....A Historic Breakthrough
The traditional council of Liberia has brokered a historic accord that will lead to the elimination of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Bong County, one of the few counties where the practice is entrenched.
The accord, reached by the National Council of Chiefs and Elders of Liberia in partnership with the Ministry of Gender, Children & Social Protection and the Ministry of Internal Affairs, is in exchange for alternative livelihood skills to reduce economic dependency on the practice of FGM.
It was achieved with the approval and cooperation of the local practitioners of FGM, marking it as a pivotal moment in the country's fight against this traditional practice.
Liberia has long been making concerted efforts to eradicate the practice of FGM, which has deep-rooted cultural and social significance. However, it has failed until recently when UN Women and other international partners decided to provide economic skills to members of the traditional council as appeasement for them to end the practice.
The approach has been piloted in Montserrado, Grand Cape Mount, Lofa, and Nimba, where vocational and heritage centers have been established by UN Women, resulting in some degrees of success without any reported failures.
UN Women and its partners consider FGM, one of Liberia's oldest traditions, to cause physical and psychological harm to girls and women. For years, they have cited Liberia's signatories to international protocols and conventions on human rights, which warrant the complete abolition of FGM.
Comfort Lamptey, the UN Women Country Representative, during the banning ceremony, which involved traditional leaders conducting a ritual where all FGM practitioners turned over their tools, told Bong County traditional leaders that UN Women was committed to fulfilling its promise of providing alternative livelihood skills, which would lead to the ban being sustained.
Lamptey revealed that UN Women and partners have so far established vocational and heritage centers in Montserrado, Grand Cape Mount, Lofa, and Nimba, which have gone a long way in not only maintaining the ban but also providing livelihood skills.
"Those centers are serving as dedicated learning centers for traditional practitioners and young women and girls to acquire new livelihood skills," Lamptey said.
The sustained advocacy from UN Women and its partners for the ban of FGM in the hotbed counties comes after some small achievements in the past. It first began with the Ganta Declaration to suspend FGM for one year in 2019 and an additional two to three-year temporary ban. However, the latest commitments obtained from authorities of traditional leaders, who have struggled in the past to enforce temporary suspension, are the most emphatic so far, calling for a permanent, not a temporary, ban of FGM practice in Liberia.
Parleh Harris, the Deputy Minister for Administration at the Ministry of Gender, noted that the authorities of the traditional council have been instrumental in working with the Ministry to ensure that FGM is brought to an end for the well-being of the girls and women who are directly affected.
"Our cultural and traditional practices remain in place. We are only doing away with the harmful parts. My appeal to all of our zoes is that they should not disobey this ban. We should do the right thing," Harris noted.
Harris noted that the provision of "alternative livelihood" skills is the game-changer, which has brought about a unique consensus among traditional leaders to end the FGM practice once and for all.
Meanwhile, the Bong County head of the traditional leaders called on UN Women, the European Union, and all other international partners to ensure that the promise of alternative livelihoods is fulfilled so that people do not have the urge to go back to practicing FGM, whether in secret or openly.
The plea comes as Liberia remains one of the three West African countries that do not have a law criminalizing FGM despite having signed and ratified regional and international human rights instruments condemning the practice as a human rights violation, including the Maputo Protocol.
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In fact, there have been only a few cases that have gone through the justice system, covered under Section 242 of the Penal Code, which addresses malicious and unlawful injuries towards another person by cutting off or otherwise depriving him or her of any of the members of his body, finding a person guilty of a felony. This is punishable by up to five years in prison.
In July 2011, members of the politically influential Sande secret society who had kidnapped and forcibly subjected someone to FGM were sentenced to three years' imprisonment. However, they appealed the judgment and were released on bail. The appeal has been pending at the Supreme Court with no hearing date set, and the perpetrators remain free.
In March 2017, a 16-year-old named Zaye Doe died in the Tappita area in the Sande bush during forced mutilation. The traditional leaders (Zoes) subjected Zaye and 25 more girls to FGM despite the government ban on Sande Secret Society operations, including FGM.
According to the U.N. children's agency (UNICEF), half of Liberian women have been subjected to FGM, while four in 10 Liberians support the practice in communities where it is carried out.
