The Somali government has reaffirmed its commitment to eradicate female genital mutilation in the country, where around 98% of females between 15 and 49 have undergone cutting.
The pledge was made at the first ever high-level forum on the issue in Somalia, which has the highest prevalence of FGM in the world. The practice has been unconstitutional in the country since 2012, but no bill has been passed to ban FGM outright, and open discussion about the issue has remained largely taboo until recently.
The country’s attorney general, Ahmed Ali Dahir, told the audience of religious leaders, politicians and women’s groups in Mogadishu: “We need to specifically fight FGM. We need an enabling law.”
Ifrah Ahmed, the Somali prime minister’s adviser on gender issues, was a key force behind Wednesday’s unprecedented gathering, which was supported by the African Union Mission in Somalia (Amison) and went ahead despite a suicide bombing near the original venue.
“The conference showed me how strong the ties are to practising FGM,” Ahmed told the Guardian, “but there is hope – government support and action are vital to begin the change we need to start moving away from the practice.”
Calls for a complete end to FGM were backed by the minister of religious affairs, Abdulkahdir Sheikh Ali Baghdad, who said it was a cultural practice that had no place in Islam.
“It is forbidden to cut … a girl because it is like any other part of the body. It is like the eye, tooth or the ears. If you abuse it, it is like you have abused any other part and I will not be ashamed to say it,” he said.
FGM is defined by the World Health Organisation as procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. More than 200 million girls and women alive today have been cut, mostly before they reached puberty. FGM has no health benefits and is recognised as a violation of the human rights of girls and women.
In west Africa, activists have condemned Liberia’s parliament for removing a ban on FGM from a new domestic violence law in a country. The legislation listed FGM as a criminal offence, along with threats and acts of physical and sexual violence, and emotional abuse, when first submitted last September. But opposition from several politicians in April led to the FGM provision being removed from the bill, which was passed into law last week, according to women’s rights campaigners.
