International Conference on Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, Addis Ababa

International meeting on women's right to health and on female genital mutilation organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, held in Sweden

Female genital mutilation is a coming of age ritual in some societies.

Was the Government making an effort to prevent female genital mutilation through awareness raising?

The Committee recommends that the State party include detailed information in its next periodic report on the practice of female genital mutilation.

The Government was training women in the field to alert other women to the existence of legislation prohibiting female genital mutilation.

Lastly, she enquired about the success of the newly adopted Children's Act 2005, and about its provisions with regard to female genital mutilation.

Female genital mutilation was included among the harmful traditional practices prohibited by the Act but it was not specifically named.

Delegates expressed the importance of having a strategy to address gender based violence, including female genital mutilation.

Speakers underlined the success in girls' enrolment, and in the fight against child labour and trafficking and female genital mutilation.

The Government continued its involvement in the campaign to eradicate female genital mutilation by working in the community to raise consciousness about the problem.

Mr. Taal (Gambia) said that in Gambia, which was a haven for refugees from other countries of the region, female genital mutilation was an important topic.

Ms. Coker Appiah also stressed the need for measures to ensure the effective implementation of the Code on the Person and the Family and legislation prohibiting female genital mutilation.

In addition, the new Children's Act, which, inter alia, prohibited female genital mutilation, had been enacted in June 2005 and was awaiting Presidential assent.

For example, female genital mutilation amounted to criminal assault on a child. She felt sure that if such a serious assault had been made on male children, it would have been taken more seriously.

Female genital mutilation.

Other forms of female genital mutilation

She wondered whether the harmful traditional practices addressed by the Children's Act 2005 also included female genital mutilation, and whether penalties were prescribed for those who practised it.

Ms. Kpongnonhou (Benin) said that centres for social protection had been established to continue the Government's efforts at the local level to ensure that rights were protected and that such practices as female genital mutilation ceased.

ii. Policy to combat genital mutilation

Also welcomes the many activities carried out in Africa by Governments and non governmental organizations, particularly in the context of the International Day of Zero Tolerance of Female Genital Mutilation (6 February)

It would be useful to know the basic elements of the Code on the Person and the Family, in particular what was the marriage age, and how such matters as rape and female genital mutilation were handled in criminal legislation.

She asked whether, for instance, there was any monitoring to determine whether men and women actually accessed health care equally and whether female genital mutilation had actually stopped.

While welcoming the fact that female genital mutilation has been a criminal offence in the State party since 1998, the Committee is concerned that it is still a persistent practice in some ethnic communities (art.

Stronger legislation and more extensive involvement of NGOs and the media were needed to fully eliminate forced marriage, bride money, female genital mutilation and trafficking in children, especially girls.

UNICEF is developing a non coercive and non judgmental approach to FGM C and child marriage, based on human rights principles including the empowerment of girls and women.

A preliminary draft of the Act that had specified each of the harmful traditional practices, including female genital mutilation, had met with resistance on the part of the vast illiterate Muslim population in rural areas.

It cannot be used on the face or genitalia.

The law against genital mutilation was now being enforced.

She wondered how it proposed to assume responsibility for compliance with the Convention when legislative change was urgently needed, such as on the matters of female genital mutilation, marriage and equal employment rights.

Recently, a 12 year old girl who was a refugee in the Gambia had refused to return home with her family when peace was restored, claiming that if she returned, she would be subject to female genital mutilation.

There were no reports of arbitrary killings, extrajudicial executions or a pervasive pattern of gross human rights violations except in the area of female genital mutilation, which is widespread in the country.

The rationale for removing it was that an enumeration which inadvertently left out some particular harmful practice might seem to be condoning such a practice.

Deeply concerned also that female genital mutilation is an irreparable, irreversible harmful practice that affects more than 130 million women and girls alive today, and that each year a further 2 million girls are at risk of undergoing the harmful procedure,

Fungi multiplied. Orchids emerged, genitalia shaped to lure insects ...

Welcomes the progress made in combating harmful traditional practices, including female genital mutilation, through the impetus of non governmental organizations, in particular the Inter African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children, which should be given maximum encouragement

Although that Code was the principal instrument for combating discrimination against women in Benin, there were other laws that reinforced it the Act on Punishment of Female Genital Mutilation the Act on Reproductive Health and the Act on Sexual Violence against Women.

While the high illiteracy rate meant that it was difficult to raise public awareness of the need to change attitudes and eliminate harmful traditional practices, the Government had recently initiated a dialogue with religious leaders with a view to sensitizing them to the dangers of female genital mutilation, a practice that was not a requirement of the Islamic faith.

The report paid specific attention to children's rights in general, and girls in particular, with openness to Islamic culture, while protecting such rights as education for boys and girls and protection against child marriage and FGM C.

culturally legitimised violence such as honour killings and genital mutilation of girls international trafficking in women sexual violence, forced pregnancies and forced abortions, systematic violence with serious physical and or mental consequences.

In 2001 it submitted, for the fourth time, a resolution on combating female genital mutilation.

The issues of female genital mutilation and domestic violence as grounds for asylum are dealt with separately.

Female genital mutilation occurred only in border areas of the country.

In particular, she wished to know whether the Government offered viable alternatives to shrine leaders for trokosi girls sent to them by families of those who had committed crimes under customary law or to those who performed female genital cutting as a livelihood?

The Netherlands continues to be active internationally in the fight against female genital mutilation.