Eliminating the scourge of FGM

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Eliminating The Scourge Of Female Genital Mutilation – OpEd

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a global outrage, which has already affected 100-140 million women and girls worldwide. Since 1992, Equality Now has been working to end all forms of violence and discrimination against women and girls. Eliminating FGM globally is one of our key priorities. Although progress has been slow at times, recent developments such as the UN Global Ban, strengthens our ongoing struggle for lasting change.

Equality Now has been heartened by recent success in the US, with the passing of the ‘Girls Protection Act’. 168,000 girls and women living in the United States have already undergone, or are at risk of undergoing FGM. This legislation seeks to close a loophole, which previously made it possible for girls to be taken abroad to undergo it there. Meanwhile, in the UK, where it is estimated that 66,000 women and girls have undergone, and 24,000 girls under the age of 11 are at risk of undergoing FGM, Equality Now continued as secretariat for the second year running for the FGM All-Party-Parliamentary-Group. We were also directly involved with the introduction of a new ‘Health Passport‘ – a statement opposing FGM, signed by a number of members of parliament including the Minister of State for Crime Prevention, as well as an ‘Action Plan’ on how to remove the barriers to prosecution of FGM crime in the UK. We continue to provide advisory and technical support through the FGM Special Initiative, which seeks to strengthen community-based prevention work on FGM. In early January, the National Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC), the oldest and the most recognised civil society organisation dealing with the welfare of children in the UK, finally decided to specifically include FGM within its existing child protection work.

We are encouraged too by recent positive developments in Africa. In the Gambia, where 78.3 percent of women have undergone FGM, a national consultative meeting geared towards introducing a bill banning FGM began this month. In attendance were traditional and village leaders, as well as several women’s rights activists. In a statement, long-term Equality Now Partner and leading anti-FGM activist Dr. Isatou Touray lauded the move, suggesting that it was a manifestation of commitment to the advancement of Gambian women and girls against harmful traditional practices. In Somalia where the prevalence of FGM is almost universal (98 %) and where religious conservatives push for some form of FGM, it is heartening to know that the new Somali constitution includes a ban on all forms of “female circumcision”.