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ItalianoCampaigning for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights, Democracy, the Rule of Law and International Justice
NPWJ FGM Strategy
The 2012 No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ) Female Genital Mutilation Program focuses on a campaign for the adoption of a Resolution to explicitly ban female genital mutilation (FGM) by the United Nations General Assembly.
NPWJ is working in collaboration with parliamentarians and women’s rights activists from Africa, Europe and other affected countries, to ensure that they be afforded a real opportunity to contribute to the development of a Resolution text that has a strong political impact at the national level.
To this end, NPWJ is conducting activities to mobilize the most committed parliamentarians and activists in Africa to involve them in the campaign for the UNGA Resolution, and continues its engagement with national governments, parliaments and activists to promote the adoption and application of effective laws against FGM at the national level. Additionally, though collaboration directly with the missions of affected countries at the United Nations, as well as the relevant United Nations specialized agencies, NPWJ is working to generate wide political support for a Resolution that bans FGM.
Three main objectives guide the involvement of parliamentarians and activists in the Campaign: (a) to benefit from and foster their capacity to interact with their national authorities and directly with their delegations at the UN; (b) to obtain their input and support for the text of the Resolution, ensuring that it has a political profile and that it focuses on a ban of FGM; and (c) to ensure that the advocacy campaign be as inclusive as possible, so that upon the adoption of the Resolution, each of them can claim ownership of this key development in the fight against FGM at the international level, reinforcing their respective campaigns against FGM at the local level.
Program context
Within the frame of the campaign conducted over the last years, NPWJ has supported the political mobilization of African organizations and activists, including parliamentarians, towards the adoption of national laws prohibiting FGM. Clear and unambiguous national legislation is essential to consolidate a formal and explicit commitment of the State against FGM, by recognizing the practice as a massive and systemic violation of the human rights of women. Legislation can also provide the legal tools to legitimize and facilitate the work of anti-FGM activists and women’s rights groups and protect women and girls willing to challenge the social convention by refusing to undergo FGM, contributing to turning the tide of social conventions and to fighting those cultural norms that reinforce the practice.
Since 2000, NPWJ has organized conferences, seminars, and workshops, promoted public mobilization actions and conducted lobbying and advocacy actions in order to stimulate the political commitment of institutions, authorities, women’s rights activists and communities to promote the adoption of legal measures as positive and long-lasting tool of social progress.
The adoption and the entry into force of the African Union Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, which enshrines the obligation to adopt national legislation against FGM in article 5; the increasing commitment at the international level shown by affected States and by the international community and growing awareness within African civil society of the value of international instruments to create political openings at the local level all show the timeliness and need to bring the issue to the highest level, bringing all countries in an affirmation and recognition of the necessity to ban FGM. The moment is thus ripe for a campaign to promote a Resolution banning FGM by the United Nations General Assembly.
Activities
In cooperation with national partner organizations, NPWJ has over the years organized various parliamentary workshops, involving also representatives of the government, civil society and women’s rights activists, international NGOs present in the country and United Nations agencies committed to combat the practice.
Throughout 2010, NPWJ is conducting a campaign targeting Missions of countries affected by FGM and UN Specialized Agencies (particularly UNFPA, UNIFEM, UNICEF and UNDP), involving external interlocutors (women’s rights activists, NGOs, opinion leaders, etc) and sensitizing the international press, through ongoing advocacy and public events aimed at promoting support of the UNGA Resolution banning FGM by the largest number of States.
In March, work at the Commission on the Status of Women aimed at reinforcing the advocates working for a UN General Assembly Resolution banning FGM. In the second half of the year, advocacy activities focus on consolidating a strong consensus towards the Resolution.
On 3-4 February 2010, NPWJ and the Mauritanian Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (AMPSFE - IAC Mauritania), together with the Mauritanian Network of Parliamentarians on Population and Development, organized a parliamentary Workshop on “Female Genital Mutilation and the Law”, which was held at the National Assembly of the Islamic Republic of Mauritania. The workshop concluded with the adoption of a Final Declaration stressing the need to enact a specific and effective law banning Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) within a year in Mauritania and calling on the Mauritanian authorities to fully support the campaign for the adoption of a resolution by the General Assembly of the United Nations specifically focused on the banning of FGM.
On 3-4 May 2010, NPWJ, in collaboration with the Ministère de la Famille, de la Sécurité Alimentaire, de l’Entreprenariat Féminin, de la Micro Finance et de la Petite Enfance and the Senegalese NGO ‘La Palabre’, NPWJ organized an InterParliamentary Seminar in Dakar, Senegal. This event brought together parliamentarians who have been most active in the fight against FGM, as well as ministerial officials engaged in the fight and representatives of regional and sub-regional inter-governmental organizations, such as the African Union, the Pan-African Parliament, ECOWAS and IGAD and the most committed women’s rights activists.
The objective was twofold: to reinforce the informal network of reciprocal support aimed at promoting the coordination of actions and political strategies to adopt or reform national anti-FGM legislation; and to coordinate the campaign in support of a UNGA Resolution to ban FGM. In particular, the Conference provided the opportunity to establish coordination among parliamentarians and activists on the content priorities for the Resolution and on the strategies to ensure that Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Missions to the UN in New York take on the priorities that emerge from the Seminar.
The mission of NPWJ on the occasion of the African Union Summit in July 2010 confirmed what was already emerged from previous consultations with stakeholders in African countries affected by the practice, Consensus and support to the Resolution were shown by all States which have had talks and are setting up a leading group of countries willing to prepare and bring a text of resolution to the 65th UN General Assembly.
