the future.

Finally, instead of blaming or criticising, community members are encouraged to discuss practices like FGM that are harmful for them, which then leads to the decision to end the practice.

The impact has been impressive, reveals Melching. Over 8,000 communities from Senegal and seven other countries in sub-Saharan Africa have publicly declared to end FGM and child/forced marriage.

Micro credit to curb GBV

Queen Sheba Cisse was born in Alabama, United States, but returned to her roots in Senegal over a decade ago. For the past seven years, Cisse has been helping the women of M’bour, a town in the western Thies region, become financially independent.

Cisse’s NGO has set up a micro credit programme that assists women develop their own local businesses. Attendees are asked questions like “What do women want? What business will work? What will give them a higher say in the family? etc.”

“There is no denial that GBV, like cutting, is still a big challenge in our community. But instead of looking at it as an isolated issue, we took a holistic look and realised cutting is performed by women because they believe in the ritual.

“We also realised that where women were economically empowered, they had a voice and their voices were taken seriously. So, we decided to strengthen women’s voices and help them become financially independent, so they could decide on their own GBV,” Cisse tells IPS.

Continued investment – the need of the COVID hour

According to a recent report released by the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), titled “Against My Will: State of World Population 2020”, an additional two million cases of FGM will occur globally by 2030. An additional 5.6 million child marriages can also be expected globally because of the coronavirus pandemic.

A new U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation report, “All means All”, shows that exclusion in education has deepened during the COVID-19 pandemic and about 40 percent of low and lower-middle income countries have not supported disadvantaged such as the poor, linguistic minorities and learners with disabilities during school shutdowns.

The list includes Senegal where only 13 percent of schools are equipped with internet and 28 percent of schools have computers, severely limiting online education.

To bridge the gaps, the report makes a series of recommendations that include more consultation with communities, greater participation by NGOs and providing targeted financing for those who are currently lagging behind.

A similar call for continuing support to Senegalese girls and women affected by the pandemic was given by the Deliver for Good global campaign. In April, the campaign published an open letter urging all governments to “apply a gender lens and put girls, women, and gender equality at the center of COVID-19 preparedness, response, and recovery”.

Powered by Women Deliver and various partners, the campaign aims to make the Sustainable Development Goals, including goal four of education work best for girls and women.

Seck of COSYDEP, which is one of the Deliver for Good campaign partners in Senegal, describes how the campaign has continued to support girls and women’s education across Senegal.

“We have been working in different municipalities across the country, organising local meetings and field visits and have seen a lot of these municipal councils achieving great success,” she says. 

For example, in the Keur Massar municipality, the mayor was declared “Mayor Champion of Education” by his peers after he pledged to increase the budget allocated to the reproductive health of teenagers and young people.

In Guinchor, Casamence, where Nadiaye lives with her two young children, the pandemic has brought life to a standstill.

However, instead of suspending her awareness-raising work, Ndiaye is now exploring new areas like internet talk shows to continue her storytelling.

“The beauty of non-formal education is that we teach and learn in every possible way. So, I am now planning to start an audio show. Because of the shutdown I can’t travel, but with this show I can cross the borders and educate people living on the other side too.”

As a Pokot girl in Kenya undergoes Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), her father stands guard with spear at hand to ensure that the ritual goes as planned. FGM was outlawed in Kenya in 2011 but is still practiced among pastoralist communities. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Mar 6 2020 (IPS)

Pokot girls are expected to face the knife stark naked and with courage. To inspire confidence, their fathers sit a few metres away from them with a spear in hand.

“If a girl screams or shows even the slightest resistance, the father is allowed to throw the spear at her for bringing shame to the family. The men can also throw the spear at me if I do not circumcise fast enough,” Chepocheu Lotiamak, a circumciser, tells IPS.

It defies belief that young girls between the ages of nine and 15 could sit side by side, legs spread apart as one after the other their external genitalia is chopped off by an elderly female circumciser.

Lotiamak says that when it comes to payment of a bride price, a Pokot girl who has undergone FGM receives 60 to 100 cows, or on the lower side, 25 to 40 cows. Those not ‘cut’, even if university graduates, receive four to eight cows. But then again, very few make it to university.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) was outlawed in Kenya in 2011.

But the situation of women and girls in Kenya’s expansive West Pokot County, approximately 380 kilometres from the capital, Nairobi, is characterised by FGM, child marriages, and high maternal and child mortality rates.

Apakamoi Psinon Reson, a conflict mitigation expert based in West Pokot, says that FGM is closely linked to conflict and pastoralist communities, as those communities that enjoy relative peace have all but abandoned FGM.

Even as the world marks International Women’s Day on Mar. 8 under the theme I am Generation Equality: Realizing Women’s Rights, it is a long road ahead for Pokot girls and women.

“Whether in West Pokot, Baringo, Kerio Valley in the Rift Valley region or the northern parts of Kenya experiencing conflict over natural resources, livestock and poor leadership, women have no rights and are living very difficult lives,” Mary Kuket, the chairperson of the Baringo County chapter of Maendeleo ya Wanawake (Development of Women), a national women’s movement, tells IPS.

Northern Kenya has a long history of ethnic conflict and marginalisation, and now terrorism spilling over from neighbouring Somalia has intensified conflict in this region.

Reason argues that it is difficult to protect women and girls, and to enforce the law in these conflict situations.

“We have many pockets of heavily armed bandits in pastoralist communities who are happy to maintain a situation of lawlessness in these regions,” he tells IPS, adding that even after years of disarmament missions communities have not been fully disarmed.

Kenya, recognised as East Africa’s largest economy by the World Bank, is not among the top 10 Sub-Saharan African countries lauded for promoting gender equality, according to the Global Gender Gap Report 2020. 

It ranks 109 out of 153 countries by the World Economic Forum based on progress made towards gender parity.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) cites a lack of accountability for serious human rights violations, including rape perpetrated largely by security forces in the 2017 elections.

Kenya is outperformed by much smaller economies such as Rwanda, Uganda, Namibia, Zambia and Madagascar, all of which made it on the list of top 10 countries in sub-Saharan Africa for their notable steps towards gender equality.

But with the current pace of transformation, gender gaps in sub-Saharan Africa can only be closed in 95 years, according to the World Economic Forum.

South Sudan remains on the radar of human rights organisations since December 2013 when a fresh round of conflict began. The World Report 2019 released by HRW estimates that more than four million people have fled their homes.

Gender champion and executive director of the non-governmental Coalition of State Women’s and Youth Organisation in South Sudan, Dina Disan Olweny, explains the harmful and retrogressive traditions that prevail, particularly in some of the country’s more fragile states.

Olweny tells IPS that South Sudan’s Eastern Equatorial state is particularly notorious for the abhorrent practice of blood money.

Regional clashes between the government and rebel forces resulted in crimes committed against civilians, including sexual violence.

“There is frequent conflict here over livestock and grazing fields. When a family loses a loved one, they expect to be compensated with livestock by the family that killed their loved one,” says Olweny.

“This compensation is called blood money because the affected family receives something for life lost. Those too poor to afford livestock usually give away one of their young girls,” she says. She says that at least five of the 12 tribes in this state continue to give away young girls as blood money.

• Other frail states across Africa, including Chad, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Mali, Mauritania, Central African Republic, Somalia, Niger, Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have the worst gender indexes, according to a 2019 global report by Equal Measures 2030, a civil society and private-led partnership that connects data and evidence with advocacy and action.
• Throughout 2018, HRW reported that DRC’s government officials and security forces carried out widespread repression and serious human rights violations.
• The World Report 2019  further documents that “government officials and security forces carried out widespread repression and serious human rights violations. In central and eastern DRC for instance, the situation reached alarming levels as an estimated 4.5 million were displaced from their homes, and that more than 130,000 refugees fled to neighbouring countries”.

The Central African Republic (CAR) remains a particularly fragile state as armed groups, which have expanded control to at least 70 percent of the country, continue to perpetrate serious human rights abuses — killing civilians, raping and sexually assaulting women and girls.

• The African Union has entered into a political dialogue with the armed groups towards ending the fighting in the country.

Similarly, Somalia is now defined by fighting and lack of state protection. Currently, at least 2.7 million people are internally displaced, many of them at risk of abuse such as sexual violence.

Women in Mauritania are not sufficiently protected by the law. According to the World Report 2019 “a variety of state policies and laws that criminalise adultery and morality offences renders women vulnerable to gender-based violence, making it difficult and risky for them to report sexual assault to the police”.

HRW has raised concerns that Mauritanian law does not adequately define the crime of rape and other forms of sexual assault. Nonetheless, a more comprehensive draft law exists.

Despite ongoing conflict, across Africa, women have made significant effort to participate in the labour force nearly on par with men. However, gender experts such as Olweny raise concerns over the wide gap between male and female professionals and technical workers.

She says that women remain marginalised and excluded from the economy because they are confined to unskilled work, and are working out of necessity to put food on the table.

The Global Gender Gap Report 2020 concludes that this is an indication that a vast majority of women are in poorly paying jobs within the informal sector.

• For instance, in the DRC about 62 percent of women and 67 percent of men participate in the labour force. However, only about 25 percent of women are employed in professional and technical work.
• Similarly, only 23 percent of women in Cote d’Ivor’s labour force are professionals. The numbers are similar in Mali and Togo, coming in at 21 percent and 20 percent respectively. 

“Across Africa, although in varying degrees, we are experiencing prevailing levels of discriminatory gender norms and practices. We still have alarming levels of violence towards women, and institutions that are too weak to address the plight of women,” Fihima Mohamed, the founder of the Women Initiative, a local social movement for the empowerment of women and girls in the republic of Djibouti, tells IPS.

She says that while more girls are enrolled in school, they are not staying long enough to acquire technical skills to engage in professional work.

“Our women therefore remain excluded from political and economic decision making. It is very unfortunate that, as a collective society, we are yet to realise that more gender-equal countries such as Norway, Finland and Sweden are also global economic powerhouses,” says Mohamed.

• A Foresight Africa 2020 report shows that Africa will not overcome many of the economic challenges facing it, until it narrows existing wide gender gaps in its labour force.
• According to the report, if African countries with lower relative female-to-male participation rates in 2018 had the same rates as advanced countries, “the continent would have gained an additional 44 million women actively participating in its labour markets”.
• Further, the report emphasises that “by increasing gender equality in the labour market, the gain in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ranges from 1 percent in Senegal to 50 percent in Niger”.
• Meanwhile, the Global Gender Gap Report 2020 shows that Nigeria, Lesotho, Namibia, Eswatini and South Africa are among the very few African countries where women outpace men as professionals or technical workers.
• Other countries where the percentage of women professionals has not outpaced men but impressively ranges from 40 to 46 percent are Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Tanzania.

To realise gender equality in this generation, Mohamed called for a total outlawing of retrogressive traditions such as FGM, a renewal of efforts to keep girls attending school to the highest level, and incentives — such as tax exemptions — to support women in business.

Excerpt:

Female genital mutilation (FGM) traditional surgeon in Kapchorwa, Uganda speaking to a reporter. The women in this area are being trained by the civil society organisation REACH in how to educate people to stop the practice. Credit: Joshua Kyalimpa/IPS

By External Source
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 6 2020 (IPS)

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) poses serious risks to the health and well-being of women and girls, but it also exacts a crippling economic toll, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). 

New modelling by the UN agency to coincide with the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, marked on Thursday, reveals that the cost of treating the total health impacts of FGM would amount to $1.4 billion globally per year.

The figure sees individual countries devoting nearly 10 per cent of their yearly expenditure to treat FGM; for some countries, it could be as high as 30 per cent.

“FGM is not only a catastrophic abuse of human rights that significantly harms the physical and mental health of millions of girls and women; it is also a drain on a country’s vital economic resources”, said Dr Ian Askew, Director of WHO’s Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research.

“More investment is urgently needed to stop FGM and end the suffering it inflicts.”

FGM a ‘manifestation of gender inequality’: UN chief

Female genital mutilation is a blatant manifestation of gender inequality, said UN chief António Guterres, in his message to mark the International Day, noting that it was “deeply entrenched in social, economic and political structures. It is also a human rights violation and an extreme form of violence against girls.”

He applaued the focus on the Day on the power of young people to make their voices heard: “We must amplify those voices and help them to advocate for change and for their rights. Together, we can eliminate female genital mutilation by 2030. Doing so will have a positive ripple effect on the health, education and economic advancement of girls and women.”

More than 200 million affected

It is estimated that more than 200 million women and girls today have undergone FGM, which involves altering or injuring female genital organs for cultural or non-medical reasons.

The procedure is mostly carried out on young girls between infancy and 15-years-old, and the impacts on their health and well-being can be immediate—from infections, bleeding, or psychological trauma—to chronic health conditions that can occur throughout life.

Women subjected to FGM are also more likely to suffer life-threatening complications during childbirth, and to experience pain or problems when they menstruate, urinate or have sex.

Medicalized FGM on the rise

The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) further reports that around a quarter of FGM survivors, or roughly 52 million women and girls, were cut by health care providers. The death of a 12-year-old girl in Egypt last month highlighted the dangers of medicalized FGM.

Although the Egyptian authorities banned FGM in 2008, it is still common there and in Sudan, according to UNICEF.

Agency analysis indicates that medicalized FGM is increasing due to the misguided belief that the dangers of FGM are medical, rather than a fundamental violation of a girl’s rights.

“Doctor-sanctioned mutilation is still mutilation. Trained health-care professionals who perform FGM violate girls’ fundamental rights, physical integrity and health,” said UNICEF Executive Director Henrietta Fore.

“Medicalizing the practice does not make it safe, moral, or defensible.”

Abandoning FGM is possible

The trend toward medicalized FGM comes as opposition to the practice continues to grow.

Since 1997, global efforts have led to 26 countries in Africa and the Middle East enacting legislation against FGM, while 33 other countries with migrant populations from nations where it is practiced have also followed suit.

UNICEF also found that the proportion of girls and women in high-prevalence countries who want FGM stopped has doubled over the past two decades.

“We are making progress. Attitudes are changing. Behaviors are changing. And overall fewer girls are getting cut,” said Ms. Fore, the agency’s chief.

Dr. Christina Pallitto, a scientist at WHO, added that many countries and communities are showing that abandoning FGM is possible.

“If countries invest to end female genital mutilation, they can prevent their girls from undergoing this harmful practice and promote the health, rights and well-being of women and girls,” she stated.

This story was originally published by UN News

In a significant shift from tradition, Maasai elders in Loitoktok, in Kenya’s Kajiado County, girls are choosingto forgo traditional FGM as a rite of initiation into womanhood. Photo Credit: Amref Africa

By Ruth Kagia and Siddharth Chatterjee
NAIROBI, Feb 6 2017 (IPS)

On 06 February 2017, the world marks the 14th International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).  

Consider this, approximately 200 million girls and women alive today globally, have undergone some form of FGM.

One cannot but despair at the indolent pace towards elimination of one of the most brutal cultural norms, a practice that continues to hold women and a Nation’s development back.

While Kenya must be applauded for having brought down the national FGM prevalence from 32 percent to 21 percent in the last 12 years, there are still some communities where about nine in ten girls are mutilated, often forced to leave school and into early marriage.

An often-unnoticed reality is that the effects of FGM go far beyond the negative physical and psychosocial consequences. The social and economic damage done to entire countries has only started to be realised.

The origins of practices such as FGM and their continuation over millennia are traced to man’s objective of subjugating women.  Alas, the dire consequences of such practices are affecting the entire population, including those in non-practicing communities.

In 2015, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) recognized the close connection between FGM, gender inequality and development, urging global action to end FGM by 2030.

FGM ranks as one of the worst manifestation of gender inequality. Last year, UNDP’s Africa Human Development Report estimated that gender inequality is costing sub-Saharan Africa six percent of its GDP leading to around US$ 95 billion in lost revenue.

The Government of Kenya is demonstrating commendable determination to eliminate the practice. Increased resources to the national Anti-FGM Board have resulted in good progress towards implementing the Prohibition of the FGM Act and tangible strides are being made to find alternative rites of passage.

Approximately 200 million girls and women alive today globally, have undergone some form of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
From a medical point of view, FGM causes severe health problems as well as complications in childbirth increasing risks of newborn deaths. Adolescent girls are far more likely to die from childbirth-related complications and face greater risks of getting obstetric fistula, which is the most devastating of all childbirth related injuries. They are also at higher risk of contracting HIV.

While education is arguably the best solution for ensuring women and girls gain equal access to political and socio-economic power in society, FGM makes this impossible because very often for the girls, post-mutilation, is end of schooling, early marriage, and denial of sexual and reproductive health and rights.  This is a sure recipe for perpetuation of poverty, misery and inequality in society. We therefore must seek alternative rites of passage to broaden opportunities for girls while recognizing this important milestone.

For the thousands of girls to whom every school holiday comes as a choice between running from home and facing a gruesome, dream-crushing ritual, the country must accelerate the search for lasting solutions.

To make real progress, this battle must not be seen as just a confrontation against a harmful cultural practice, but as an all-encompassing effort to address the political, economic and social drivers that hamper African women’s advancement.

Programmes must include addressing the gaps between legal provisions and practice in gender laws; transforming discriminatory institutional settings and securing women’s economic, social and political participation.

Gains in reducing gender inequality will be defined by more women finishing secondary school, more of them in the formal workplace, more women entrepreneurs accessing credit and more of them contributing in political as well as social decision-making processes.

During a visit to Kenya, former US President Barack Obama observed, just because something is part of our past doesn’t mean it defines our future.  The progress towards Kenya’s Vision 2030 and beyond must include dealing with harmful traditional practices and other scourges that have held back women from progressing.

The UN Secretary General Mr Antonio Guterres has said, “Sustainable development demands full human rights for all women and girls. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development promises to an end to this practice by 2030.”

In the countdown to the realisation of SDGs and Vision 2030, Kenya must decide that FGM and gender related discrimination practices cannot stand in the way of progress any longer. The good news is; Kenya is making remarkable progress.

Ruth Kagia is a senior advisor in the office of the President of Kenya. Siddharth Chatterjee is the United Nations Resident Coordinator to Kenya.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) traditional surgeon in Kapchorwa, Uganda speaking to a reporter. The women in this area are being trained by the civil society organisation REACH in how to educate people to stop the practice. Credit: Joshua Kyalimpa/IPS

By Desmond Latham
JOHANNESBURG, Aug 6 2016 (IPS)

After years of wrangling and debates among African leaders, the movement to end female genital mutilation (FGM) is gaining real momentum, with a new action plan signed this week by Pan African Parliament (PAP) representatives and the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) to end FGM as well as underage marriage.

The UNFPA has already trained over 100,000 health workers to deal specifically with aiding victims of FGM, while tens of thousands of traditional leaders have also signed pledges against the practice.

The agreement followed a PAP Women’s Caucus meeting with UNFPA representatives in Johannesburg on July 29-30.

Kicking off the meeting, PAP President Roger Dang said, “PAP is determined to help and be part of stakeholders to come up with solutions to this practice. This is in line with the mandate of PAP to defend and promote gender balance and people living with disability.”

The PAP is the legislative organ of the African Union, and has up to 250 members representing the 50 AU Member States.

In some African countries, girls as young as eleven and twelve are forced to marry much older men. This has led to an increase in serious health problems, including cervical cancer and a host of social problems.

UNFPA East and Southern Africa Deputy Regional Director Justine Coulson said if the current trend continues, the number of girls under 15 who had babies would rise by a million – from two to three million.

“If we do nothing, in the next decade over 14 million girls under 18 years will be married every year,” she said.

There are believed to be at least seven million child brides in Southern Africa alone. While underage marriage and childbirth is a major health risk, the Pan African Parliament UNFPA workshop also heard how FGM had led to an increased likelihood girls and women would be exposed to sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/AIDS.

The cause of this can be traced back to contaminated cutting instruments, hemorrhages requiring blood transfusions, and injurious sexual intercourse causing vaginal tearing and lesions.

Globally, an estimated 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone some form of FGM. In Africa, FGM is practiced in at least 26 of 43 African countries, with prevalence rates ranging from 98 percent in Somalia to 5 percent in Zaire.

The buy-in of African political leadership is crucial if this latest move is to succeed, with up to 140 million women and girls in sub-Saharan Africa who’ve been forced to submit to the practice of cutting their genitals. The aim is to influence people on the ground as well as effect legislation banning the practice.

The procedure intentionally alters or injures a girl or woman’s organs for non-medical reasons. There are no health benefits in the process and it can cause severe bleeding, problems urinating, cysts, infections and a host of childbirth complications.

There are four types of genital mutilation. Type 1 is a clitoridectomy which is where the clitoris is cut out. Type 2 is known as excision which is the totally removal of the clitoris and inner folds of the vulva. Type 3 is infibulation, which is the tightening of a a vaginal opening while, Type 4 is all other harmful procedures which includes piercing, cauterising, scraping and stitching the vagina.

The PAP also agreed to work with the UNFPA in seeking to overturn the practice of marrying off children under the age of sixteen.

In June, the UNFPA worked with Southern African Development Community Parliamentary Forum representatives at a meeting in Swaziland which voted through a Model Law on eradicating child marriage.

Coulson said moves such as these seen in SADC are beginning to show tangible results.

“Girls and women of Africa need your support to end female genital mutilation. We need to act now. All it requires is our engagement, passion and dedication to uphold the human rights of women and girls,” she told attendees at the workshop.

Now the PAP has setup a working group which will oversee the moves towards a similar law. The areas of priority include laws and legislation, engaging the community, mobilising resources, advocacy and implementing the plan at regional and national levels.

Dang also called on men to step up and join the fight against FGM, saying, “We have double responsibility to defend girls against this human rights violation.”

By Kitty Stapp
NEW YORK, Aug 5 2015 (IPS)

Jaha Dukureh knows firsthand the barbaric effects of undergoing female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). Now a resident of the United States, she was mutilated as a baby in the Gambia in West Africa. Her sister bled to death after enduring the same procedure.

What was done to Dakureh is called “infibulation,” where the clitoris and the labia are removed and the vagina is sealed to insure a girl’s virginity until marriage."Policy makers, doctors, police, teachers and community leaders all have a role in making sure that girls can receive the help they need and deserve. There is no excuse for this type of abuse." -- Paula Kweskin

Now a passionate advocate against FGM/C, Dakureh issued a call to arms on the eve of President Barack Obama’s recent visit to Africa, urging him to “play a historic role in the fight to eliminate FGM.”

“While the origins of FGM are ancient and predate organised religion, there is one thing we know for sure: its purpose is to control female sexuality and lessen a woman’s humanity,” she wrote in a powerful commentary for the Guardian.

In the last 15 years, the number of women and girls at risk of FGM/C in the United States has more than doubled, advocacy groups warn, calling for stronger measures to prevent this human rights violation.

According to data from the Population Reference Bureau, a nonpartisan Washington, D.C. research group, a staggering 506,795 girls and women in the United States have undergone or are at risk of undergoing FGM/C.

“It’s important this subject is no longer taboo,” Paula Kweskin, a human rights attorney who produced a film called Honor Diaries that deals with the problem of FGM, told IPS. “It needs to be discussed at every level so that it can be addressed and eradicated. When it’s swept under the carpet, women and girls are revictimized by the silence and inaction.”

“Policy makers, doctors, police, teachers and community leaders all have a role in making sure that girls can receive the help they need and deserve. There is no excuse for this type of abuse.”

The top 10 metropolitan areas where girls and women are at highest risk of female genital mutilation include New York, Washington, D.C., and Minneapolis-St. Paul.

The PRB notes that FGM/C, which entails partial or total removal of the external genitals of girls and women for religious, cultural, or other nonmedical reasons, has devastating immediate and long-term health and social effects, especially related to childbirth.

Most girls at risk are in found in sub-Saharan Africa. In Djibouti, Guinea, and Somalia, for example, nine in 10 girls ages 15 to 19 have been subjected to FGM/C. But the practice is not limited to developing countries.

An estimated 137,000 women and girls in Britain have undergone the procedure, according to a report released in July by City University London and Equality Now.

In the United States, the PRB says, efforts to stop families from sending their daughters abroad to be cut — so-called “vacation cutting” — spurred the passage of a law in 2013 making it illegal to knowingly transport a girl out of the United States for the purpose of cutting.

“We urge the U.S. to provide a public update on its plans to ensure all efforts to end FGM are sustainable and supported with funding, and support and encourage state efforts to end FGM at local levels,” Shelby Quast, policy director at Equality Now, said last month.

She added that having specific laws in each state would prompt state schools, hospitals and clinics as well as local law enforcement agencies and the judiciary to step up prevention efforts and act swiftly in FGM cases.

“People in [the U.S.] don’t want to think it happens here. But their daughters might be sitting next to a best friend who can be subjected to a violent, cultural procedure,” she told NPR. “If it were cutting the nose or the ear off — something everyone could see — there’d be a different response. We can’t continue to hide this away.”

The U.S. Congress had already passed a law in 1996 making it illegal to perform FGM/C and 23 states have laws against the practice, which has grown in part because of increased immigration from countries where FGM/C is prevalent, especially in North and sub-Saharan Africa.

Between 2000 and 2013, the PRB says, the foreign-born population from Africa more than doubled, from 881,000 to 1.8 million. Just three sending countries—Egypt, Ethiopia, and Somalia—accounted for 55 percent of all U.S. women and girls at risk in 2013.

“This is a barbaric and completely unnecessary practice that causes devastating physical and psychological damage for countless girls and women in the United States and countries across the globe,” said Raheel Raza, president of the Council for Muslims Facing Tomorrow.

Raheel, a human rights activist, is among several Muslim women featured in Honor Diaries, a documentary breaking the silence on FGM and other abuse against women and girls in honour-based communities.

Edited by Thalif Deen

‘Joginis’, otherwise known as India’s ‘temple slaves’, dance outside a temple during a religious festival. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Lyndal Rowlands
NEW YORK, Mar 6 2015 (IPS)

Media coverage of maternal, sexual and reproductive health rights is crucial to achieving international development goals, yet journalists covering these issues often face significant challenges.

“When I was a baby, I got sick and some of my family members decided that I should die because I was not a boy. Decades later, I’m inspired by the courage of my mother - and countless other women – to expose and end gender-based violence and inequality.” -- IPS correspondent Stella Paul
Recognising the contributions these journalists make to advancing women and girls’ rights, international advocacy organisation Women Deliver have named 15 journalists for their dedication to gender issues ahead of International Women’s Day 2015.

Among the journalists Women Deliver recognised for their work is IPS correspondent Stella Paul from India.

Paul was honoured for her reporting on women’s rights abuses through articles on such issues as India’s ‘temple slaves’ and bonded labourers.

Paul’s dedication to women’s rights is not only shown through her journalism. When she interviews communities, she also teaches them how to report abuses to the authorities and hold them accountable for breaking the cycle of violence.

Paul is herself a survivor of infanticide.

She told Women Deliver, “When I was a baby, I got sick and some of my family members decided that I should die because I was not a boy.

“Decades later, I’m inspired by the courage of my mother – and countless other women – to expose and end gender-based violence and inequality.”

Among others, Paul’s story on bonded labour in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad has had a tangible impact on the lives of those she interviewed.

In July she blogged about how one woman featured in the article ‘No Choice but to Work Without Pay‘, Sri Lakshmi, was released from bonded labour by her employer after a local citizen read the article on IPS and took action.

Lakshmi’s daughter Amlu, who once performed domestic labour while her parents went off to work, is now enrolled in a local elementary school.

Women’s issues aren’t ‘soft news’

Another journalist honoured was Mae Azango from Liberia.

Women Deliver CEO Katja Iversen told IPS, “Mae Azango deserves a Pulitzer. She went undercover to investigate female genital mutilation in Liberia.

“After her story was published she received death threats and [she] and her daughter were forced into hiding. Mae’s bravery paid off though, as her story garnered international attention and encouraged the Liberian government to ban the licensing of institutions where this horrific practice is performed,” Iversen added.

Azango told Women Deliver, “Speaking the truth about female genital cutting in my country has long been a dangerous thing to do. But I thought it was worth risking my life because cutting has claimed the lives of so many women and girls, some as young as two.”

Iversen said that many of the honourees had shown incredible dedication, through their work.

“For some of our journalists, simply covering topics deemed culturally taboo – like reproductive rights, domestic violence or sexual assault – can be enough to put them in danger,” she said.

However despite their dedication, journalists still also face obstacles in the newsroom.

“One of the questions we asked the journalists was: what will it take to move girls’ and women’s health issues to the front pages?” Iversen said.

“Almost all of them said: we need more female journalists in leadership and decision-making positions in our newsrooms. Journalism, like many other industries, remains a male dominated field, which can be a major obstacle to publishing stories on women’s health and rights.”

But the issue also runs deeper. There is also a lack of recognition that women and girls’ health rights abuses and neglect are also abuses of human rights, and combatting these issues is essential to achieving development for everyone, not just women and girls.

This means that women’s health is often seen as ‘soft news’ not political or economic news worthy of a front-page headline.

“Unfortunately women’s health and wellbeing is still, for the most part, treated as ‘soft’ news, despite the fact that when women struggle to survive, so do their families, communities and nations,” Iversen said.

“Every day, an estimated 800 women die in pregnancy or childbirth, 31 million girls are not enrolled in primary school and early marriage remains a pervasive problem in many countries. These are not just women’s issues, these are everyone’s issues – and our honorees are helping readers understand this link.”

As journalist Catherine Mwesigwa from Uganda told Women Deliver, “Women’s health issues will make it to the front pages when political leaders and the media make the connection between girls’ and women’s health and socio-economic development and productivity, children’s education outcomes and nations’ political stability.”

Male journalists also have a role to play and two of the fifteen journalists honoured for their contribution to raising awareness on these crucial rights were men.

Besides India and Liberia, other honorees hailed from Argentina, Cameroon, Bangladesh, Kenya, Pakistan, the Philippines, Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, and the United States.

Online Vote

Readers have the opportunity to vote for their favourite journalists from the fifteen journalists selected by Women Deliver.

The three winners will receive scholarships to attend Women Deliver’s 2016 conference, which will be held in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Voting is open until 20 March 2015.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Female genital mutilation (FGM) traditional surgeon in Kapchorwa, Uganda speaking to a reporter. The women in this area are being trained by civil society organisation REACH in how to educate people to stop the practice. Credit: Joshua Kyalimpa/IPS

By Julia Hotz
WASHINGTON, Jul 23 2014 (IPS)

As Tuesday’s major summits here and in London focused global attention on adolescent girls, the United Nations offered new data warning that more than 130 million girls and women have experienced some form of female genital mutilation, while more than 700 million women alive today were forced into marriage as children.

Noting how such issues disproportionately affect women in Africa and the Middle East, the new report from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) surveyed 29 countries and discussed the long-term consequences of both female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage.“What we’re really missing is a coordinated global effort that is commensurate with the scale and the size of the issue.” -- Ann Warner

While the report links the former practice with “prolonged bleeding, infection, infertility and death,” it mentions how the latter can predispose women to domestic violence and dropping out of school.

“The numbers tell us we must accelerate our efforts. And let’s not forget that these numbers represent real lives,” UNICEF Executive Director Anthony Lake said in a statement. “While these are problems of a global scale, the solutions must be local, driven by communities, families and girls themselves to change mindsets and break the cycles that perpetuate [FGM] and child marriage.”

Despite these ongoing problems, Tuesday’s internationally recognised Girl Summit comes as the profile of adolescent girls – and, particularly, FGM – has risen to the top of certain agendas. On Tuesday, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced a legislative change that will now make it a legally enforceable parental responsibility to prevent FGM.

“We’ve reached an all-time high for both political awareness and political will to change the lives of women around the world,” Ann Warner, a senior gender and youth specialist at the International Centre for Research on Women (ICRW), a research institute here, told IPS.

Warner recently co-authored a policy brief recommending that girls be given access to high-quality education, support networks, and practical preventative skills, and that communities provide economic incentives, launch informational campaigns, and establish a legal minimum age for marriage.

Speaking Tuesday at the Washington summit, Warner added that there has been “a good amount of promising initiatives – initiated by NGOs, government ministers and grassroots from around the world – that have been successful in turning the tide on the issue and changing attitudes, knowledge and practices.”

Advocates around the world can learn from these efforts, Warner said, paying particular attention to the progress India has made in preventing child marriage. Still, she believes that a comprehensive global response is necessary.

“What we’re really missing is a coordinated global effort that is commensurate with the scale and the size of the issue” of FGM and child marriage, she said. “With 14 million girls married each year, a handful of individual projects around the world are simply not enough to make a dent in that problem.”

U.S. action

The need for better coordination and accountability was echoed by Lyric Thompson, co-chair of the Girls Not Brides-USA coalition, a foundation that co-sponsored Tuesday’s Girl Summit here in Washington.

“If we are going to end child marriage in a generation, as the Girl Summit charter challenges us to do, that is going to mean a much more robust effort than what is currently happening,” Thompson told IPS. “A few small programmes, no matter how effective, will not end the practice.”

In particular, Thompson is calling on the United States to take a more active stand against harmful practices that affect women globally, which she adds is consistent with the U.S Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013

“If America is serious about ending this practice in a generation, this means not just speeches and a handful of [foreign aid] programmes, but also the hard work of ensuring that American diplomats are negotiating with their counterparts in countries where the practice is widespread,” she says.

“It also means being directly involved in difficult U.N. negotiations, including the ones now determining the post-2015 development agenda, to ensure a target on ending child, early and forced marriage is included under a gender equality goal.”

On Tuesday, the U.S. government announced nearly five million dollars to counter child and forced marriage in seven developing countries for this year, while pledging to work on new U.S. legislation on the issue next year. (The U.S. has also released new information on its response to FGM and child marriage.)

“​We know the fight against child marriage is the fight against extreme poverty,” Rajiv Shah, the head of the United States’ main foreign aid agency, stated Tuesday.

“That’s why USAID has put women and girls at the centre of our efforts to answer President Obama’s call to end extreme poverty in two generations. It’s a commitment that reflects a legacy of investment in girls – in their education, in their safety, in their health, and in their potential.”

Global ‘tipping point’

Of course, civil society actors around the world likely hold the key to changing long-held social views around these contentious issues.

“Federal agencies, in a position to respond to forced marriage cases, must work together and with community and NGO partners to ensure thoughtful and coordinated policy development,” Archi Pyati, director of public oolicy at Tahirih Justice Center, a Washington-based legal advocacy organisation, told IPS.

“Teachers, counsellors, doctors, nurses and others who are in a position to help a girl or woman to avoid a forced marriage or leave one must be informed and ready to respond.”

Pyati points to an awareness-raising campaign around forced marriage that will tour the United States starting in September. In this, social media is also becoming an increasingly important tool for advocacy efforts.

“Technology has brought us a new way to tell our governments and our corporations what matters to us,” Emma Wade, counsellor of the Foreign and Security Policy Group at the British Embassy here, told IPS. “Governments do take notice of what’s trending on Twitter and the like, and corporations are ever-mindful of ways to differentiate themselves … in the search for market share and committed customers.”

Wade noted within her presentation at Tuesday’s summit that individuals can pledge their support for “a future free from FGM and child and forced marriage” via the digital Girl Summit Pledge.

Shelby Quast, policy director of Equality Now, an international human rights organisation based in Nairobi, reiterated the importance of tackling FGM and child marriage across a variety of domains.

“The approach that works best is multi–sectoral… including the law, education, child protection and other elements such as support for FGM survivors and media advocacy strategies,” Quast explained. “We are at a tipping point globally, so let’s keep the momentum up to ensure all girls at risk are protected.”

Female genital mutilation (FGM) traditional surgeon in Kapchorwa, Uganda speaking to a reporter. The women in this area are being trained by civil society organisation REACH in how to educate people to stop the practice. Credit: Joshua Kyalimpa/IPS

By Joshua Kyalimpa
KAMPALA, Jun 20 2014 (IPS)

Could it be possible that if women in Africa had access to water, it could save them from undergoing the harmful practice of female genital mutilation (FGM)? It seems that according to yet-to-be released research by Ugandan-based Gwada Ogot Tao, FGM and other forms of circumcision in Africa could be linked to water.

Gwada, who conducted research among 20 ethnic groups across Africa, including Kenya, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Uganda, Ghana, and South Africa, says that ethnic communities that practice FGM in Africa can be found in areas where the water supply is problematic.

Gwada found that in Kenya, for example, only three of the East African nation’s 63 ethnic groups did not practice any form of circumcision. And these three communities were found in the Rift Valley region, where there are water bodies like lakes and rivers.

The blue lines represent major rivers in Africa with the red circles showing areas where FGM is prevalent. Courtesy: Gwada Ogot Tao

He believes that FGM has become a prevalent cultural practice as a consequence of a lack of water.

FGM involves partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. The practice, normally conducted by traditional surgeons, causes severe bleeding and is linked to many health issues, including cysts, infections, infertility as well as complications during childbirth.

It’s outlawed in many countries and the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution calling upon member states, civil society and all stakeholders to take concrete actions towards its elimination, yet the practice persists. The U.N. predicts that some 86 million young girls worldwide are likely to undergo the procedure in one form or the other by 2030 if current trends continue.

Gwada was commissioned by a local consortium the Citizens’ Coalition for Electoral Democracy in Uganda (CCEDU) that sought to answer governance issues among communities that circumcise and those that don’t. In Kenya, communities that circumcise believe that those that don’t are not capable of leading and this has raised governance issues. Gwada admits he made the discovery by accident.

But he says it’s no surprise that intervention strategies to stop the practice aren’t working because the wrong policies have been employed.

“Every thing is wrong, the policies are wrong, legislation is wrong because they were not informed by what made the communities start the practice in the first place,” Gwada tells IPS.

His research has not been made public but was shared recently with selected stake holders ahead of release.

Caroline Sekyewa the programme coordinator of DanChurchAid, says the research finding is convincing because in the communities that practice FGM, a girl who has gone through the ritual is regarded as “clean”. DanChurchAid is an international NGO that runs education programmes in two communities that practice FGM in Uganda — the Pokot community in Karamoja region, northeastern Uganda and the Sabiny community, who are found on on the foothills of mountain Elgon.

“Its may not necessarily mean that the provision of water is the solution to FGM, largely because culture has hijacked the practice, but the this could inform the intervention strategies towards its elimination,” Sekyewa tells IPS.

She says the organisation will also target policy makers to provide water in the affected areas. In Pokot, a region where FGM is rampant, women walk several kilometres to fetch water and the situation is complicated with insecurity caused by armed cattle rustlers.

An underground water aquaffer has been discovered in the Turkana region on the other side of Kenya, which borders the Pokot. Sekyewa says such a water resource, shared by the border communities, could solve the problem.

Beatrice Chelangat is an ethnic Sabiny from Kapchorwa district of Uganda, close to Kenya’s Turkana region, who has defied the dictates of her FGM-practicing culture and is campaigning against it. Chelangat’s works with civil society organisation, REACH, which conducts sensitisation campaigns about the dangers of FGM.

“There is a common belief among the Dodoma community of Kenya that a woman can catch Candidiasis [yeast infection] and other forms of diseases if they are not cut,” Chelangat tells IPS.

She says the research could be a new weapon in the fight against FGM.

Gwada agrees: “This new finding is going to compel a review of the understanding of the FGM procedures and intervention strategies including policies and legislation.”

Poor families in Egypt consider circumcision a way to preserve the chastity of girls. Credit: Amr Diab/IPS.

By Hisham Allam
CAIRO, Apr 27 2014 (IPS)

Saber Abd El-Mawgoud began his career castrating sheep and goats before moving on to humans. His first human experiment was a young boy he attempted to circumcise back in 1999 at the insistence of the boy’s father.

The boy died a few days later of infection from the operation, Mawgoud, 67, from the Al-Monofiya governorate 60 km north of Cairo, tells IPS.The practice continues even after female genital mutilation was outlawed in 2007 after an 11-year-old girl died in a private clinic while undergoing the operation.

Mawgoud says he continued to practise with a nurse as assistant for some years, before starting out on his own again.

“I used to do an average of ten operations per week, going around villages, and within a short period I became very famous,” he says. “Sometimes sheikhs would announce in mosques that I had arrived, so villagers would come and pick me up from the mosque.”

Soon he began operating mostly on girls. “After my bad experience with boys’ circumcision, I specialised in FGM [female genital mutilation] and performed thousands of operations. A few died, especially at times of epidemics.”

Mawgoud adds: “I faced legal prosecution more than once after parents filed complaints against me, but the security used to release me after I paid a fine for practising without a licence, especially because parents admitted they had agreed that I should perform the operation.”

By the year 2010, the number of operations he performed decreased after the ministry of health started a campaign warning people not to deal with quacks, and to visit doctors instead.

It was only at this stage that he discovered he had been doing these operations on girls in a wrong way. This was after a girl patient suffered heavy bleeding and was taken by her father to a hospital.

Mawgoud has no qualms, though. “Parents mutilate their children by custom, it is considered inappropriate that one leaves his son or daughter with no mutilation, otherwise they will bring disgrace to their parents when older.”

But Mawgoud did not operate on his own granddaughters, he says. He asked their mothers to take them to a hospital, fearing he might harm them.

The practice is damaging in many ways, says Dr. Naglaa El-Shabrawy, head of the obstetrics and gynaecology department at the Al-Azhar Faculty of Medicine.

“Female genital mutilation is a traditional habit of our ignorant society; it goes back to the pharaohs’ era and has no health benefits whatsoever or any religious basis in Islam,” she tells IPS. “It also has negative effects on women’s health; they suffer deadly bleeding, severe urinary retention and infections.”

The other problems are the psychological consequences, she says. “It can affect sexual relations and cause troubles that can last for life. Mutilation causes emotional apathy in women due to cutting a part of a human organ created by God.”

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), more than 125 million girls and women worldwide have undergone some form of FGM in 29 countries across Africa and the Middle East. Another 30 million girls are at risk of being cut in the next decade.

“In Egypt, overall support to female genital mutilation is declining, and the practice is slowly decreasing,” says Shabrawy. But the reported decline has been marginal. “The prevalence decreased from 76 percent in 2005 to 74 percent in 2008 for girls aged 15-17. Collective efforts are needed to accelerate and sustain progress towards the elimination of this harmful practice.”

But the practice of FGM continues even after it was outlawed in 2007 after an 11-year-old girl died in a private clinic while undergoing the operation.

The law provides for up to three years imprisonment for disfiguring the body and harming it.

An Egyptian Demographic and Health Survey conducted in 2005 indicated that poor families in rural areas in Upper Egypt are more prone to the practice.

The survey suggested that in the 15-19 age group, 80.7 percent girls had been circumcised, with the figure rising to 87.4 percent for women up to age 24.

For Abeer Masoud, 30, from Al-Monofiyah, the mutilation she had undergone ended her marriage.

“I decided not to marry again because of the physical and psychic pressure I went through, especially after my story spread through the village,” she tells IPS. “No one has proposed to me since my divorce.”

Women who have gone through the mutilation live with the consequences for life. “Female genital mutilation consists of cutting four parts in the female genital organ; one of them, the clitoris, is mainly responsible for sensation during intercourse, and this is what causes marital problems,” Shabrawy says.

“Female genital mutilation prevents sexual pleasure, and intercourse often ends with pelvic congestion, pain and vaginal discharges, besides the nervous and psychological tension.”

By Emma Bonino
ROME, Dec 23 2013 (Columnist Service)

The past three years have been very important to scale up the movement to protect the rights and fundamental freedoms of women and girls and, particularly, to eliminate female genital mutilation worldwide.

We saw the political momentum growing and culminating December 2012 with the consensual adoption by the General Assembly of Resolution 67/146 banning female genital mutilation worldwide.

On that occasion all United Nations member states sent a strong political message about their commitment. The resolution calls upon member states to ensure effective implementation of international and regional instruments protecting women’s rights and to take all necessary measures to prohibit female genital mutilation.

The resolution was an important step forward; it is now our responsibility to ensure its effective implementation. The recent UNICEF report reminds us that despite the best efforts towards its abandonment, female genital mutilation still persists.

For this reason, during the General Assembly this year we organised a side event, together with Burkina Faso, UNFPA and UNICEF, to share specific contributions that governments and international institutions have made to the commitments undertaken with the adoption of the resolution.

Genital mutilation is only one of the manifold forms of violence women are still suffering all over the world. Just to mention the example of my own country, over 100 women have been killed in Italy this year, mostly in the context of domestic violence.

To reverse such a terrible trend, we have increased government action against crimes that victimise women. I am also very proud that Italy became the fifth member state of the Council of Europe to ratify the Istanbul Convention for preventing and combating sexual and domestic violence.

The same happened with the ratification of the Arms Trade Treaty, which introduces principles and criteria to oversee the movement of arms and to combat illegal trafficking. Such treaties contain an explicit provision on gender-based violence.

Women are the first victims of such trade. This also goes in the direction of a general change of culture leading to a gender-balanced approach in peace-building processes.

Gender-based violence was also the common denominator underlying the discussion at the high-level meeting during the General Assembly last September of the Equal Futures Partnership, the initiative launched by former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton which Italy just joined.

This is a partnership uniting nations firmly committed to closing the gender gap and to sharing experiences so that local practices can be replicated all over the world.

A less blatant but nonetheless harmful form of violence against women is the practice of early and forced marriages. We must take every opportunity to recall the importance of eradicating this practice in one generation’s time span, accelerating change in culture and traditions through a vibrant, ongoing campaign.

For this reason we also call for the inclusion of this target in the post-2015 development agenda.

A very encouraging step was the approval last month by the U.N. General Assembly’s Third Committee of a resolution aimed at achieving a ban, within the next 12 months, on early and forced marriages. This resolution – promoted by Italy and nine other countries – was co-sponsored by 109 countries and was approved by consensus.

Violence against women also encompasses trafficking and slavery. This is a particularly
painful subject for me: it is very sad and frustrating to feel helpless when hundreds of migrants, women and men and children, tragically die off the coasts of Lampedusa (in Sicily). For this reason we are insisting on a common European effort within the framework of the Mediterranean task force led by the European Commission to combat human trafficking.

This leads me to talk about the situation of women in our neighbouring countries in the Southern Mediterranean. In some of these countries the promotion of women’s rights has a long tradition.

In other cases gender issues have been promoted by those autocratic regimes which the Arab Spring swept away, as they became instrumental for them to show their modern face to Western allies while continuing to violate other human rights.

Whatever the reasons for their past promotion, we must continue monitoring to avoid any setback, like attempts to delegitimise the Personal Status Code (adopted in 1956) in Tunisia or to misapply the law imposing sanctions for female mutilation in Egypt.

For this reason we should increase our efforts in initiatives like the one undertaken by the European Union and United Nations, “Spring Forward for Women”, which includes measures to ensure effective access by women to economic and political opportunities in the Southern Mediterranean region.

On the Italian side, I would also like to mention an initiative we successfully launched last February and that we will repeat next year: Women in Diplomacy School. The school aims at giving women specific tools for their empowerment as leaders. It is open to the participation of young women from our neighbouring Mediterranean countries.

The Women in Diplomacy School is part of a wider project that Italy has launched in view of the Expo Milan 2015, the Women and Expo initiative.

Our ambitious goal is to make Expo 2015 in Milan the first “gender Expo” ever, hoping that this will serve as an example for future editions.
(END/COPYRIGHT IPS)

Excerpt:

FGM is a taboo and complicated topic in Liberia and it is dangerous for women to speak out about it. Credit: Travis Lupick/IPS

By Lucy Westcott
UNITED NATIONS, Jul 22 2013 (IPS)

The United Nations children’s agency UNICEF released a report Monday that gives the most complete picture of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) ever published.

Over 125 million women and girls have undergone the practice, and there are 30 million women and girls at risk of the procedure in the next decade. The report is a culmination of 20 years of research from 29 countries across Africa and Asia, using national surveys. UNICEF began to look closely at FGM/C 10 years ago.

Egypt is the highest-ranking country in terms of numbers, with 27.2 million women and girls, or 91 percent, having undergone the procedure. Despite being illegal, an overwhelming majority of FGM/C cases in Egypt are carried out by a medical professional.

In a number of countries, FGM/C is a near-universal practice. In Somalia, the rate is 98 percent, the highest percentage in the world, and in Guinea and Djibouti the rates are 96 percent and 93 percent respectively. The likelihood of a girl undergoing FGM/C is also higher if her mother has had it.

The younger generation of girls is less likely to undergo FGM/C and is more educated and aware of the negative health consequences of the procedure, which include complications during birth, infections and excessive bleeding, Claudia Cappa, author of the report and a UNICEF statistics and monitoring specialist, told IPS. These also include mental health problems, Cappa added.

“Girls can be seen as important agents of change across generations,” Cappa said.

The report contains the first published data from Iraq, which only started conducting a nationally representative survey on the practice in 2010, where prevalence of FGM/C has been reduced by half, Cappa said, adding that this is a positive development.

“These girls have also had the opportunity to interact with girls who have not been cut, and can see that they aren’t exposed to [social] stigma,” Cappa said.

The importance of including men in the fight against FGM/C was one of the key findings from the report, which reveals that many men and boys across the 29 countries investigated want to see an end to the practice.

The amount of hidden support, which includes the men and boys who oppose FGM/C, means that UNICEF has to put resources into bringing these attitudes to light, helping societies to shift towards complete abandonment of the practice.

Yet FGM/C continues, and there are large discrepancies between the attitudes of mothers, many of whom want the practice to stop, and their behaviour of allowing their daughters to have the procedure.

Reasons for continuing with FGM/C include cleanliness and hygiene, preservation of virginity and social acceptance, which is the most commonly reported factor. In some countries, increased sexual pleasure for men was also cited as a reason to keep the practice alive, the report says.

“It’s something that’s always there,” Francesca Moneti, senior adviser in child protection at UNICEF, said at the press conference. “The daughter reaches the age of cutting and she is cut.”

By conforming to the practice, girls gain social acceptance and have a “good conscience”, the report says.

Efua Dorkenoo, OBE, advocacy director of the FGM project at Equality Now, sees the need for more protection measures to be established in communities where FGM continues, as well as support systems for girls who flee their families and communities to escape the practice.

It’s also important for organisations, including UNICEF, to realise that a “multi-pronged approach” is necessary, involving health workers and authorities as well as focusing on behaviour change in the community, Dorkenoo says.

“In the UNICEF model they tend to focus on community behaviour change… behaviour change is more of a long-term process,” Dorkenoo told IPS.

“We don’t know how far village empowerment models have gone, we don’t know if they’ve actually stopped,” she says. “Our work on the ground doesn’t mean they’ve actually stopped.”

For Dorkneoo, FGM directly concerns violence against women and revolves around sexuality and social and gender control. And stopping a deeply entrenched cultural practice isn’t as easy as communities saying they’ve abandoned FGM.

“It is too simplistic that public declarations means FGM has stopped. It is more of a feel-good factor for a Western audience,” Dorkenoo says. “There isn’t a one-size-fits-all model.”

When communities make a declaration to stop it is significant, Cappa says, and that it’s often difficult to see if the practice has been fully abandoned due to the time between the declaration and subsequent data collection.

Dorkenoo says that while the UNICEF model of community education, which includes emphasis on democracy and human rights, is a good foundation and contributes to raising awareness about FGM, more needs to be done at a structural level.

“It’s very simplistic to think you can go into a community for 30 years, talk about human rights and democracy, and expect change,” she said, adding that FGM manifests itself in a complex way across each country.

By Lucy Westcott
UNITED NATIONS, Jun 26 2013 (IPS)

Bogaletch Gebre knows exactly what women in her Ethiopian community are going through. Along with her sisters, the women’s rights activist was a victim of female genital mutilation (FGM) when she was a child in a part of Ethiopia where the practise was carried out on every girl.

In 1997, Gebre and her sister, Fikrete, founded Kembatti Mentti-Gezzima-Tope (KMG), which means “women working and standing together”. For her work with KMG, Gebre won this year’s King Baudoin African Development Prize.

Bogaletch Gebre, a women’s empowerment activist, in her signature sunglasses. Credit: Lucy Westcott/IPS

Gebre believes that a trifecta of issues – economic, societal and ecological – combine to oppress women, so KMG works on a range of issues, from improving infrastructure to encouraging communities to confront customary practises like bridal abduction and FGM, which it has helped to dramatically decrease.

IPS correspondent Lucy Westcott spoke to Gebre in New York about the practise of and attitudes about female genital mutilation, as well as the power of women’s economic independence.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Your encouraging communities to discuss FGM and other taboo subjects has been called a rebellion. Do you agree with that label?

A: One of KMG’s aims is eliminating gender-based violence, which includes customary practises such as FGM, bride abduction and widow inheritance.

In 1998, when we did our baseline survey on FGM, we were touching taboo issues. So somebody called it a rebellion and me a renegade for touching things like that, because people do not dare to.

Q: Was it difficult to start talking about these issues? What was the culture like when you were growing up?

A: When I was growing up, body parts and anything taboo were not pronounced by girls – only by grandmothers, mothers and married elders. FGM is called “removing the dirt”."[In Ethiopia], female genital mutilation is called 'removing the dirt'."
-- Bogaletch Gebre

I was awakened to the harmfulness of FGM because somebody took the time to explain to me that I didn’t have to go through it. When I underwent it, it was a celebratory event. Everyone was dancing and celebrating.

But my sisters, my mother, myself – we were crying, because they knew how harmful and painful it is. My mother said, “I wish they would do away with it.” She knew what was being done to her daughter, but she felt she was mandated, that this thing should be done in order to make her daughter acceptable and marriageable, and this is what the girls should go through.

Q: How did your organisation achieve such a decrease in FGM cases?

A: In 1998, we found that FGM was happening to 100 percent of girls in the areas where KMG worked in Ethiopia. Today, that is changing. We have reduced the FGM rate by 97 percent, according to UNICEF, so right now those rates are just under three percent.

What’s important is not just change through workshops, but also girls becoming social forces in the community. They’re organising clubs, going to school and passing exams. It’s not like it used to be.

We discovered that we didn’t know where FGM and other practises came from. We asked the elders, the community leaders, anyone who would know the myths, oral traditions and history of the area, but nobody can tell you where it comes from.

How did it become our tradition? And why did it become Ethiopian or African culture? Why are we killing our children?

Q: When people realised that no one knew where FGM originated, did they change their minds or did they still want to hold on to tradition?

A: Nothing is automatic. It doesn’t change overnight, so we have continuous engagement as a community. We see change coming, individual behaviour changing and the community arguing among itself.

There’s no parent in the world that would knowingly hurt his or her children. That FGM is mandated by in their religion or culture is a misconception and misunderstanding that nobody has questioned.

When people start reasoning and questioning, there’s no answer to the question of why, so one person at a time, it stops. They’ve built their own contract, with the community punishing those who continue with the crimes.

Q: Is there a correlation between the decrease in FGM and the rise in opportunity for young women in Ethiopia?

A: We are not addressing just FGM through the organisation, but a whole array of social change. We’re helping to send girls to school, and we are improving economic opportunities for mothers. Women are establishing militias to protect each other and are accessing justice.

There is huge change taking place. Building roads and improving infrastructure is also a big part of what we do, as it helps women become economically independent.

Economic empowerment gives women a voice, confidence and also space and respect in the community. Once they start talking, there’s no stopping.

Excerpt:

Local activists say they want to see the eradication of FGM in Somalia but note that a “cultural shift” to practice a less severe form could be seen as a positive step towards total elimination of FGM in Somalia. Credit: Abdurrahman Warsameh/IPS

By Abdurrahman Warsameh
MOGADISHU, Jun 20 2013 (IPS)

Seven-year-old Istar Mumin lies on a bed, motionless, in one of the rooms of her family home in Mogadishu’s Hamarweyne district. She has just gone through the horrifying ritual of “the cut,” which was carried out by a local Somali nurse.

“I am in pain. I cannot move. They cut me,” a teary-eyed Mumin, who was visibly weak from the procedure, tells IPS.

Elsewhere in the house her mother, Muhibo Daahir, is in a celebratory mood as their family entertains guests who are here to celebrate Mumin’s circumcision.

The age-old practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is banned by the current Somali constitution. But it is still widely carried out, particularly in Somalia’s formerly war-torn areas, on girls as young as five — in the hope of keeping them pure and making them ready for marriage. Most families see the occasion as a time of happiness and festivity.

According to a United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) advocacy paper titled “Eradication of Female Genital Mutilation in Somalia”, “FGM can have severely adverse effects on the physical, mental and psychosocial well being of those who undergo the practice.

“The health consequences of FGM are both immediate and life-long. Despite the many internationally recognised laws against FGM, lack of validation in Islam and global advocacy to eradicate the practice, it remains embedded in Somali culture.”

The paper also states “long-term complications include loss of libido, genital malformation, delayed menarche, chronic pelvic complications and recurrent urinary retention and infection. FGM victims are also prone to a number of obstetric complications because the foetus is exposed to a range of infectious diseases and faces the risk of having its head crushed in the damaged birth canal.”

The practice is regarded by Somalia’s new constitution as “torture.” Article 15 (4) of the Provisional Constitution stipulates: “Circumcision of girls is a cruel and degrading customary practice, and is tantamount to torture. The circumcision of girls is prohibited.”

However, there is no specific law against female circumcision, and the practice remains widespread in both rural and urban areas in this Horn of Africa nation.

Daahir is defensive when asked why she allowed her daughter to undergo circumcision.

“Our religion allows us to purify our daughters so that they can get married when they are mature. The government cannot stop us from practicing our religion,” Daahir tells IPS.

She says that her daughter, just like “other girls of this time,” was circumcised in the Sunnah form of circumcision prescribed by the Islamic religion.

This method involves the partial cutting of the clitoris. Another form of FGM practiced in Somalia is the Pharaonic form, which involves the complete removal of the clitoris and the labia minora and majora. The outer vaginal opening is also stitched closed, apart from a small opening that is left for urination.

Daahir says, however, that unlike in the past, a qualified nurse and not an untrained traditional circumciser carried out her daughter’s circumcision. Her point of view is widespread in the country’s capital.

But in regions of Somalia that have not been caught up in the country’s two-decade war, the practice has declined.“Everyone now knows that in Somalia, the extreme form of FGM is frowned upon and Sunnah-circumcised women are keenly sought after by men for marriage.” -- Raho Qalif, Somali school teacher

In April, UNICEF released a survey based on interviews conducted in Somalia’s northern region of Puntland and the breakaway state of Somaliland, which showed that the practice of FGM has decreased. The survey, conducted in collaboration with local governments, found that 75 percent of girls aged between one and 14 have not been cut, in comparison with 99 percent of young girls who have undergone the procedure in other regions in Somalia.

According to UNICEF, the United Nations Population Fund–UNICEF Joint Programme, has engaged over 300,000 community members and stakeholders in discussions on abandoning FGM in Puntland and Somaliland.

Perhaps the reason the practice has decreased in the north is that the area has enjoyed relative stability over the past two decades, while the rest of the country was caught up in a clan-based civil war that began in 1991. Awareness campaigns and public education about the dangers of FGM could not be conducted in these volatile areas as they were in Somaliland and Puntland.

Attitudes towards FGM are changing. However, activists here tell IPS that Somali society is not abandoning the ritual but is instead adopting a less severe form of FGM known as Sunnah.

“Somalis are not leaving their girls uncircumcised, although they are not using the crude Pharaonic form of the practice but using Sunnah, which in comparison to the traditional one is non-invasive,” Halimo Ali, a social activist in Mogadishu, tells IPS.

Ali says she finds that people are now taking to the Sunnah form of FGM, in which less than five percent of the cut is done, compared to the Pharaonic form which “completely wipes out everything.

“I am aware of the study done in Puntland and Somaliland and it is encouraging. But I doubt that Somalis now will stop their daughters from being circumcised in one form or another,” she says.

Maryan Aalim is a mother of seven daughters.

“All of my daughters are circumcised in Sunnah, but the eldest was circumcised in the traditional way. I chose the Sunnah circumcision because that is the one allowed by Islam,” she tells IPS.

Sheikh Omar Ali, a senior cleric in Mogadishu, is one of the religious leaders people rely on when they want to justify the practice of FGM.

“There is only one form of circumcision that is prescribed by Islam and it is the Sunnah form. The Pharoanic form predates Islam and is un-Islamic,” he tells IPS.

Local activists say the total eradication of the practice is their ultimate goal but they add that the “cultural shift” in Somali society needs to be recognised, and that the evolution of the practice could be seen as a positive step towards total elimination of FGM in Somalia.

“People now recognise the negative effects of the extreme form of FGM on women and girls and have adopted the Sunnah form. It is not what we want, yet it is a step in the right direction,” Raho Qalif, a school teacher in Mogadishu, tells IPS.

She says the practice will eventually fade out of Somali culture and notes a “trend,” saying that to circumcise girls in the Sunnah form has now become “fashionable.”

“Everyone now knows that in Somalia, the extreme form of FGM is frowned upon and Sunnah-circumcised women are keenly sought after by men for marriage,” says Qalif.

By Rural Women Peace Link
Jun 13 2013 (IPS)

Some girls among the Pokot community in western Kenya are bravely defying what is considered cultural and traditional by refusing to be circumcised. More and more mothers, fathers and the women whose job is to do the cutting are beginning to support these girls’ right to bodily integrity.

Girls Take Charge in the Fight to End Female Genital Mutilation

Jane Meriwas (l) addresses women from the Samburu community, in Kipsing Plains in Kenya’s Rift Valley region, about harmful cultural practices. Courtesy: Jane Meriwas

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI , Jun 11 2013 (IPS)

When she was nine years old, Jane Meriwas, a Samburu from the Kipsing Plains in Kenya’s Rift Valley region, was considered of no use by her father. After all, nine of his goats had been eaten by hyenas under her watch.

But there was a chance that she could still redeem herself by being a second, third or fourth wife to an old man and earn her father more goats than the ones the hyenas had devoured.

“I went to school by chance. Having proven to be a poor herder, my father dumped me in school to bide my time till a suitable suitor came along,” Meriwas tells IPS.

“Of course school meant sitting under a tree. This cost my father nothing; a Catholic priest took care of the expenses,” she adds.

“Among the pastoralist community, ours was an unusual family,” Meriwas says of the family she was born into. Her parents only had two children – both of them girls. “But my father never married a second wife, even when my mother died.” “The change is slow, but is happening.” -- Lolonju Lerukati

The Samburu are closely related to, but distinct from, the Maasai tribe of Kenya. While the Samburu account for only 1.6 percent of the country’s entire population of 41.6 million people, they have gained notoriety for their firm grasp on a long list of harmful cultural practices performed on girls, which include crude forms of abortion.

Lolonju Lerukati, a Samburu activist who speaks out against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in pastoralist communities, tells IPS: “The Samburu girl child has cried for help for far too long, and in keeping with this year’s theme (of the Day of the African Child, Jun. 16) to eliminate harmful cultural practices that affect children, society must heed her cry.”

Lerukati says that it is unfortunate that in this day and age, a girl born into the Samburu community has little chance, if any, of escaping FGM, an early marriage, crude forms of abortion, and multiple births before her 18th birthday, or of acquiring an education.

At the age of 12, Meriwas did not escape FGM; after all, the Samburu’s FGM practice rate is 100 percent, according to the most recent Kenya Health and Demographic Survey (KHDS). This is despite the fact that the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act of 2010 outlaws FGM in Kenya.

But attending school saved Meriwas from an early marriage. Upon completing college, rather than seek employment, she went back to her community to create awareness against the Samburu’s harmful cultural practices, and has been speaking out against the ills meted out on girls in her community for the last 10 years.

She has a reputation as a local rights activist and has started the Samburu Women for Education and Environment Development Organisation, which pays for the education of a handful of girls rescued from early marriages and FGM.

Lerukati says that Meriwas’ strength, resilience and bravery in the face of strong resistance from the community is leading to a change of heart among some.

The rite of passage known as beading is a cultural practice performed only among the Samburu. And thanks to Meriwas’ efforts, the practice is changing.

Traditionally, a Moran or warrior buys about 10 kilos of beads, which are made into necklaces for a girl he is interested in. Upon wearing the necklaces, the girl, who is usually between nine and 15 years old, is considered “beaded” and the Moran’s girlfriend.

Meriwas speaks about the effects of beading. “Since sex between the young girl and the Moran is usually unprotected, the girl gets pregnant at some point,” she says.

But, she adds, the pregnancy will be terminated at all costs, because sex between the Moran and the girl, though permitted by culture, is considered incestuous because they are both from the same clan. So the baby is not allowed to live.

Women from the Samburu community in a meeting to address the plight of the Samburu girl child. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

There are possible dangerous outcomes when a young girl falls pregnant.

“The older women lure the girl into the forest once they suspect she is pregnant. They press her stomach until she bleeds and the foetus comes out,” says Meriwas.

If this fails, the girl, upon delivery, is forced to poison her newborn. If she refuses, then the child is to be left in the forest to be eaten by hyenas, or is given to a non–Samburu, often in the neighbouring Turkana community.

Lerukati adds: “Many deaths have resulted from this exercise. But no one in the community will speak about it.”

Due to Meriwas’ efforts, the community is opening up to the possibility of an alternative rite of passage for girls.

“Rather than have the Moran ‘beading’ the girl, women are slowly taking up the role. This means that the girl can wear her beads without being at the beck and call of a Moran,” Meriwas explains.

Lerukati adds: “The change is slow, but is happening. The practice of beading was little-known beyond the Samburu community. But Meriwas has blown the whistle at great risk to herself, and even her life.”

FGM activists such as Grace Gakii who are working in pastoralist communities say there is something to celebrate on the Day of the African Child. “There is a prominent decline of FGM among younger women aged 15 to 19 years.”

“I attribute this to a combination of factors. The push for the pastoralist girl child to attend school is definitely a contributing factor. But it is those people like Meriwas who have experienced harmful traditions who are bringing real change,” Gakii tells IPS.

According to KDHS, the overall prevalence of FGM in Kenya has gone down from 38 percent in 1998 to 32 percent in 2003, and to 27 percent in 2008, among women between the ages of 15 and 19.

“People like Meriwas understand this culture and have learnt to change it from within,” she adds.

At the Women Deliver conference in Kuala Lumpur, advocates shared strategies for breaking religious taboos on reproductive rights. Credit: Stella Paul/IPS

By Stella Paul
KUALA LUMPUR, May 31 2013 (IPS)

Liberian journalist Mae Azango says she spent a year living “like a bat, going from tree to tree” with her daughter in order to escape religious fanatics who were threatening to kill her for exposing the practice of female genital mutilation in her home country last year.

A senior reporter at the local FrontPage Africa publication, Azango told IPS that although the Liberian government signed a treaty in 2012 promising its citizens the right to information, it continues to hold back data on sexual and reproductive health and rights from journalists.

“With every story that I write, I take a great risk,” she says, adding that she is entirely dependent on “secret sources” within the government to gather information, since very little is shared in the public domain.

Her woes found echo among hundreds of women and health experts gathered in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur for the third annual Women Deliver global forum that ended Thursday.

Hailing from different corners of the globe, participants at the conference had no trouble identifying common goals: breaking taboos surrounding sex education and creating a safe climate for advocates, health professionals and educators to spread awareness on safe sex and family planning.

In Morocco, a country of 32 million people, schools are banned from offering sex education to young people because parliamentarians believe it to be an “evil concept, designed to promote promiscuity,” sexual and reproductive advocate Amina Lemrini told IPS.

She says progress on improving sexual health services in her country has been particularly slow due to taboos introduced by religious leaders.

With a government unwilling to challenge clerics, the job of providing crucial health services falls entirely on the shoulders of civil society, who are then threatened for their efforts.

Lemrini says she does not know a single reproductive rights activist who has not been threatened, yet the government offers them no protection.

Their distress has been recognised by leading experts in the field, including the executive director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Babatunde Osotimehin, who told IPS that religious fundamentalism is a “indeed a worry” when it comes to progress on sexual health.

Still, he urged activists to continue their work, adding, “Fundamentalism exists in all societies and all religions – what matters is how we communicate our message.”

He believes that if more people are made aware of their rights and choices, they will not hesitate to defy archaic laws and so-called “cultural taboos.”

“The average person on the street does not want a situation where death comes calling every day for reasons that can be prevented,” he stressed.

Indeed, even a cursory glance at global statistics is enough to make a strong case for the need for better communication: according to the UNFPA, nearly 800 women die every single day as a result of pregnancy-related complications; in a year, that number is closer to 350,000 deaths, of which 99 percent occur in developing countries.

Sex-selective abortions and neglect of newborn baby girls have resulted in an estimated 134 million “missing” women worldwide.

Doing a wide sweep of global data, the UNFPA estimates that “millions of girls” practice unsafe sex and lack information on contraceptives. Osotimehin recently wrote that an “unmet need for family planning exists among 33 percent of girls between 15 and 19 years old…in Ethiopia, 38 percent in Bolivia, 42 percent in Nepal, 52 percent in Haiti and 62 percent in Ghana.”

Nyaradzayi Gumbonzvanda, head of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA), told IPS that giving up on communication about sexual and reproductive health and rights was not an option.

“We need an operative environment for those who are discussing this issue,” she said. “We need to protect the media — this isn’t a choice. Governments must scale up the level of cooperation with the media and provide supportive legal backup where it is not yet available.”

Gumbonzvanda thinks that citizen journalism could be an effective way to mitigate the risk posed by fundamentalists, not only by amplifying the voices of those who often go unheard, but also by empowering common citizens to take action.

Nowhere was the power of citizen journalism more evident than during the revolution in Egypt in 2011, where blogs, tweets, and Facebook posts replaced TV channels, newspapers and radio stations in reaching millions of people.

Today, as Egyptians struggle against the conservative policies of the ruling Muslim Brotherhood, that network of citizen journalists has turned its attention to reproductive health and safe sex, topics that are frowned upon by Islamists.

Ahmed Awadalla, sexual and gender-based violence officer for Africa and Middle East Refugee Assistance (AMERA), told IPS that anyone discussing the issue risks detention, arrest, harassment and imprisonment.

As a result, the number of bloggers increases every day, as citizens and advocates flee to cyberspace in search of safe forums to share information and ideas.

“When I blog about the sexual rights of women I break two rules,” Awadalla said. “First, by speaking about a forbidden issue and secondly by speaking as a man, who is not supposed to take the side of women.” Though he faces harsh repercussions, nothing will persuade him to give up his advocacy.

But even while citizens innovate new ideas to get around the deadly threats of engaging in sex education, experts say governments must not be let off the hook for failing to provide these basic services.

Governments in Asia, Africa and Latin America must be held accountable by foreign funders, says Agnes Callamard, executive director of the London-based ‘Article 19’, an organisation dedicated to freedom of expression.

“Every government has committed to spending a certain amount of the funding they receive (on sexual health),” she said, so tracking aid flows could pressure governments to improve their track records on information sharing.

In fact, when the Mexico-based Grupo de Información en Reproducción Elegida (GIRE) started to track aid supposed to be allocated to providing information on sexual and reproductive health in 2011, “we found that nearly a million dollars were missing,” said GIRE Information Rights Advocate Alma Luz Beltrán y Puga. “We sued the government over that.  If the same tracking is done the world over, it can lead to greater accountability.”

According to a study done by the World Health Organisation (WHO), developed countries donated nearly 6.4 billion dollars to help provide access and information on reproductive health in developing countries. It is now up to civil society to ensure that money is responsibly allocated.

By Mathieu Vaas
UNITED NATIONS, Mar 8 2013 (IPS)

“In some communities, you can’t talk about violence against women,” says Agnes Leina, executive director of Il’laramatak Community Concerns (ICC), a group that promotes the human rights of pastoralist communities in northern and southern Kenya, with a special emphasis on women and girls.

Agnes Leina, executive director of Il’laramatak Community Concerns. Credit: Mathieu Vaas/IPS

“For us, the CSW is a space to make our views heard and to give suggestions and strategies to end the violence. It’s a very important space for women to talk about violence, get resolutions and build a way forward,” she tells IPS on the sidelines of the 57th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) at U.N. headquarters.

IPS correspondent Mathieu Vaas spoke with Leina about the situation of women in pastoralist communities and how the CSW can help change chauvinistic mindsets. Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: In your work with Indigenous Peoples of Africa Coordinating Committee (IPACC) and ICC, you fought for the rights of indigenous African pastoralist women. What is exactly the place and role of womanhood in these communities?

A: A typical day for a pastoralist woman would be to wake up very early around five am, to go milk the cows and go to fetch water and to collect firewood. Then she would come back to make the food for the children and milk again in the evening. Some of them also go herding and look for the goats.

Things are changing slowly because most of them are getting into the market economy. They want to sell small things so they can get some money. They would milk their cows and go to the town to sell it.

A pastoralist woman is actually like a working machine, she works very hard without resting. Men look after the cows and take them to watering points that are sometimes very far off and come back on the evening and expect there will be food. I think the wife has more work than the man apart from the normal duties of a wife and a mother.

Q: Have you noticed any change in cultural perspectives on the role of women and violence such as genital mutilation in the pastoralist communities?

A: Yes, there is a bit of a change, especially for women who have gone to school. Most of the women who have gone to school are not likely to circumcise their daughters and they are more likely to have a better economy and therefore a career.

For the women who are educated, this is a very big change. But for the women who haven’t gone to school, there is not a single change. She will make sure that her daughter has been mutilated and she will make sure she has been married early because she doesn’t understand the importance of education at all.

So definitely, for her, keeping the tradition, the marriage, and the culture is of importance, not education – that is not an emotional issue.

[At the same time] we have so many women leaders in Africa and the role of women is changing. Women are taking up leadership positions in parliament, in offices. It’s like a pyramid, there is much fewer at that [top] level. Some communities are better than others.

In Uganda, for instance, we still have a number of illiterate communities. In Rwanda, they have the highest number of women in a parliament in Africa. Women’s position is changing slowly but it depends on which country you’re talking about. As an African, African patriarchy is very strong and we have a long way to go. But it’s good to break the silence.

Q: The IPACC highlights the problem of access to healthcare and education for pastoralist indigenous communities. How do you reach out to the women in these communities?

A: In Kenya, the highest level of illiteracy is among pastoralist communities and that is why ICC is working hard to make sure there is education. We do it through transformative leadership. It’s a way of goal setting.

Girls know that they have a future and a goal to achieve. They know they have something to work hard on and something to look forward to.

We have a slogan adapted from Alice in Wonderland: “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will lead you there.” If they have no target in life, no goals, they have no idea where they’re going to.

One day, a father will say to his daughter, “I want you to get married to my friend because I have no cows. So I would want you to get married so that I can have a number of cows because I am getting poorer.” It is an emotional issue for a pastoralist girl and a pastoralist man and for that reason the girl would agree to get married.

We tell the girls, ”Look at yourself 15 years from now, what would you want to be?” and most of them are setting goals. “I would like to be a doctor, a pilot, a surgeon or a member of parliament.” Then they start role-playing this goal so when their fathers ask them to get married, they will tell him to wait for her to get a job and she would buy the cows. And the father will agree and let the girl go on with school and pursue a career.

We want to set up a trust fund because primary education is free but secondary school is not. It has been a promise for years that is yet to be fulfilled. When they have a career, they have a voice to say no to things that take them backwards.

Q: How can African governments manage to stop violence against women and to reach full empowerment for women and girls?

A: It depends from country to country. But most countries have laws against violence against women. They are signatories and have ratified the Convention on the Elimination of all Discrimination Against Women. But it’s one thing to ratify a treaty and it’s another to implement it. So we have a long way to go to implement the laws.

That’s why we are here for the CSW, talking about violence against women. It has been decades and decades of talking about violence against women, so why is it not ending? That’s the biggest question we should be asking ourselves.

Maybe there has to be a change in strategy, maybe we need to involve more men because they are the perpetrators anyway. But we have broken the silence on violence against women and that is a big step. We need to act now to stop that violence once and for all.

Excerpt:

Babatunde Osotimehin, Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Credit: UN Photo/Paulo Filgueiras

By Marzieh Goudarzi
UNITED NATIONS, Feb 7 2013 (IPS)

The fight against female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C) continues to gain traction around the world.

On Wednesday, the United Nations observed the annual Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM/C, an act that is shocking and inhumane to much of the world but remains a tradition among a significant minority.

This year’s observance is particularly momentous after the General Assembly’s December 2012 unanimous adoption of the resolution on “Intensifying Global Efforts for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilations”, which U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA) Executive Director Dr. Babatunde Osotimehin says “speaks volumes to the world’s commitment” and is “the greatest testimony to the work we do”.

An estimated 140 million women and girls in the world – 120 million concentrated in 29 African and Middle Eastern countries – are living with FGM/C, which, in addition to being excruciatingly painful, can result in infection, cysts, infertility, childbirth complications, and the need for corrective surgery.

IPS correspondent Marzieh Goudarzi spoke with Dr. Osotimehin on UNFPA’s role in the global fight against FMG/C. Excerpts follow.

Q: According to data from the World Health Organisation, FGM/C-affected communities exist in northern, northeastern, and western Africa and in some Middle Eastern and Asian countries. FGM/C is also practiced in immigrant communities from these countries living in other parts of the world. Are there common elements among these communities that allow FGM/C to continue?

A: It is difficult to find a common thread, but I would like to suggest that it is more cultural than anything else. I do not think it is religion. What UNFPA has done with our partner, UNICEF, is to engage communities across those regions that you mentioned and persuade them that FGM/C has no medical benefits at all and that, for a fact, it causes damage to women and girls physically, psychologically, and emotionally.

Q: Can you discuss some specific mechanisms employed by UNFPA and UNICEF to bring about change?

A: On the ground, community dialogue, making sure we connect directly to the community, and making sure we educate them about the harmful effects of FGM/C, are all crucial. We do this with community leaders, religious leaders, and the women, especially the elderly women, as well as the practitioners themselves, who are engaged in this practice. For some, it has been like this for generations so you have to try and shift them away from that sort of harmful tradition.

We are also encouraging them to abandon FGM/C and we see great success in that area. In fact, last year alone, a total of 1,775 communities across Africa publicly declared their commitment to end female genital mutilation and cutting. That was very gratifying. We have also worked in countries to put in place a legal system and laws to penalise the practice. Thirty-four African countries that have done this.

Q: To what extent does the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme for the Acceleration of the Abandonment of FGM/C work directly with local implementers on the ground in FGM/C-affected countries? Who are the key local implementers?

A: The truth of the matter is that we at UNFPA and UNICEF work in countries to provide assistance, support, and advocacy to governments and to civil society. So we see that “tripartite” as an essential to what we do. We don’t do it all by ourselves because of sustainability issues.

You have to build a whole army of stakeholders on the ground, particularly when you do community work, which will consist of local leaders and civil society, to be able to sustain the advocacy and to ensure that communities go forth from where they are now and are able to maintain that pattern.

Q: What is UNFPA/UNICEF’s strategy in approaching a sensitive issue like FGM/C, which communities see as rooted in cultural or religious tradition, and how do you engage communities and community leaders who hold these beliefs while actively working to abolish the practice of FGM/C?

A: We go into communities, first of all, to understand communities. UNFPA initiates community dialogue with interlocutors that have integrity within the community, with mutual respect from both sides, to understand why they do the things they do. We then explain to them that these are things we believe we have to let go because of their consequences, and demonstrate quite clearly to them why that is so.

It takes some time for them to change what has been a part of their culture for years and years. However, this can be done with persistent and continuous engagement, honesty of purpose, and the ability to generate “champions” on the ground who will impact their communities. This is the basis of our success on the ground.

Q: Recent data shows that since the establishment of the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme in 2008, nearly 10,000 communities in 15 countries, representing about eight million people, have renounced FGM/C. UNICEF data from 2012 shows that younger women and girls have lower rates of FGM/C than their older counterparts. Looking ahead, what has worked for the countries that are making progress and how will UNFPA and UNICEF continue their work on this issue?

A: Going forth, we want to continue to ensure that we build capacity on the ground, and also ensure that we identify real “champions” who will work on the ground. Sustainability of (the programme) is in community ownership… and in making sure we have data which is reliable, that enables us to track the progress we make and give us a better on handle on what we see.

We have trained about 88,000 health providers and established 15 medical and paramedical schools just to make sure that this is not something which is going to regress.

If the present trend continues, there will still be as many as 30 million girls below the age of 15 that will still be at risk. We need to continue to give visibility to the issue to ensure that we can avoid the unfortunate extent of girls being cut.

Excerpt:

Nimo Omar, now 17, escaped the “cut” at 6 years old when her elder brother intervened. Credit: Miriam Gathigah/IPS

By Miriam Gathigah
NAIROBI, Feb 6 2013 (IPS)

For the Samburu community in northern Kenya it was bad enough that Julius Lekupe had not sired a son – it was even worse that his eldest daughter refused to be “cut”.

“Women are like property here. We circumcise them and marry them off – some as young as 10 years old,” Lekupe told IPS.

He knew it was only a matter of time before his 16-year-old daughter, too, was going to have to undergo the ritual against her will.

“She begged me to support and protect her. It was a tough decision, but I agreed. I sent her to Nairobi to live with a friend,” Lekupe recalled.  

He is among an increasing number of men belonging to ethnic groups that practice Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) who have begun to speak out against the now-illegal practice in this East African nation.

Legally, the tide turned in Kenya in 2010, when parliament adopted the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act, which stipulates that offenders serve up to seven years in prison and can be fined up to 5,800 dollars – a huge sum in a country where the average monthly wage is 250 dollars.

The combination of national legislation and shifting attitudes at the community level seems to bare fruit.

On Wednesday Feb. 6, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the U.N. Population Fund (UNFPA), together released new numbers that show FGM/C is becoming less prevalent on the continent and particularly among the younger generation of girls.

In a joint statement, the agencies highlighted Kenya as an example of sharp decline in the region, saying that “women aged 45 to 49 are three times more likely to have been cut than girls aged 15 to 19.”

“This progress shows it is possible to end FGM/C,” underlined UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake, adding that “we can and must end it to help millions of girls and women lead healthier lives.”

Increasingly, men are assuming active roles in initiating this cultural shift, as UNFPA’s 2012 report “Accelerating Change” points out. In addition to fathers like Lekupe, who wish to protect their daughters, young men across Kenya are speaking out publicly to announce their preference to marry uncut girls, according to the report – a significant development in a country where FGM continues to be a prerequisite for marriage in some communities.

What’s more, over two dozen male Muslim leaders made public declarations to fight FGM/C in 2011, UNFPA said.

“We had been misled into believing that FGM/C is the practice of the Prophet, and that His followers must follow it,” Abdi Omar, a husband and father from Garissa in northern Kenya, told IPS. “But all over northern Kenya we have Muslim leaders telling us that it is not. Why should I support it if it isn’t the practice of the Prophet?”

According to Ibrahim Shabo, an FGM/C activist from Isiolo — a town in northern Kenya where the pastoralist community is notorious for practicing FGM/C  — this stance by Muslim leaders is particularly significant when it comes to influencing Kenyan Somalis in northern Kenya, who have a FGM/C prevalence rate of 98 percent.

In Kapenguria, Rift Valley, the local council of elders has joined the growing chorus against FGM/C by making a public declaration to abandon the practice in 2011.

“This is a community that is known to practice extremely brutal forms of FGM/C,” Philipo Lotimari, a community leader in the town, told IPS. He went on to describe the practice that involves opening up a girl’s vagina with the horn of a cow the first time she has sex following her circumcision.

The stance of the all-male council has shifted attitudes, according to Lotimari, by sending “a collective message that it is okay to marry a girl who isn’t circumcised.”

His younger sisters have not been circumcised, he added, because he wanted them to have an education and not be married off.

But not all men have altruistic reasons for preventing the practice.

Omar, a father from Garissa, said that male youths in his region are against FGM/C, because they feel they themselves have become “victims” of it.

“If the girl is sewn so tight, you can neither penetrate nor enjoy sex. So marriages are ending because of it,” he said.

Dr. Salim Ali, a reproductive health physician in northern Kenya, told IPS: “Sex with (women who have undergone FGM/C) is uncomfortable and they do it as a duty. They rarely reach orgasm and make sex tedious. Women who haven’t been cut enjoy frequent sex – sex with them is enjoyable.”

In other cases, men whose wives suffered complications at birth were forced to pay for emergency operations to save their wives and children, Grace Gakii, a gender activist who has worked in FGM/C-practicing communities such as the Maasai’s and the Pokot, told IPS.

“The men are forced to sell their livestock to raise the money for surgery. This is a problem because of the attachment they have to their herds,” said Gakii.

While not all men who speak out against FGM are acting as women’s allies, their support for the issue at large is nevertheless crucial for accelerating the eradication of the practice.

“If more councils of elders and young men continue to show support for an FGM-free society, Kenya will be heading for zero tolerance of FGM.”

By Rousbeh Legatis
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 24 2013 (IPS)

Journalists can play a crucial role in helping to shift traditional attitudes within societies where the cruel practice of female genital mutilation is an everyday reality.

Mae Azango. Credit: Glenna Gordon for New Narratives

Mae Azango, a reporter for the news site FrontPage Africa, took on this taboo subject in her home country of Liberia, where as many as two out of three girls are affected and the topic itself has been neglected by politicians at the highest level for years.

Her coverage forced her and her young daughter into hiding for weeks, but it also gained international attention and put pressure on the government.

Azango, who just won the International Press Freedom Award 2012, spoke with U.N. correspondent Rousbeh Legatis about how media can make a difference and the situation of the few female journalists in the country.

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Looking back on your work, you said: “I knew if we started to talk about it (FGM), and they knew the truth, many parents would choose a different path” for their daughters. Did they?

A: No, parents haven’t chosen a different path for their daughters yet because they still feel it’s the clean and just thing to do. As an ancient tradition, it isn’t going to be changed overnight. We know that. As I’m talking to you, the practice is still going on in secret, even though the government has suspended the activities.

But what we have done is start a conversation at a national level that will allow this practice to be debated for the first time ever in our country. I’m very pleased about that.

More and more political leaders and victims have felt confident to come forward and say, “This practice is outdated. It is wrong.” Many parents will hear that debate for the first time and think twice about cutting their daughters.

It’s not the end but it’s the beginning of the end and many little girls will be spared. But in the long run it will take the sort of long-term, intensive awareness campaign that the government has promised to really stamp it out.

Q: Why is FGM such a taboo subject and how difficult is it to cover as a journalist?

A: It’s a taboo subject in Liberia and Sierra Leone because it is a ritual practiced by traditional secret societies in those two countries. Girls as young as two spend months in the bush learning how to be wives and at the end there is a ceremony where they are cut. There is also a school for boys.

The people who run these schools make a lot of money from them and they want to protect that income.

People know that if you are initiated into the societies you must never speak about what goes on there. If you do, they will kill you, mostly by magic. So people are very afraid to speak about it.

But affected women, who went through this ritual of cutting, are often very bitter and resentful. I was able to persuade a woman to speak to me but she was extremely anxious about it. We had to hide in her hut and use a false name. She was still traumatised from the experience when she was held down by four women when she was 13 and was cut by a fifth with a blade that had been used on 25 other girls. She has lived with the trauma and the medical consequences ever since.

She has faced a lot of attacks since the story came out, but she says she is glad to
have done it because she hopes it will spare other girls what she went through. She is very brave.

Q: What is the situation of female journalists in Liberia and what do they need?

A: There are not many female journalists in Liberia, but the few that are there are trying to make a difference.

Many male journalists feel we are only good enough to go after soft news stories. I’m very lucky to work for FrontPage Africa – a paper that sees women reporters as assets. I’m also part of a U.S. project called New Narratives (NN) that is supporting women reporters in Liberia.

My fellow NN reporters and I have won nine national reporting awards in the last two years and have written for media around the world. We have forced the government and other leaders to act on a range of issues, including police abuse of rape victims, child prostitution and teen pregnancy.

We are proving the men wrong because we are really making waves in Liberia and having the sort of impact they want to have.

We are also proving that not all news has to be politics and scandal. There are so many issues that are plaguing women and children in particular in Liberia and we are proving they are valid news stories that people want to know about.

Q: Why do you think your reporting resulted in political action when other articles and messages never brought any change?

A: What was different about this reporting was that it was told in a very compelling way.

It was on the front page of the major newspaper in Liberia on International Women’s Day, when other media was doing light pieces about women’s advancement.

It had graphic photos that showed young girls were being initiated even though the societies claimed girls had to be marriageable age when they went to the schools. It also told the story through the eyes of a victim. People were able to really relate to her story because everyone had been through the same thing or knew someone who had suffered like that woman.

It’s so rare that reporters actually use real people to tell their stories in Liberia. Usually it’s just a rewritten press release or the words of a single leader being reproduced. There is no reporting. Readers really responded to this, because the overall presentation was so compelling. It got everyone’s attention and it was discussed for months on talk radio.

Excerpt:

By Julia Kallas
UNITED NATIONS, Jan 3 2013 (IPS)

For the estimated 140 million girls and women living with the consequences of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), it is already too late. But since a global ban on FGM was passed at the end of last year, activists hope many more will now escape this brutal practice.

Alvilda Jablonko. Credit: Julia Kallas/IPS

Alvilda Jablonko, coordinator of the No Peace Without Justice Programme on FGM, has been fighting for such a ban in the U.N. General Assembly since 2010. It was finally adopted Dec. 20, 2012.

‘‘So it is a new chapter, it is a new tool,” she told IPS. “(But) it is just a tool and it is only as effective as the use that is made of it.”

IPS correspondent Julia Kallas spoke with Jablonko about how this ban will have an impact on the ground. Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: What were the main barriers you came through while trying to advocate the resolution to ban FGM worldwide?

A: I think that the adoption of the resolution at the United Nations was definitely a struggle by the states that are most concerned by the issue. So Burkina Faso is one of the countries that have been the leaders at a national level in combating FGM and they really could take the lead on this issue.

They worked very closely with NGOs on the ground and even with the NGOs coalition. They naturally worked to encourage these states to take action at the national level.

Q: What is the main role of No Peace Without Justice in this struggle?

A: No Peace Without Justice has been working for the past 10 years on the issue. It is an organisation founded by Emma Bonino, who is a former European Union commissioner for humanitarian affairs and now the vice president of the Italian Senate. She has been at the forefront of the fight for women’s rights worldwide.

No Peace Without Justice joined a number of organisations, African organisations mainly, that had already been involved in this fight for decades. So what No Peace Without Justice has focused on in collaboration with many of the activists on the ground has been to push governments to take their responsibility and not let all the work be done by activists on the ground.

Q: What is the next step?

A: Now that the resolution has been adopted the next step is going to be to get it implemented on the ground. Many states are already doing a great deal, but there is a need to be harmonisation at regional and subregional level.

(In) bordering states, where there are laws in one and not laws in the other, people cross the border so they can have it committed on their girls in a state where it is not against the law.

So hopefully this is going to give a big push to states to start taking it more to heart, and also for the resources to be freed up so that this fight can really be undertaken in a serious way.

Q: How much of an impact on the ground will the resolution have?

A: I think a great deal. In the first place because of the activists who pushed their governments to take this action at the level of the U.N. These activists have achieved something amazing. They are not going to stop. They are going to be really energised and strengthened by this. They are going to be able to go back to their communities, governments, parliaments and ministries and get them to really start the ball rolling now.

There is a wonderful quotation by a member of the parliament from Kenya, Hon. Linah Jebii Kilimo, who pushed and succeeded in getting a law in Kenya to ban FGM there. And she was saying that now what this does in her case is that it really legitimates what she has done nationally at the international level.

All activists worldwide helped in our work. The resolution was really spearheaded by Kilimo. As I said, and because they have been so strong at combating FGM at home, they were the natural leaders for this. The (Kenyan) First Lady (Lucy Kibaki) is a very strong activist on many things, including FGM, and she was the international coordinator for this campaign. She really did a great deal of work, also lobbying with her fellow first ladies from other countries.

One of the organisations that we work with is the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children. They are a group of committees in all 29 countries in Africa and all of them were active at the national level encouraging their countries to really work on this.

Excerpt:

In the southern Senegal village of Kael Bessel, female genital mutilation is no longer a taboo subject. Sexagenarian Fatoumata Sabaly speaks freely about female circumcision and girls’ rights with her friends.

“We’ve found it necessary to abandon cutting – abandoning the practice has advantages for women,” she told IPS. “Female circumcision has consequences such as haemorrhaging and it can even lead to death.”

In Senegal, like other West African countries, grandmothers like Sabaly are generally the ones who decide girls should be circumcised. A 2008 survey in Vélingara, also in the south of Senegal, found nearly 60 percent of older women supported female genital mutilation. But a 2011 survey carried out by the Grandmother Project found fully 93 percent of the same group are now against FGM.

The Grandmother Project, an international non-governmental organisation which promotes community dialogue about cultural issues, has helped organise regular meetings in thirty-odd villages around Vélingara, to enable people to discuss questions relating to local traditions and values, particularly “koyan” – the rite of passage associated with FGM.

Religious leaders, traditional chiefs, local officials, youth and elders all take part. The public debates allow people to talk openly about the pros and cons of their cultural practices.

“Since excision has more disadvantages than advantages, people are slowly abandoning the practice,” said Falilou Cissé, a community development advisor at the Grandmother Project in Vélingara.

“People have stopped the practice themselves. We have never asked people to stop it,” she stressed.

The meetings emphasise the educational role of grandmothers in African societies, but beyond that they help break the silence around taboo subjects like FGM.

“I was for excision, personally, like many people, but the public discussions have helped me to change my position, to accept that in our culture, there are some values to preserve and others to abandon,” Abdoulaye Baldé, the imam of a mosque in Vélingara, told IPS.

Today, thanks to Baldé’s participation in the meetings, people around Vélingara know that FGM is not a religious obligation for Muslims. The involvement of opinion leaders has had a huge impact on changing the outlook on excision among grandmothers.

Fatoumata Baldé, a nurse-midwife in Kandia, a village near Vélingara, told IPS that she couldn’t remember coming across a case of excision in the area since 2010.

“Previously, we were used to handling lots of cases of cutting gone bad at the clinic, because it’s done without medical assistance,” explained the nurse, also a regular participant in the debates.

Boubacar Bocoum, a Malian consultant who has studied FGM in several countries, sees in the Vélingara experience grounds for hope that the practice could be definitively abandoned across West Africa.

“The projects fighting against this practice generally target excisors, while it’s really a community problem,” he said. “If only one part of the community abandons it, the practice persists because the rest of the people are not engaged.”

According to a study published by the NGO Plan International in 2006, FGM is practiced throughout the West Africa region.

“In Guinea, in Sierra Leone and in Mali, practically all women are excised,” said the report. “In Niger and Ghana, the practice is limited to particular geographic areas and the national prevalence is less than 10 percent.”