A bilingual community of practice building bridges between professionals from Africa and Europe aiming to put an end to Female Genital Mutilation
The Community of practice on Female Genital Mutilation (CoP FGM) is an international, bilingual (French/English) network, gathering professionals and activists working on female genital mutilation. The CoP FGM aims to put an end to FGM and promote women and girls’ well-being and human rights.
You work on Female Genital Mutilation? Join the community of practice and broaden your horizons!
The thematic discussions, launched every 2 months, encourage knowledge sharing and good practice between the CoP FGM’s members. The discussions are held in both English and in French on the CoP internal Google group. The member’s contributions are translated by the moderators so that everyone can understand.
As any other form of Gender-Based Violence, FGM is closely tied to power relations between men and women. It is a manifestation of gender inequality and as such it needs to be addressed.
This is why experts are stressing the need for programmes that aim to inform and sensitize communities about the negative impacts of FGM, and to eliminate the practice in the long run, to incorporate gender transformative approaches.
Media refers to different means of distributing and making information accessible to a larger group of persons and includes traditional media such as radio, tv and newspapers in addition to more recent tools such as blogs, vlogs and podcasts. Media tools can be produced by trained journalists but they can also be the fruit of the work of activists, professionals or other citizens.
This thematic discussion will explore different media used in FGM prevention and care for FGM survivors.
FGM is a complex issue deeply embedded in the societies where it is practiced. While criminalization of the practice is generally acknowledged as an important step in the global strategy towards abandonment of FGM, most experts would agree that anti-FGM laws alone cannot solve the problem.
This thematic discussion picks up where we ended when discussing this topic in the summer of 2019.
Where are we at two years later in terms of anti-FGM legislation?
On December 2, 2021, AIDOS, GAMS Belgium and the End FGM EU Network will host the online closing conference of the International Stakeholders Dialogue (ISD) on “Gender Transformative Approaches to Ending FGM”.
For the law to be effective, it has to be implemented by the government, be respected by the citizens, and applied by the judicial bodies. Cultural settings or attitudes towards the law can impede implementation of an anti-FGM law.
Eva Komba: ”In my country, Kenya, the anti-FGM legislation is central in the response to the challenge of FGM. The law was supported by the establishment of the Anti-Female Genital Mutilation Board which gathers a wide range of police powers”.
Doctors, sociologists, anthropologists, lawyers, scientifics, social workers, psychologists, project managers… Who are the members of the CoP FGM?
“The Community of Practice on Female Genital Mutilation” is part of the “Building Bridges between Africa and Europe to tackle FGM” project, supported by the “UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme on the Elimination of FGM”.
The project is coordinated by AIDOS in partnership with GAMS Belgium.
The views expressed on this website are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the UNFPA, UNICEF or any other agency or organization.
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