Why should we fight Female Genital Mutilation?

Too many of our girls face the oppression of FGM... 

Just think of a young girl going through this, unknowingly or without her permission to, in essence, change her life forever. It is said that FGM is to preserve the virginity of the girls and to keep them pure until marriage but it is really taking their spirit away.

We are an enormously diverse country and we welcome the diversity of traditions, but we don't welcome oppression or the denial of human rights. We may always assume that FGM is an African problem. No it's not; its a global problem.

The recent Global summit that happened few months ago to end sexual violence in London was unique in its ambition; not only in efforts to bring sexual violence in conflict zones to an end, but also in attempting to engage the public in a challenging issue about which they had little prior knowledge and mostly no personal experience or connection. The public came to learn about the impact of Sexual Gender Based Violence in conflict, and the work that's being done to stop it; as survivors conveyed their stories, there was a powerful sense that together, people from around the world were standing up against the perpetrators of these crimes.

Understanding and fostering this sense of solidarity is important in opening with a focus on violence against women and girls and, in particular, female genital mutilation (FGM).

FGM is an issue that provokes strong reactions; the appearance of an 'us and them' mentality is a risk. People from communities affected by FGM may feel that other aspects of their culture are being challenged or degraded while those in unaffected communities may take FGM as evidence of 'alien' values, feeding negative stereotyping.

It’s more important that we treat FGM as we do any other human rights violation. It should be stopped, and everybody – every girl, woman, boy and man in every part of the world – can play a part in making that happen.

No-one would disagree that the movement to end FGM should be led from within  the 29 countries in which the majority of cases occur. Our focus should always be to support the work of local communities in identifying the underlying social norms that underpin FGM and challenging their persistence. But we should be clear that this doesn't – or shouldn't – mean that people in other parts of the world can't add their support.

An effective campaign gives a voice to those affected by a problem and then encourages others to amplify that voice. It recognises that rights are invalid if they are not respected universally and fought for across communities, cultures and continents.

A useful comparison here is campaigning on child marriage. Like FGM, this is an issue that does affect people in a particular country, but that does not pervade society in the same way as it does elsewhere in the world. Child marriage will only be brought to an end by campaigns driven from within the countries of prevalence. Campaigns would help a great deal in fighting the menace. It goes ahead to achieve two things: First, that people can and should care about things that don't directly affect them or even their community. Secondly, it should be clear to decision-makers in that this is an issue in which every person against the vice wants action.

Rather than, as some might argue, undermining the indigenous campaigns, these activities should be geared towards addressing the issues.

The sensitivities around FGM make the public discussion more charged, but the same logic applies to this issue as to child marriage. People shouldn't be afraid to raise their voice. Longstanding campaigners on the issue can draw strength from this support.

So when I'm asked, as I have been, "why should we' care about FGM?" my answer is clear: because it can make a difference in ending it. We have to start from home.  We have to do something in our own country before we can tell other countries what to do. We need to alert educators and counsellors on how to look for girls at risk.

The Rise of Sexual Gender Based Violence ( SGBV ). What next?

While GBV can be said to have been present in society since earliest recorded history, it is only in the past 10 years that it has been defined as and declared an international human rights issue.
This is according to Jeanne Ward, a gender-based-violence expert with the Reproductive Health Response in Conflict Consortium (RHRC). If Not addressed, Now, When?
Addressing Gender-based Violence are due to the rise of the women's and human rights movements across the world that demands that violence against women be considered an affront to basic human rights.But it is the rising number of cases of GBV and the wide-scale use of sexual violence in on-going armed conflicts among other causes of SGBV around the world that command the world's attention and drive an increased demand to see change. The increased media attention on issues of sexual violence and the establishment of a defined humanitarian sector have led to greater interest in the development of legal instruments and institutions that promote and reinforce international standards of human rights.The effect of the increased focus on GBV has been both positive and negative. Many more aid agencies, donors and local organizations have now included GBV as part, or the main focus, of their activities, resulting in more money and attention.
However, GBV experts who have been working on the issue for many years are cautious of this sudden interest, which they fear may be short-lived. If support systems are not in place for the victims "you can drown in funding that's not well used". People do not see results for all the funds spent, so they can dry up, then nobody benefits. But, at the end of the day, the legal frameworks and humanitarian assistance for victims count for very little if the authorities in places where the crimes are committed lack the power, or will, to act.No-risk environments for perpetrators Universally, gender-based violence goes largely unpunished. During conflict, violence against women becomes an excepted norm while militarisation and the increased presence of weapons result in high levels of brutality and even greater levels of impunity. Fighting the reality of impunity is critical to the reduction of GBV. At present, those committing violations in conflicts or post-conflict environments run virtually no risk of investigation let alone prosecution and punishment. A combination of social and political disorder, absence of rule of law, corruption, the lack of an impartial or functioning judiciary, and fear allow these crimes to be committed with almost total impunity. Perpetrators act in a no-risk environment. Even those trusted to keep the peace and offer stability - UN peacekeepers - are sometimes accused of sexual violations, but generally evade prosecution.

International agreements and frameworks

The defining of the international community's responsibilities in response to gender inequality and sexual violence was slow until recent years. Although statutes prohibiting discrimination on the basis of sex appeared in the original Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, it is only in the last decade that the issue of sexual violence in conflict has been addressed rigorously. Various international agreements have sought to address the issue of sexual vulnerability of women in war, most notably, additional protocols to the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in 1979. But the Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court in 1998 marked a turning point: it declared for the first time that "rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilisation, and other forms of sexual violence of comparative gravity" are to be considered war crimes. If these acts are knowingly committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack on a civilian population, they constitute "crimes against humanity", it said.Whatever laws are drafted internationally, however, the facts on the ground remain stark, with no improvement in sight. In Rwanda it is said that almost every adolescent girl who survived the genocide of 1994 had been raped. The World Health Organization says gender-based violence accounts for more death and disability among women aged 15-44 years than cancer, malaria, traffic injuries and war combined. As long as there is no real progress on addressing the culture of impunity that surrounds sexual violence, the number of women medically and psychologically scarred for life will increase as the epidemic continues unrestrained.
The responsibility to fight SGBV lies in our hands as Individuals