In Southern California, there are some special creatures that have adapted and thrived in an urban environment. Some advocates for conservation and the environment say a city may be the perfect man-made space for some endangered species. VOA’s Elizabeth Lee reports from Los Angeles.
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Kenyan health officials say unsafe abortions are common in the east African nation with nearly half a million in one recent year. 

Abortion is prohibited unless, in the opinion of a trained health professional, there is need for emergency treatment, or the life or health of the mother is in danger. 

Advocates for less restrictive policies argue that unsafe abortions contribute to a high level of maternal deaths.

One woman’s story

Meet Martha Hope, that’s not her real name. She was married with three children when she became pregnant again in 2010. The 33-year-old woman said her husband told her he was not ready to bring up another child in poverty. 

At six months, she visited a neighborhood clinic that was willing to provide an illegal abortion. The doctor mixed some concoctions for her to take.

Martha says she started bleeding and that she sat in a bucket full of cold water.

“I was sweating and losing strength, the fetus came out, but now the problem was that the placenta did not. I passed out,” she said.

Martha is now on medication for depression as a result of the trauma she experienced.

Thousands of unsafe abortions

A 2018 report indicated that nearly half a million unsafe abortions occurred in Kenya in 2012.

Josephine Kamau, a nurse at Provide International Hospital in Dandora, says back alley abortions are all too common.

“We get three to four cases in a month in our facility,” she said, “but remember, there are others who die at home, who may have no one to bring them to the facility. Maybe they opted not to tell anybody.”

Maternal health services

For the last 30 years, the Marie Stopes organization has provided a wide range of maternal health services including family planning, safe abortion and post-abortion care in Kenya.

The organization says seven women in Kenya die daily from unsafe abortions.

“There are multiple causes for this,” said Dana Tilson, the Marie Stopes’ Kenya country director, “including restrictions in the law for safe abortion including lack of information on where to get safe services. There are also particularly for young people, limited access to contraception, and when you have a situation where contraception is limited, there is a stigma around younger people getting pregnant and having sex before marriage.”

Last year, the Kenya Film Classification Board banned a Marie Stopes media campaign that sought to raise awareness about unsafe abortions. 

According to the board, the campaign encouraged teenagers to obtain the procedure. Marie Stopes was then temporarily banned from providing safe abortions in that country.

Adoption

Virginia Nehemiah of Crisis pregnancy, a faith-based, Christian organization in Kenya, says her group helps women make a different choice.

“The issue of choice only considers two choices: carry or abort,” she said. “There are other choices, but people don’t always talk about them. There is adoption. How many families are out there not getting babies and they want children…”

Tilson, of Marie Stopes, says women terminate pregnancies for various reasons.

“When they have an unwanted or an unintended pregnancy, they are often desperate and they do not know where to go, and no matter what, they are going to terminate that pregnancy; they will do anything to do that and often they will go to a backstreet abortionist and these quacks are very dangerous,” she said.

Loss of US funding

For decades, the U.S government has been a big donor for family planning services in Africa; however, the global gag rule that President Donald Trump signed when he took office in 2017 bans the U.S. from giving any money in development aid to any overseas organization that promotes or provides abortions. 

This has affected operations of NGOs such as Marie Stopes.

When the gag order was signed, Marie Stopes said it lost about $30 million for multiple countries where it had been receiving U.S. funding for family planning.

The World Health Organization estimates 25 million unsafe abortions take place globally each year with almost all in developing countries.
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F.A. Cole was 11 when her stepmother told her to dress up for a special occasion near her hometown of Freetown, Sierra Leone. 

 

It was, instead, a traumatic occasion, Cole recalls 34 years later. Her stepmother turned her over to a small group of women, who led her into a forest and bound and blindfolded her. Then someone put a razor blade to her genitals.  

 

“Two or four of the women held me down. They spread my legs open and pinned me down, and then the woman who was the cutter, she sat on my chest,” Cole recounts. “As she began to cut my clitoris, I began to fight and scream and wriggle under her, just looking for somebody to help me, somebody to come to my rescue.” 

 

No one came then. But the United Nations has been working to eradicate female genital mutilation. To raise awareness, the U.N. since 2003 has sponsored an International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM to raise awareness. The annual observance was on Wednesday.  

 

FGM is widespread in parts of Africa and also practiced here in the United States. The procedure has sparked a global clash between those who define it as a cultural tradition and those who say it’s a dangerous ritual that should end. 

 

Lingering questions 

 

Cole recalls days of excruciating pain and years of wondering why she was cut.  

 

“When I came to America and I started doing research, and I started talking about my story, that’s when I realized the damage — not just the sexual damage, but the psychological damage that was done,” says Cole, who now lives in Washington and campaigns to end FGM.   

The World Health Organization identifies three types of FGM most common in Africa. In type one, the clitoris is partially or totally removed. Type two goes further, including the labia. And type three involves removing the labia and stitching to narrow the vaginal opening. 

 

The cultural practice can have serious medical consequences. Physicians at major U.S. medical centers and teaching hospitals worry whether American doctors are equipped — medically and culturally — to treat women who have been circumcised.  

Dr. Ranit Mishori, a professor of family medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, recalls an experience in the second month of her residency. A woman from Djibouti, in East Africa, was in labor.  

 

“I was getting ready to do a pelvic examination, and I put my gloves on and suddenly I realize I can’t put my fingers in there because the whole area is closed off,” Mishori said of the patient’s vagina. “I had no idea what that meant. I called my senior physicians and they had no idea what was going on. The bottom line is a lot of doctors don’t know what to expect, don’t know how to handle these types of emergencies.” 

 

A call for communication and respect 

 

That experience inspired Mishori to teach other doctors about FGM, especially as they treat more immigrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.  

 

She stresses communication and cultural humility. 

 

“We can’t forget that some women are very proud [of being circumcised], because that ensures their marriageability and economic prospects,” Mishori says, adding that medical personnel must learn “to ask about it in a nonjudgmental way.” 

 

Respectful questioning, she says, is “more important than how to deal with the medical complications, even though they are there. In some women, the cutting has healed. There are no scars, maybe … but the long-term effects are here and here,” she adds, pointing first to her head, then her heart. 

 

Not everyone agrees the practice should be banned.  

Anthropologist Fuambai Ahmadu, who lives in Washington and also is from Sierra Leone, says she was circumcised, not mutilated. She was an adult when she chose to undergo the procedure — the most minimal type of circumcision. 

 

Ahmadu testified on behalf of Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, who was among eight people facing federal charges over the genital mutilations of nine girls from Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota. As the Associated Press reported, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman in November dismissed mutilation and conspiracy charges against the defendants, saying the 1996 law banning the practice was unconstitutional.       

 

A rite of passage 

 

Ahmadu says circumcision is a rite of passage into womanhood in Kono culture. She believes anti-FGM campaigners are putting African cultures under siege. 

 

“The grand narrative of mutilation is completely inappropriate,” says Ahmadu. “… It’s really important that FGM campaigners understand that the messages that they’re sounding out to women, they’re not working, they’re not effective,” she says. “What they’re doing is driving the practice underground.”  

 

She says some families are reacting to the pressure by bringing in their daughters for circumcision at younger ages — sometimes even as babies. She advocates that girls should have a choice in whether to undergo the procedure and that they should wait until at least age 16  to understand the cultural significance. 

 

“This is a coming-out ceremony, where they are celebrated and they are now women,” Ahmadu says. 

 

It was no celebration for Cole, who says her circumcision made her less desirable to men in Sierra Leone.  

 

“It was supposed to make me more marriageable, but I’m 45 and still single,” she says. “So what was that?” 

 

This report originated in VOA’s English to Africa service. 
…

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F.A. Cole was 11 when her stepmother told her to dress up for a special occasion near her hometown of Freetown, Sierra Leone. 

 

It was, instead, a traumatic occasion, Cole recalls 34 years later. Her stepmother turned her over to a small group of women, who led her into a forest and bound and blindfolded her. Then someone put a razor blade to her genitals.  

 

“Two or four of the women held me down. They spread my legs open and pinned me down, and then the woman who was the cutter, she sat on my chest,” Cole recounts. “As she began to cut my clitoris, I began to fight and scream and wriggle under her, just looking for somebody to help me, somebody to come to my rescue.” 

 

No one came then. But the United Nations has been working to eradicate female genital mutilation. To raise awareness, the U.N. since 2003 has sponsored an International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM to raise awareness. The annual observance was on Wednesday.  

 

FGM is widespread in parts of Africa and also practiced here in the United States. The procedure has sparked a global clash between those who define it as a cultural tradition and those who say it’s a dangerous ritual that should end. 

 

Lingering questions 

 

Cole recalls days of excruciating pain and years of wondering why she was cut.  

 

“When I came to America and I started doing research, and I started talking about my story, that’s when I realized the damage — not just the sexual damage, but the psychological damage that was done,” says Cole, who now lives in Washington and campaigns to end FGM.   

The World Health Organization identifies three types of FGM most common in Africa. In type one, the clitoris is partially or totally removed. Type two goes further, including the labia. And type three involves removing the labia and stitching to narrow the vaginal opening. 

 

The cultural practice can have serious medical consequences. Physicians at major U.S. medical centers and teaching hospitals worry whether American doctors are equipped — medically and culturally — to treat women who have been circumcised.  

Dr. Ranit Mishori, a professor of family medicine at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, recalls an experience in the second month of her residency. A woman from Djibouti, in East Africa, was in labor.  

 

“I was getting ready to do a pelvic examination, and I put my gloves on and suddenly I realize I can’t put my fingers in there because the whole area is closed off,” Mishori said of the patient’s vagina. “I had no idea what that meant. I called my senior physicians and they had no idea what was going on. The bottom line is a lot of doctors don’t know what to expect, don’t know how to handle these types of emergencies.” 

 

A call for communication and respect 

 

That experience inspired Mishori to teach other doctors about FGM, especially as they treat more immigrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.  

 

She stresses communication and cultural humility. 

 

“We can’t forget that some women are very proud [of being circumcised], because that ensures their marriageability and economic prospects,” Mishori says, adding that medical personnel must learn “to ask about it in a nonjudgmental way.” 

 

Respectful questioning, she says, is “more important than how to deal with the medical complications, even though they are there. In some women, the cutting has healed. There are no scars, maybe … but the long-term effects are here and here,” she adds, pointing first to her head, then her heart. 

 

Not everyone agrees the practice should be banned.  

Anthropologist Fuambai Ahmadu, who lives in Washington and also is from Sierra Leone, says she was circumcised, not mutilated. She was an adult when she chose to undergo the procedure — the most minimal type of circumcision. 

 

Ahmadu testified on behalf of Dr. Jumana Nagarwala, who was among eight people facing federal charges over the genital mutilations of nine girls from Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota. As the Associated Press reported, U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman in November dismissed mutilation and conspiracy charges against the defendants, saying the 1996 law banning the practice was unconstitutional.       

 

A rite of passage 

 

Ahmadu says circumcision is a rite of passage into womanhood in Kono culture. She believes anti-FGM campaigners are putting African cultures under siege. 

 

“The grand narrative of mutilation is completely inappropriate,” says Ahmadu. “… It’s really important that FGM campaigners understand that the messages that they’re sounding out to women, they’re not working, they’re not effective,” she says. “What they’re doing is driving the practice underground.”  

 

She says some families are reacting to the pressure by bringing in their daughters for circumcision at younger ages — sometimes even as babies. She advocates that girls should have a choice in whether to undergo the procedure and that they should wait until at least age 16  to understand the cultural significance. 

 

“This is a coming-out ceremony, where they are celebrated and they are now women,” Ahmadu says. 

 

It was no celebration for Cole, who says her circumcision made her less desirable to men in Sierra Leone.  

 

“It was supposed to make me more marriageable, but I’m 45 and still single,” she says. “So what was that?” 

 

This report originated in VOA’s English to Africa service. 
…

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The United Nations has declared Feb. 6 International Zero Tolerance Day for Female Genital Mutilation. 

Contrary to popular perception, female genital mutilation, or FGM, is relatively widespread in the United States as well. Indeed, according to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 500,000 women and girls have either undergone, or are at risk of undergoing the procedure. Most, but not all, are immigrants to the U.S. 

In November, a federal judge declared a 1996 federal law banning FGM unconstitutional. 

To find out more, VOA’s Adam Phillips spoke with Ghada Khan, coordinator of the U.S. End FGM/C Network. That’s an umbrella group of 26 grassroots American groups fighting to end the practice. 

Here is a transcript of the interview.

Phillips: What are the main ethnic or demographic groups that practice FGM in America today?

Khan: Female genital mutilation is something that cuts across socioeconomic status, different religions, different cultures and different areas.

There is no one set group that actually performs it. But the main underlying factor is control of female sexuality.

There is a lasting impact on women when they are physically harmed to control their sexuality, but also the messaging (is) that their sexuality is not something to be celebrated, and that there needs to be some control over their own bodies. 

Phillips: What does female genital mutilation actually involve for a woman, physically? 

Khan: In come cases, the entire outer and inner lips of the vagina are cut and the clitoris is also removed. And sometimes the entire outer lips of the vagina are sewn up to leave only a small hole for urination and menstruation. In some cultures, that hole is measured by the size of a corn kernel. You can imagine that sex after that type of procedure is done is extremely painful. 

Some cultures might just cut the top of the clitoris or the clitoral hood; even that can impact the woman’s sensation during sex. 

Phillips: But why would anyone want to limit the pleasure that women have during sex? How is that in anyone’s interest?

Khan: People want to control women and have them not be able to have sex except with their husbands. And also, controlling their experience during sex can also limit their desire for having extramarital relationships. But also (preventing women from) having pleasure during sex is in and of itself a form of control.

Phillips:  But it’s not just the sexual health of women that is affected, correct? It’s also their overall health, and even their mortality that can be at stake.

Khan: The plethora of adverse health outcomes that come with this are many. (They include) impacting women’s labor and delivery outcomes (and) ranging from infections to hemorrhaging, to even death. 

Phillips: Are there any other non-political, non-gender-based reasons for the practice?

Khan: There are cultures that think FGM is more hygienic, and that it keeps a woman clean. And in some cultures, it’s also seen as a way to increase fertility, when it fact it does not. These are all misconceptions and myths that come along with the practice. 

Phillips: I know in Africa at least, the rates of FGM have gone down enormously, thanks largely to activism that has gone on at the grassroots. 

Khan: We’re excited about that. It gives us hope that this can be stopped, and we thank them for their efforts. 

Phillips:  What was your reaction to the ruling in Detroit (Michigan) last November striking down the anti-FGM law?

Khan: At the U.S. End FGM/C Network, we were of course very disappointed in the judge’s decision to deem the federal statute against FGM unconstitutional.This law has been in place since 1996, and it’s been at the center of U.S. efforts, both nationally and internationally.

It really was a blow to all of us, but especially to survivors. However, we see some opportunities in that it raises awareness of the issue here.

We need to really unite on this to push for an appeal and to make sure that the evidence and the voices of survivors are amplified and are part of the main national conversation. 

This interview was edited for length and clarity.
…

your ads here!

The United Nations has declared Feb. 6 International Zero Tolerance Day for Female Genital Mutilation. 

Contrary to popular perception, female genital mutilation, or FGM, is relatively widespread in the United States as well. Indeed, according to a report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 500,000 women and girls have either undergone, or are at risk of undergoing the procedure. Most, but not all, are immigrants to the U.S. 

In November, a federal judge declared a 1996 federal law banning FGM unconstitutional. 

To find out more, VOA’s Adam Phillips spoke with Ghada Khan, coordinator of the U.S. End FGM/C Network. That’s an umbrella group of 26 grassroots American groups fighting to end the practice. 

Here is a transcript of the interview.

Phillips: What are the main ethnic or demographic groups that practice FGM in America today?

Khan: Female genital mutilation is something that cuts across socioeconomic status, different religions, different cultures and different areas.

There is no one set group that actually performs it. But the main underlying factor is control of female sexuality.

There is a lasting impact on women when they are physically harmed to control their sexuality, but also the messaging (is) that their sexuality is not something to be celebrated, and that there needs to be some control over their own bodies. 

Phillips: What does female genital mutilation actually involve for a woman, physically? 

Khan: In come cases, the entire outer and inner lips of the vagina are cut and the clitoris is also removed. And sometimes the entire outer lips of the vagina are sewn up to leave only a small hole for urination and menstruation. In some cultures, that hole is measured by the size of a corn kernel. You can imagine that sex after that type of procedure is done is extremely painful. 

Some cultures might just cut the top of the clitoris or the clitoral hood; even that can impact the woman’s sensation during sex. 

Phillips: But why would anyone want to limit the pleasure that women have during sex? How is that in anyone’s interest?

Khan: People want to control women and have them not be able to have sex except with their husbands. And also, controlling their experience during sex can also limit their desire for having extramarital relationships. But also (preventing women from) having pleasure during sex is in and of itself a form of control.

Phillips:  But it’s not just the sexual health of women that is affected, correct? It’s also their overall health, and even their mortality that can be at stake.

Khan: The plethora of adverse health outcomes that come with this are many. (They include) impacting women’s labor and delivery outcomes (and) ranging from infections to hemorrhaging, to even death. 

Phillips: Are there any other non-political, non-gender-based reasons for the practice?

Khan: There are cultures that think FGM is more hygienic, and that it keeps a woman clean. And in some cultures, it’s also seen as a way to increase fertility, when it fact it does not. These are all misconceptions and myths that come along with the practice. 

Phillips: I know in Africa at least, the rates of FGM have gone down enormously, thanks largely to activism that has gone on at the grassroots. 

Khan: We’re excited about that. It gives us hope that this can be stopped, and we thank them for their efforts. 

Phillips:  What was your reaction to the ruling in Detroit (Michigan) last November striking down the anti-FGM law?

Khan: At the U.S. End FGM/C Network, we were of course very disappointed in the judge’s decision to deem the federal statute against FGM unconstitutional.This law has been in place since 1996, and it’s been at the center of U.S. efforts, both nationally and internationally.

It really was a blow to all of us, but especially to survivors. However, we see some opportunities in that it raises awareness of the issue here.

We need to really unite on this to push for an appeal and to make sure that the evidence and the voices of survivors are amplified and are part of the main national conversation. 

This interview was edited for length and clarity.
…

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Last year was the fourth warmest on record and the outlook is for more sizzling heat approaching levels that most governments view as dangerous for the Earth, a U.N. report showed on Wednesday.

Weather extremes in 2018 included wildfires in California and Greece, drought in South Africa and floods in Kerala, India. Record levels of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, trap ever more heat.

Average global surface temperatures were 1.0 degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times in 2018, the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said, based on data from U.S., British, Japanese and European weather agencies.

“The long-term temperature trend is far more important than the ranking of individual years, and that trend is an upward one,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement. “The 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years.”

To combat warming, almost 200 governments adopted the Paris climate agreement in 2015 to phase out the use of fossil fuels and limit the rise in temperatures to 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial times while “pursuing efforts” for 1.5C (2.7F).

“The impacts of long-term global warming are already being felt – in coastal flooding, heat waves, intense precipitation and ecosystem change,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Last year, the United States alone suffered 14 weather and climate disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion each, led by hurricanes and wildfires, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.

NOAA and NASA contribute data to the WMO.

This year has also started with scorching temperatures, including Australia’s warmest January on record. Against the global trend, parts of the United States suffered bone-chilling cold from a blast of Arctic air last week.In WMO records dating back to the 19th century, 2016 was the hottest year, boosted by an El Nino weather event in the Pacific Ocean, ahead of 2015 and 2017 with 2018 in fourth.

The British Met Office, which also contributes data to the WMO, said temperatures could rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial times, for instance if a natural El Nino weather event adds a burst of heat.

“Over the next five years there is a one in 10 chance of one of those years breaking the (1.5C) threshold,” Professor Adam Scaife of the Met Office told Reuters of the agency’s medium-term forecasts.

“That is not saying the Paris Agreement is done for … but it’s a worrying sign,” he said. The United Nations defines the 1.5C Paris temperature target as a 30-year average, not a freak blip in a single year.

The United Nations says the world is now on track for a temperature rise of 3C or more by 2100. The Paris pact responded to a 1992 U.N. treaty under which all governments agreed to avert “dangerous” man-made climate change.

A U.N. report last year said the world is likely to breach 1.5C sometime between 2030 and 2052 on current trends, triggering ever more heat waves, powerful storms, droughts, mudslides, extinctions and rising sea levels.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has cast doubt on mainstream climate science and promotes the coal industry, plans to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. He did not mention climate change in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday.

Patrick Verkooijen, head of the Global Center on Adaptation in the Netherlands, told Reuters that the WMO report showed “climate change is not a distant phenomenon but is here right now.”

He called for more, greener investments, ranging from defenses against rising seas to drought-resistant crops.
…

your ads here!

Last year was the fourth warmest on record and the outlook is for more sizzling heat approaching levels that most governments view as dangerous for the Earth, a U.N. report showed on Wednesday.

Weather extremes in 2018 included wildfires in California and Greece, drought in South Africa and floods in Kerala, India. Record levels of man-made greenhouse gas emissions, mainly from burning fossil fuels, trap ever more heat.

Average global surface temperatures were 1.0 degree Celsius (1.8 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial times in 2018, the U.N.’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said, based on data from U.S., British, Japanese and European weather agencies.

“The long-term temperature trend is far more important than the ranking of individual years, and that trend is an upward one,” WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas said in a statement. “The 20 warmest years on record have been in the past 22 years.”

To combat warming, almost 200 governments adopted the Paris climate agreement in 2015 to phase out the use of fossil fuels and limit the rise in temperatures to 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial times while “pursuing efforts” for 1.5C (2.7F).

“The impacts of long-term global warming are already being felt – in coastal flooding, heat waves, intense precipitation and ecosystem change,” said Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

Last year, the United States alone suffered 14 weather and climate disasters with losses exceeding $1 billion each, led by hurricanes and wildfires, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said.

NOAA and NASA contribute data to the WMO.

This year has also started with scorching temperatures, including Australia’s warmest January on record. Against the global trend, parts of the United States suffered bone-chilling cold from a blast of Arctic air last week.In WMO records dating back to the 19th century, 2016 was the hottest year, boosted by an El Nino weather event in the Pacific Ocean, ahead of 2015 and 2017 with 2018 in fourth.

The British Met Office, which also contributes data to the WMO, said temperatures could rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial times, for instance if a natural El Nino weather event adds a burst of heat.

“Over the next five years there is a one in 10 chance of one of those years breaking the (1.5C) threshold,” Professor Adam Scaife of the Met Office told Reuters of the agency’s medium-term forecasts.

“That is not saying the Paris Agreement is done for … but it’s a worrying sign,” he said. The United Nations defines the 1.5C Paris temperature target as a 30-year average, not a freak blip in a single year.

The United Nations says the world is now on track for a temperature rise of 3C or more by 2100. The Paris pact responded to a 1992 U.N. treaty under which all governments agreed to avert “dangerous” man-made climate change.

A U.N. report last year said the world is likely to breach 1.5C sometime between 2030 and 2052 on current trends, triggering ever more heat waves, powerful storms, droughts, mudslides, extinctions and rising sea levels.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who has cast doubt on mainstream climate science and promotes the coal industry, plans to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement. He did not mention climate change in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday.

Patrick Verkooijen, head of the Global Center on Adaptation in the Netherlands, told Reuters that the WMO report showed “climate change is not a distant phenomenon but is here right now.”

He called for more, greener investments, ranging from defenses against rising seas to drought-resistant crops.
…

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Wednesday marks the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. Coinciding with the day, the United Nations is calling for action to eliminate the procedure by 2030.

The U.N. estimates at least 200 million girls and women alive today have been subjected to female genital mutilation, a procedure that partially or totally removes female genital organs. In addition, more than 3 million girls between infancy and age 15 are at risk of being subjected to the harmful practice every year.

While FGM mainly occurs in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, it is a global problem, with some migrant communities carrying on the traditional practice in Western countries. 

The World Health Organization says FGM has no medical justification and leads to long-term physical, psychological and social consequences. 

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic says awareness of the harmful effects of FGM is growing and progress is being made toward banning it in some communities. He tells VOA that given the rate of population growth in countries where FGM is prevalent, action must be accelerated to reduce the number of girls at risk of undergoing the procedure.

“There was an analysis that was done by our colleagues in UNFPA [United Nations Population Fund] estimating that if female genital mutilation continues to be practiced at current levels, 68 million more girls will be subjected to FGM by 2030,” Jasarevic said.

World leaders overwhelmingly backed the elimination of female genital mutilation by 2030 as one of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals. The U.N. considers it achievable if nations act now to translate that commitment into action. 

While public pledges by entire communities to abandon female genital mutilation may be effective in some ways, the U.N. says such pledges must be paired with comprehensive strategies for breaking down the cultural, traditional and religious behaviors that allow the practice to persist.
…

your ads here!

Wednesday marks the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. Coinciding with the day, the United Nations is calling for action to eliminate the procedure by 2030.

The U.N. estimates at least 200 million girls and women alive today have been subjected to female genital mutilation, a procedure that partially or totally removes female genital organs. In addition, more than 3 million girls between infancy and age 15 are at risk of being subjected to the harmful practice every year.

While FGM mainly occurs in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, it is a global problem, with some migrant communities carrying on the traditional practice in Western countries. 

The World Health Organization says FGM has no medical justification and leads to long-term physical, psychological and social consequences. 

WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic says awareness of the harmful effects of FGM is growing and progress is being made toward banning it in some communities. He tells VOA that given the rate of population growth in countries where FGM is prevalent, action must be accelerated to reduce the number of girls at risk of undergoing the procedure.

“There was an analysis that was done by our colleagues in UNFPA [United Nations Population Fund] estimating that if female genital mutilation continues to be practiced at current levels, 68 million more girls will be subjected to FGM by 2030,” Jasarevic said.

World leaders overwhelmingly backed the elimination of female genital mutilation by 2030 as one of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals. The U.N. considers it achievable if nations act now to translate that commitment into action. 

While public pledges by entire communities to abandon female genital mutilation may be effective in some ways, the U.N. says such pledges must be paired with comprehensive strategies for breaking down the cultural, traditional and religious behaviors that allow the practice to persist.
…

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