Putting a stop to female genital mutilation
February 6 is "International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation". Female circumcision and genital mutilation (FGM) still is a major problem, especially in Africa. But Flanders should also stay alert. These practices are a sign of a broader gender inequality, which heavily discriminated girls and young women. In communities where FGM occurs, young women have little or no access to education, self-development and health care.
UNFPA, the UN Population Agency, and UNICEF focus on 17 African countries with a comprehensive programme to end FGM. Mozambique, one of the Flemish partner-countries for development cooperation, is not one of them. However this does not mean that these practices in the country are completely absent. What is clear, is the need to raise attention and awareness for the improvement of sexual and reproductive health and rights of girls and young women in Mozambique. In small rural communities child marriages and teenage pregnancies are part of day-to-day life. Pregnancy and labour can more easily lead to serious chronic conditions such as fistulas in young, physically immature girls, while even also being a major cause of the high number of deaths among these girls and their newborns.
The new cooperation agreement between Flanders and Mozambique – ready to be signed by both partner-Governments – increased its focus on sexual and reproductive health and rights, this time particularly of adolescent girls.
The Government of Flanders also continues to support HRP, Special Programme hosted by the World Health Organization that is specifically dedicated to research into the area of sexual and reproductive health and rights and that is also monitoring FGM on a global scale. To this day, sexual and reproductive health is strongly related to the basic rights for women worldwide: bodily autonomy, right to (self)-development and access to education to name a few. With the rapid spread of the Zika virus, these rights get under pressure also in the Western world. Once the already strong suppositions that Zika not only is spread by mosquitoes but also through sexual contact will be scientifically proven , strong measures will be necessary at a global scale. Will women’s rights be taken into account? Can and may women decide to get pregnant or not? Can they decide to end their pregnancy and do they have access to safe abortion? Is there enough information on the nature of the disease, its modes of transmission and the real risks, on contraception and fertility etc? HRP will have to make a fundamental contribution to answer all of these questions based on new scientific insights from a medical but also from a social and psychological perspective.
United Nations Population Fund