[women-rights] UNICEF hails progress toward ending female genital cutting

Despite Signs of Hope, 3 Million Girls Still Subjected to Practice
Annually

UNICEF Press release

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.”

****

UNICEF published two reports on FGM/C in December 2005 which are
downloadable: Innocenti Digest no 12: "Changing a Harmful Social
convention: Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting
http://www.unicef-icdc.org/publications/ (Arabic, French, Spanish and
Italian) and "Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting: A Statistical
Consideration" (English only)
http://www.unicef.org/publications/index_29994.html