unwomen.org – International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation
In a gender equal world, girls must have choices for their future
Statement by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Director of UN Women, on the occasion of International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation
The existence of the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) concentrates some of the most intractable problems we face in trying to change the future for the world’s girls. The cutting and sewing of a young child’s private parts so that she is substantially damaged for the rest of her life, has no sensation during sex except probably pain, and may well face further damage when she gives birth, is to many an obvious and horrifying violation of that child’s rights. It is a kind of control that lasts a lifetime. It makes a mockery of the idea of any part being truly private and underlines the institutionalized way in which decisions over her own body have been taken from that girl—one of some 200 million currently. Worse, it is quite likely that those children will not finish school, have limited formal employment prospects, may well be married to a much older man and become pregnant within a short space of reaching puberty.
