Release from FORWARD on March 8th

A Call for Accelerated Action towards the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation

On International Women’s Day, the Foundation for Women’s Health, Research and Development (FORWARD) - a UK-based African women’s organisation - seizes the opportunity to call for a coherent strategy and intensified action that includes setting targets to eliminate Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) by 2015.

In 2001, the World Health Organisation estimated that between 100 and 140 million women and girls worldwide had been subjected to one of several forms of FGM, most of whom live in 28 African countries. FGM is also increasingly practised in Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States of America due to immigration from countries where FGM is a traditional practice. Despite this, there remains a dearth of evidence-based information in western countries on the magnitude of the problem and on the impact of anti-FGM programmes and other specific interventions.

FGM is internationally recognised as a form of violence against women (VAW) and as a fundamental abuse of women and girls’ human rights. FORWARD views the continuation of the practice as an indication that the international community has failed women and girls affected by or at risk of FGM. It is estimated that by the year 2010 nearly 210 million women will bear the scars, traumas, risks and gender-specific human rights violations inherent in FGM.

FORWARD forecasts the year 2005 as a huge opportunity for campaigns in the UK as the government has the presidency over G8, the EU and sets the new agenda for the Commission on Africa. We expect that all gender-based violations and harmful traditional practices, including FGM, are addressed in the Commission’s awaited report. A further opportunity for action has been provided by the new legislation against FGM in the UK which came into force in March 2004. This law closed the legal loophole in the 1985 Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act which allowed parents and/or carers to take their daughters outside the UK for the purpose of FGM. However, FORWARD is concerned that information about the new law has not reached all the FGM practising communities.

FORWARD calls upon the UK government to take immediate action to ensure that adequate support and protective services are available to women and girls who have undergone or are at risk of FGM. FORWARD calls upon the UK government to provide adequate financial resources to enable the scaling up of responses to FGM by non-governmental and statutory agencies. FORWARD demands that women and girls fleeing FGM are automatically granted asylum in the UK.

FGM must be addressed as a cross-cutting issue, and must not be marginalised from the broader national strategy to end all forms of violence against women..

FORWARD calls upon all governments to take all necessary measures to ensure that women and girls’ human rights, enshrined in international and regional instruments, are realised for women and girls who have undergone or are at risk of FGM, wherever they reside.

FORWARD strongly urges African states to ratify the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the rights of Women in Africa.

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