Post: #1
Title: International day on Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation
Author: Roada
Date: 02-06-2004, 10:22 PM
Parent: #0
ADDIS ABABA,2/4/2004 (IRIN) - Africa is aiming to eradicate harmful traditional practices like female genital mutilation (FGM) by 2010, campaigners said on the eve on the International day on Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation, to be marked on Friday.
Speaking in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, on Tuesday, Berhane Ras-Work, the president of the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices (IAC), called for a continent-wide zero-tolerance approach to combat FGM.
"Children in Africa are being mutilated alive in the name of tradition," she asserted. "We should not remain indifferent just because these acts are defined as tradition."
African leaders have already come under pressure to outlaw the controversial practice. The wives of at least five African presidents have also thrown their weight behind the campaign to outlaw FGM. The first ladies, from Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Mali, Djibouti and Guinea, urged action to stamp out the practice, which affects some 2 million girls each year.
"Female genital mutilation is the most widespread and deadly of all violence victimising women and girls in Africa," Chantal Compaore, the First Lady of Burkina Faso, said recently.
MOVES TO BAN FGM
The EU, for its part, has threatened action such as withdrawing aid from Third World countries which turn a blind eye to the practice or refuse to ban it.
In Europe, concern over FGM has mounted due to the influx of refugees and immigrants. In 2001, the EU passed laws condemning the practice but only Britain, Norway, Austria and Sweden have outlawed it. It is also banned in the US and Canada. Britain took a stand against FGM by passing into law the 1985 Female Circumcision Act, but so far no one has been prosecuted under it.
In Britain, the growing practice has prompted the British Medical Association to issue guidelines. Meanwhile, the country's National Health Service is paying for at least 200 operations a year to reverse FGM.
Some 15,000 girls are believed to be at risk in Britain, where FGM is officially classed as child abuse. In countries like Austria offenders who perform the operation can be jailed for five years.
The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has called on governments to impose a ban. It said governments had committed themselves to eradicate FGM under the Millennium Development Goals.
Carol Bellamy, the UNICEF executive director, said in a recent speech that six of the eight major goals adopted by all UN member states in 2000 pertained to children. "The 100 million women who endured female genital mutilation or cutting as young girls are living proof that the world has failed to protect them," she noted.
According to statistics, between 100 million and 130 million women have endured FGM or cutting, often without any anaesthetic or sterilised instruments. Many suffer serious side effects as a result. Untrained women, known as excisors, often perform the brutal cutting on children, leaving them scarred for life, in implementation of a centuries-old custom. Some will use the same knife on a succession of victims, regardless of the dangers of spreading infections.
The practice is ubiquitous in the Horn of Africa. In Somalia, about 98 percent of women are estimated as having undergone FGM. It is almost as widespread in Ethiopia.
In the Horn of Africa, the operation usually begins with the young girl’s legs being tied to two women sitting on either of her sides. A third, at her head, will hold down her chest and arms. The cutting will then begin. Thorns from acacia trees are used to stitch up the wound. A small prayer is then said, after which the victim is told never to tell anyone what has happened to her until she marries. Immediately after the operation, she is taken home, where her legs are strapped together for a month while the wound heals.
ADVERSE EFFECTS
Some girls, however, never make it into marriage. They either bleed to death or develop infections like septicaemia which can kill in a matter of weeks. Others end up infertile or suffering from bladder and kidney problems for the rest of their lives. The damage done to women as a result of FGM is epitomised by the fact that in the capital, Addis Ababa, an entire hospital is devoted to trying to repair such, often irreversible, damage, particularly fistula.
According to a recent scientific study published in the International Journal of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, almost one in 10 women will suffer a stillbirth as the result of FGM.
But the pressure on mothers within Somali communities for their daughters to undergo FGM is enormous. Three types of circumcision exist. The first, the Sunnah (Islamic tradition), is the least damaging, involving the removal of the tip of the clitoris. The second, excision, involves removing the labia minora as well as the clitoris. The third is infibulation, where not only the clitoris and the labia minora but also the labia majora are excised. In this case, a straw is inserted into the wound and left there temporarily to facilitate the passage of urine, after which the wound is stitched up.
Infibulation, the most extreme form of FGM is also the most popular in Somalia. The aim of the process is believed to be to ensure the woman will be faithful to her future husband. Some communities consider uncircumcised girls ineligible for marriage circumcised.
FGM AND HIV/AIDS
The IAC, which is combating the practice in 26 countries, said FGM was now becoming a major vehicle for the transmission of HIV/AIDS. Berhane described FGM as a "gruesome and heinous". In Ethiopia it is estimated that 60 percent of its population of 65 million are victims of harmful traditional practices and five-sixths of these are women. Four out of five women aged between 15 and 49 have been circumcised.
"Africa has the highest maternal mortality rates and the root causes for this sad reality lie squarely on social attitudes and practices that go unchallenged," Berhane said. "We need to take up the challenge and give priority [to] and focus on the eradication of FGM, early marriage, nutritional taboos, repeated and uncontrolled pregnancies, and rape," she stressed.
She went on to point out that women were often subjected to harmful practices due to their ignorance and "economic vulnerability", stressing the importance of women being empowered to reject such practices. "Women accept in silence the partial sacrifice of their body with all the attendant consequences and paralysing effects. Women have been hurt for so long and have been victims for too long," she concluded.
|
Post: #2
Title: Re: International day on Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation
Author: إيمان أحمد
Date: 02-07-2004, 04:11 AM
Parent: #1
Quote: "Children in Africa are being mutilated alive in the name of tradition," she asserted. "We should not remain indifferent just because these acts are defined as tradition." |
شكرا رودا، وهذا هو بيان العفو الدولية أيضا... من المهم أن يتخذ النضال ضد هذه العملية منحي من أسفل الهرم تماما كما هو مهم وأساسي أن تلتزم الدول بعدم السكوت وغض الطرف عن الممارسة التعذيبية للفتيات.
News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty International
AI INDEX: ACT 77/018/2004 6 February 2004
International Zero Tolerance to FGM Day: Effective measures needed to protect girls from female genital mutilation
As the world observes the first International Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) Day, Amnesty International is appealing to all governments to ensure effective protection of girls from female genital mutilation (FGM).
"Governments are responsible for protecting women and girls' physical and mental integrity. Moving against FGM should be part of a comprehensive approach to protect women from violence and assert their equal status in society," Amnesty International said.
During its last meeting in February 2003, the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (IAC) adopted a "Declaration of Zero Tolerance to FGM on the African Continent". The Declaration stresses that the "zero tolerance forum will be an initiative which will bring all [our] efforts to celebrate, reflect and deliberate on FGM and to renew [our] commitment to protect African women from cultural and traditional belief systems that are inimical to the sexual and reproductive rights of women in the continent".
The February 2003 meeting also adopted a Common Agenda to provide a common framework for all organizations and actors to intensify and coordinate activities at different levels while respecting their diversity.
"The Declaration and the Common Agenda are welcome signs of determination to eliminate FGM. The IAC should act decisively to spur governments, NGOs and other stakeholders to coordinate efforts to eradicate FGM and other harmful traditional practices which contribute to the perpetuation of violence against women".
So far, only 14 African countries have adopted laws banning the practice. Despite the fact that enforcement of the laws is made difficult by social pressure to undergo the ritual, Amnesty International believes that legislation is an important tool in creating a protective environment for girls and women affected by this practice and asks African governments to accompany legislative efforts with measures that will promote the status of women with regards to their internationally protected human rights, especially, the right to life and physical integrity and the right to health.
On this first international day, Amnesty International urges African governments to comply with the obligations they have contracted by ratifying international instruments such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the African Charter on Human and People's Rights.
Amnesty International also calls on all African governments to ratify the Additional Protocol on Women Rights in Africa adopted at the African Union Summit in Maputo in July 2003. The Protocol is the first international instrument which explicitly protects women's reproductive rights including an explicit call for the legal prohibition of female genital mutilation.
Background
Female Genital Mutilation comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs whether for cultural, religious or other non-therapeutic reasons.
The immediate and long-term health consequences of female genital mutilation vary according to the type and severity of the procedure performed. Immediate complications include severe pain, shock, haemorrhage, urine retention, ulceration of the genital region and injury to adjacent tissue. Long-term complications include, recurring urinary tract infections, pelvic infections, infertility (from deep infections), scarring, difficulties in menstruation, fistulae (holes or tunnels between the vagina and the bladder or rectum), painful intercourse, sexual dysfunction, and problems in pregnancy and childbirth (the need to cut the vagina to allow delivery and the trauma that results, often compounded by re-stitching).
Female Genital Mutilation is practiced in 28 African countries as well as in Asia (Indonesia) and the Middle-East (Yemen). It is increasingly found in Europe, Australia, Canada and the USA, primarily among immigrants from these countries.
Today, the number of girls and women who have undergone female genital mutilation is estimated at between 100 and 140 million. It is estimated that each year, a further 2 million girls are at risk of undergoing FGM.
**************************************************************** You may repost this message onto other sources provided the main text is not altered in any way and both the header crediting Amnesty International and this footer remain intact. Only the list subscription message may be removed.
|
Post: #3
Title: Re: International day on Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation
Author: nada ali
Date: 02-08-2004, 08:50 PM
Parent: #1
Thanks Roada and Iman,
in January I attended the launch of a new video THE BROKEN SILENCE, produced as a collaboration between Research Action and Information Netowrk for the Bodily Integrity of Women (RAINBO), which was founded by Dr. Nahid Toubia, and the Foundation for Women's Health Research and Development (FORWARD). The film is very unconcentional and addresses the issue in seven themes. Below are the websites of both organisations
http://www.rainbo.org
http://www.forward.dircon.co.uk
best regards nada
|
Post: #4
Title: Re: International day on Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation
Author: Rawia
Date: 02-16-2004, 07:35 PM
Parent: #1
العزيزه رودا كل عيد حب وانت اجمل
|
|