FGM activists turn up the heat

2004-09-18 16:53

Nairobi - Activists on Saturday intensified pressure on African governments to outlaw female circumcision, a custom that has afflicted up to 130 million women and children across the world.

Around 400 circumcised women, human rights and women groups as well as government officials, who wrapped up a three-day conference in Nairobi, issued a declaration that called on states to move faster in outlawing the tradition.

"Comprehensive legislation of prohibiting FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) must be enacted and where it is already adopted, appropriate strategies must be implemented to ensure its effective enforcement," said the declaration issued in Nairobi.

"The practice of FGM is a violation of the rights of women and girls and an assault on their human dignity.

"It has no basis in any religion," it added.

The conference urged governments to speedily ratify the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, adopted by the African Union at a summit in Mozambique's capital Maputo in July 2003, which promotes women's rights and protects them from harm.

15 AU members need to ratify proticol

Only Comoros, Libya and Rwanda have ratified the protocol, which will take effect once 15 African Union members have ratified it and taken legal and practical steps to stamp out the practice.

Kenya, the conference's host, pledged to ratify the protocol soon.

"This marks the beginning of our new energies to fight this monster called FGM," Kenyan Home Affairs Minister Linah Chebii Kilimo, herself a fervent warrior against the custom, told the delegates.

Up to 130m women around the world have undergone various forms of FGM, with north Africa, parts of east and central Africa and the Arabian peninsula, leading the pack, according to official estimates.

- AFP