No to female circumcision

2003-02-04 19:02

Addis Ababa - African leaders and international organisations begin a three-day conference on Tuesday in the Ethiopian capital to declare "zero tolerance" of the widespread practice of female genital mutilation.

The conference, also to be attended by African first ladies, intends to declare Thursday a "World Day for zero tolerance for female genital mutilation," said the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices (IAC), the organiser of the conference.

As many as an estimated 140 million of the world's girls and women have undergone genital mutilation (FGM), also called female circumcision or excision, according to the UN's World Health Organisation.

Every year some two million girls are at risk of undergoing the practice, which involves removing all or part of the external genitalia, especially in Africa, where it is done in some 28 countries.

A deeply rooted cultural tradition intended in part to preserve a woman's chastity, FGM is usually carried out without the aid of anesthesia, often causes medical complications and even sometimes leads to death.

'Extreme form of violence'

"Female Genital Mutilation is the most widespread and deadly of all (forms) of violence against African girls and women," the IAC's honorary ambassador on FGM, Chantal Compaore, the wife of Burkina Faso President Blaise Compaore, recently said.

Despite education campaigns and laws against FGM in some countries, the practice persists, with nearly all women undergoing the procedure in countries such as Somalia, Djibouti and Sudan.

The IAC called on the African Union to include issues such as FGM as part of its new initiative, the New Economic Partnership for Africa's Development (Nepad), where African countries are to review each other and recommend best practices to help boost the continent out of poverty.

The conference, also to be attended by representatives of the African Union and the UN Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), intends to draft a working plan to intensify activities to put an end to the practice.

FGM is an "extreme form of violence", the IAC said in a statement. "If boys and men had to go under the procedure there would be widespread protests."

Several versions of FGM are practiced. In the most extreme, infibulation, the external genitalia are removed by the stitching and narrowing of the vaginal opening. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA