Africa: Female Genital Mutilation and the Laws in Africa

analysis

In November 2019, Plan International and the African Child Policy forum launched a ground breaking report titled, ‘Getting Girls Equal: the African Report on Girls and the Law’. The report brought to the fore, seeming challenges faced by girls in the face of laws and legislations in Africa. This year marks 30 years since the African Union adopted the African Children’s Charter and I must admit that there have been significant improvements in the conditions of children however, the rights of girls and women are violated with no recourse to the law.

As I read through the chapters of the report recently, one issue caught my attention – Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting and then it occurred to me that, another February is here with us. The world marks 6th of February as the ‘International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation’ with the aim to amplify and direct the efforts on the elimination of this practice. It’s been 8 years since the Day was declared and we have seen countries especially in Africa, enact laws that ban the practice. Laws are good, certainly, however, what happens to their implementation? When can we refer to FGM in the ‘past’?

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