A report by Equality Now calls on governments, the international community, and donors to recognize female genital cutting as a global issue, requiring urgent global attention.
Fighting Female Genital Mutilation in Sierra Leone
Sierra Leone has one of the highest rates of female genital mutilation in Africa. According to UNICEF figures from 2017, the practice has been performed on an estimated 86% of women and girls in the country. Despite decades of campaigns, the traditional practice has hardly declined. This doesn't deter Rugiatu Turay, one of Sierra Leone's most well-known anti-FGM campaigners from fighting cutting. She founded the grassroots anti-FGM group the Amazonian Initiative Movement in 2002, is a former deputy minister of social welfare, gender and children's affairs and in 2020 won a German human rights prize, the Theodor Haecker award, for her work. FGM involves the partial or total removal of the female genital organs, such as the clitoris or labia. Besides severe bleeding, FGM can cause a variety of health issues from infections and cysts to infertility and complications in childbirth.
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Sierra Leone: Female Genital Mutilation - the Woman Fighting Sierra Leone's Ritual
DW, 3 January 2021
Sierra Leone has one of the highest rates of female genital mutilation in Africa. Despite decades of campaigns, the traditional practice has hardly declined. This doesn't deter… Read more »
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Sierra Leone: 'Global Response to FGM Prevalence Underestimated'
Concord, 16 March 2020
-Report Read more »
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Sierra Leone: Sierra Leone's Steps to End Female Genital Mutilation
This is Africa, 22 January 2020
United Nations Women reported that traditional cutters in Sierra Leone have pledged to abandon and advocate against FGM which is still not illegal in the country. This added… Read more »
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Sierra Leone: Sierra Leone Anti-FGM Activist Wins German Human Rights Prize
DW, 22 October 2020
Campaigner Rugiati Turay has won the Theodor Haecker human rights prize for fighting female genital mutilation in Sierra Leone. Read more »
InFocus
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Female genital mutilation affects far more countries than previously thought, a new study says. FGM is traditionally associated with a swathe of African countries, but the study hi Read more »
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Amid media reports of the continuing genital mutilation of girls in parts of Nigeria and Uganda, the heads of three United Nations agencies have marked the "International Day of ... Read more »
