UNICEF hails progress toward ending female genital cutting
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: January 29, 2006
Child
00:01 GMT Monday, 6
February.
Despite Signs of Hope, 3 Million Girls Still Subjected to Practice
Annually
NEW YORK, 6 February 2006 – UNICEF today applauded the women and
men who are working together to end the practice of female genital
mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and to respect the right of girls to grow to
womanhood without harm to their bodies.
Throughout sub-Saharan Africa and in Egypt and Sudan a social movement is
unfolding to end FGM/C, one of the most persistent, pervasive and silently
endured human rights violations. Over the last six years, thousands of villages
in West Africa have joined together in public pledging ceremonies to abandon
FGM/C, bringing greater hopes of ending the practice globally within a single
generation.
“We stand at a pivotal moment in history as we work toward a truly positive
collective change,” UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman said Monday, the
fourth annual International Day of Zero Tolerance of Female Genital Mutilation.
“The most effective approaches to this issue have been found not by punishing
perpetrators but through encouraging and supporting healthy choices.”
There is still a long way to go toward ending FGM/C. Every year, three
million girls in 28 countries on the African continent are subjected to the
practice, as are thousands of girls in immigrant communities in Europe, North
America and Australia. Globally, between 100 and 140 million girls and women
have been cut or mutilated.
Most girls are cut between infancy and their 14th birthday. Many communities
still hold firmly to the age-old tradition, which though not always stated
outright is considered a prerequisite for marriage.
Veneman said ending this discriminatory and dangerous practice is essential
to the success of the Millennium Development Goals on improving maternal health,
promoting gender equality and reducing child mortality.
UNICEF is working with partners who have identified several critical elements
necessary for mass abandonment of the practice. These include using a
non-coercive and non-judgmental approach; raising awareness in the community
about the harmfulness of the practice; encouraging public declarations of
the collective commitment to abandonment; and spreading the abandonment message
within communities.
UNICEF is supporting programmes to end FGM/C in 18 countries and conducting
initial activities in four. They use a variety of approaches:
In Senegal, largely thanks to the work of TOSTAN, a non-governmental
organization that focuses on educating communities about human rights and human
dignity, tens of thousands of people have declared their abandonment of the
practice.
In Egypt, the FGM-Free Village Model project brings together government and
UN partners to encourage villages in the southern region to make public
declarations against FGM/C. UNICEF works with individuals who have
renounced FGM/C and are willing to speak out and persuade others in the
community to do the same.
In Sudan, religious leaders are using their authority to affirm that FGM/C is
a violation of spiritual and theological principles. On Monday, government
officials, the National Council for Child Welfare and UN agencies will hold a
commemorative event that will include an exhibition, religious and secular songs
on abandonment of FGM/C and children’s performances. The exhibition will include
images of girls who died of FGM/C.
While communities are making choices to abandon FGM/C, governments and
non-governmental organizations have been instrumental in the movement to end the
practice. The Maputo Protocol, a regional legal instrument which
explicitly prohibits and condemns FGM/C, was ratified by 15 African countries
and entered into force in November 2005. A month later, 100 African
parliamentarians adopted the groundbreaking “Dakar Declaration,” which
underscores the importance of community involvement as well as legislative
change in ending FGM/C.
A regional conference on FGM/C will be held in Mali later this month, where
discussions will centre on using legislation to enforce the Maputo Protocol
resolutions. The practice of FGM/C also will be addressed in the UN
Secretary-General’s Study on Violence against Children, to be published in
October 2006.
“We know what has to be done to abandon this harmful practice,” said
Veneman. “Strong support from governments encouraging communities and
individuals to make the healthiest choices possible for girls will save lives
and greatly benefit families and communities.”
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