FGM 'attacks women's rights'

2004-02-06 22:13

Brazzaville - The WHO on Friday called on African countries to recognise female genital mutilation as a violation of women's rights, saying that over 100 million women in the continent are victims of the practice.

In a message to mark World Day against Genital Mutilation, the World Health Organisation's Africa office said genital mutilation exposed women to a range of irreversible health risks, including HIV/Aids.

The head of the Brazzaville-based regional office, Malick Samba, said that female genital mutilation is practised in 27 out of the 46 members of the WHO in the region.

He used the day to launch an appeal for "countries and partners to recognise female genital mutilation as an attack on the fundamental rights of girls and women".

"It is estimated that over 100 million girls and women in Africa have suffered a form of genital mutilation and every year two million more are exposed to the risk of mutilation," said Samba.

"Female genital mutilation has serious and often irreversible consequences on the health and survival of girls and women. These can include haemmorrhage, difficulties urinating and giving birth as well as infections like HIV/Aids," he added.

Female genital mutilation (FGM), also called female circumcision or excision, is a deeply rooted cultural tradition intended in part to preserve a woman's chastity, and usually carried out without the aid of anesthesia.

The painful practice, traditionally seen as controlling female sexuality and making a girl more "marriageable", typically involves cutting off the clitoris and other parts of the genitalia in girls, and often sewing the vagina shut.

- SAPA