9.2 African Initiatives
9.2.3 International Accords
Cottingham and Kismodi (2009:129) point out that regional human rights treaties such as the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the African Charter on Human and People‟s Rights and its Protocol on the Rights on Women in Africa have highlighted the countries‟ legal obligations to eliminate the practice.
They also secured constitutional and national human rights guarantees in that regard.
Another important marker of progress in the domain of outlawing female circumcision was the adoption of resolutions, specifically focusing on female
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circumcision, by the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, and the World Health Assembly which affirmed the rights of girls and women in general.
Caldwell et al (1997:1192) state that the United Nations Children‟s Fund (UNICEF) supports programs that promote education and awareness of female circumcisions, and efforts to end female circumcision in countries such as Gambia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia and Kenya. At the 1990 World Summit for Children the abolishment of female circumcision was one of the problems that were highlighted.
According to Elchalal et al (1997:107), WHO forwarded resolutions that were adopted by the countries of the world to work towards abandoning female circumcision in the plan of action at the Cairo International Conference on Population and Development. Thereafter, a bill to ban the practice was introduced in a New York state legislature in March 1994. WHO also encouraged world-wide research and requested support to abolish the practice. Similar recommendations were made by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists Committee as well as the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics and the Royal Colleges of Obstetrics and Gynaecology in the UK and Canada. All forms of medically unnecessary surgical modification of the female genitalia was condemned in 1995 by the Council on Scientific Affairs of the American Medical Association who recommended that US physicians join the WHO, the World Medical Association and the major healthcare organizations in their opposition to female circumcision.
Finke (2006:15) reports that the German Development Cooperation supportedgovernmental and non-governmental organisations since 1999 in various African countries through the regional project called “Promotion of inititaves to end Female Genital Mutilation”. It currently advises Technical Cooperation (TC) projects
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on integrating measures against the practice of female circumcision in Ethiopia, Benin, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Mauritania and Senegal. The project provides both technical and methodological advisory services, strenghtens local capacities, sets up networks among the various stakeholders and promotes knowledge management on female circumcision both on site and internationally. However, Finke (2006:17) mentions that the German Development Cooperation, in their endeavour to address female circumcision, soon came to realize they had to take cognisance of the following:
• Female circumcision may not be viewed as a medical problem by those concerned. Due to the extent of the social pressure, information about health consequences has yet to convince people to abandon the practice.
• Female circumcision is not just a „women‟s problem‟, but is rooted in society as a whole.
• Female circumcision contributes to premature school drop-out rates of girls, due to their facing health problems, pain and trauma from the operation.
• School-age girls who have been circumcised are considered eligible for marriage. This impacts on their schooling, as they may lose interest in schooling as they and their families may not see the relevance of school to their new roles as wives and mothers.
• School-drop-out rates may also be due to parents no longer being willing or able to pay for their daughters‟ education, particularly after they have sponsored an expensive female circumcision ceremony.
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• Circumcised girls are at a greater risk of contracting HIV, as the operation is often done under unhygienic conditions.
• Health workers may contribute to the continuation of female circumcision by performing the excision themselves.
• Successful prevention needs to be undertaken at all socio-political levels. In terms of broad impact, national plans of action are considered to be the most promising.
Toubia and Sharief (2003:252) mention that the first 10-15 years of internationally funded anti-female circumcision programmes was dominated by an approach that emphasised the health risks of the practices guided by the belief that that approach was least sensitive and most acceptable. At the same time, the Women‟s decade (1980-1990) succeeded in bringing attention to issues of gender inequities and their effects on women‟s health. By the 1990s the concept of women‟s rights as human rights was introduced, and gender-based violence was accepted as a violation of human rights, as highlighted in the 1993 World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna. Thereafter approaches began to evolve – they began to emphasise women‟s and children‟s rights, giving attention and voice to those circumcised rather than social authorities. Other approaches focussed on targeting women‟s social and economic development, which led to a degree of awareness and empowerment that caused some to question the practice, even in cases where direct inputs did not include mention of female circumcision. However, despite these various attempts, efforts thus far have not been very fruitful.
Nevertheless, there are on-going efforts to end the practice. For example, Gollaher (2000:194) reports that at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1995, the practice of female circumcision was denounced and governments were urged to prohibit and stop the practice. In the following year at
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the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing, the practice was cited as a danger to women‟s reproductive well-being and violation of their rights.