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Below - Sierra Leone: Resistance to FGM campaigns Launched by the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the initiative will encourage communities in 16 African countries with high prevalence to abandon the practice, which has serious physical and psychological effects. Partnering with the agencies will be Governments, religious leaders, reproductive health providers, media and civil society. UNFPA says that annually, between two and three million women and girls are subjected to FGM/C, the partial or total removal of external female genital organs for cultural or other non-medical reasons. More than 100 million women and girls worldwide have undergone the practice. Purnima Mane, UNFPA’s Deputy Executive Director (Programme), urged the international community to “do a better job to protect the millions of women and girls who are at risk every year.” Ending the practice will contribute to achieving international development targets, and will enhance the human rights of women and girls, contribute to their empowerment, improve maternal health and reduce child mortality, she added. In addition to many African nations, various forms of FGM/C have also been reported in parts of some Middle Eastern and Asian countries. It is also practiced in immigrant communities around the world. Sierra Leone: Resistance to FGM campaigns [FREETOWN, 8 August 2007] - Female genital mutilation (FGM) can make sex painful, complicate childbirth, lead to urinary tract infections, enable the transmission of HIV - and induce a host of other ills. So, promising to fight this practice should be a winning strategy for someone hoping to be elected to parliament this Saturday in Sierra Leone - where about 90 per cent of girls and women undergo FGM, according to rights watchdog Amnesty International. Should be. But, isn't. In an inescapable irony, the issue is off limits even to aspiring women legislators who might have an unhappy experience of FGM, and who could lead the fight against the practice at the highest levels. The reason? FGM still enjoys support in large sections of the community, notably among members of secret "Bondo" societies, made up exclusively of women, which use the practice to initiate girls into womanhood -- alongside teaching them various domestic skills. "I cannot say a word now (against FGM) because I need their support," Tinah Greene, a candidate for the Convention People's Party, told IPS. While the 2002 polls were held under a system of proportional representation, seen as conducive to helping women enter parliament, this year's general elections are being fought in the tougher world of constituency politics - and women need to ensure they have the Bondo societies' votes in hand. 'Political suicide' "You won't get a candidate to go out and say 'We're against this (FGM)'," Rodney Lowe, a volunteer for Amnesty International in Sierra Leone's capital - Freetown - told IPS. "It can be political suicide." One of the seven political parties which have put forward candidates for the presidency, the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), has come out against FGM, also referred to as female circumcision. This party also has the distinction of being the only grouping with a woman standing for vice-president (no party has put forward a female presidential candidate). However, certain NDA parliamentary candidates are less outspoken - perhaps because of fears that criticism of FGM could be equated with resistance to the entire system of initiation that is central to many communities, and a source of income for some women. "In the constituency…I find myself in, Bondo is held in high esteem; it is revered," NDA legislative aspirant Asiah Coker told IPS. "For me as an initiate I don't think it (FGM) is bad, because I function properly." Notes All People's Congress (APC) candidate Salamatu Turay: "I personally believe in the African tradition. The African belief is that female circumcision is very important to the lives of Africans." Vice President Solomon Berewa is said to have sponsored the circumcision of several dozen initiates in the south-eastern cities of Bo and Kailahun last year. About a decade ago, Shirley Yeama Gbujama - now minister of social welfare - reportedly even threatened to "sew up the mouths" of persons who spoke out against Bondo. FGM involves the partial or complete removal of female genitals - typically without anaesthetic - creating a wound that is then partially stitched up, with an opening left to allow for the passage of urine and menstrual blood. The reasons for the practice vary in the many African countries where it persists: in addition to being an initiation rite, it is viewed as a religious requirement in certain Muslim communities - while others see FGM as necessary for female hygiene. "It has become fanatical in some areas," says Lowe. "Before it was mostly girls over 15 (who were circumcised)…But it's probably going to go down. We know there are girls being done by about six years of age." . A child rights act that parliament debated in June initially included a section that could have been used against FGM; however, this was removed before the act was passed into law - apparently because of concerns that the language of the clause was ambiguous. "We need to educate our people. We need to get them involved, to make them understand the dangers of the Bondo society," Zainab Karama, of the SLPP, told IPS. "For it (FGM) to be eradicated we have to sensitise our people." [Source: http://www.ipsnews.net/] Further information
[10 August 2007] – Two United Nations agencies have launched a $44 million programme to reduce female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) by 40 per cent by 2015, and to end the harmful traditional practice within a generation.
pdf: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=23469&Cr=genital&Cr1=mutila...