PRESS CONFERENCE IN COMMEMORATION OF ZERO TOLERANCE TO FGM – 6TH FEBRUARY, 2012

It is our pleasure to invite you to this press conference which is being organized by the Ghanaian Association for Women’s Welfare in collaboration with the Ministry of Women and Children’s Affairs. Today is Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) day. This is an important day because it was instituted in 2003 by the Inter African Committee on Harmful Traditional Practices (IAC) calling for an end to FGM and to urge international organizations to take concrete measures to deal with this gruesome practice that women from Africa and other parts of the world are subjected to in the name of tradition or culture.

For the benefit of those who may not know FGM, it is necessary to state that it is the most dangerous and degrading surgical procedure that women and girls are made to endure in the name of tradition. The procedure involves the total or partial removal of the external female genital organs.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 130-140 million girls and women in the world have undergone FGM and approximately 3 million girls and women are at risk of being subjected to. The Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation day was adopted by 49 countries including Ghana and declared by the United Nations as a means to focus world attention to this dangerous practice. 2010 was set as the year to end FGM but that date was revised to 2015 in line with the Millennium Development Goals.

Last year, the 17th ordinary session of the Assembly of Heads of States and Governments held in Malabo Equatorial Guinea, supported a draft Resolution at the Sixty Sixth Ordinary Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations to ban Female Genital Mutilation worldwide. The Assembly recalled the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and People Rights on the Rights of Women in African adopted in Maputo which in its Article 5 requires State Parties to prohibit and condemn all forms of Female Genital Mutilation through legislative measures enforced by sanctions. The Assembly expressed deep concern at the continued practice of FGM in spite of numerous campaigns conducted over the last 30 years.

FGM is a violation of the several human rights including the rights to life, to physical integrity, to highest attainable standard of health and freedom from physical or mental violence. Therefore, the campaign against FGM is not to break tradition but to protect the innocent and helpless babies and girls.

Madam Moderator, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Press, we are concerned about the under reporting of FGM cases. The media has the power to help save girls from FGM and other cruel traditional practices. Without a doubt, the media reaches a wider segment of the population with powerful educational and advocacy activities, and is thus a very important feature of any eradication programme. Therefore it is our belief that involving the media in the campaign to eliminate FGM and all forms of traditional practices that are harmful to the health, wellbeing and the bodily integrity of women and girls is in the right direction.