FGC is an abuse of human rights, women’s rights and child rights and is universally recognised as such. In particular, it violates treaty provisions in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Banjul Charter), the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
Many organisations have worked for years to end FGC. The aim of the Orchid Project is not to duplicate this work, but to use it to raise further awareness and ensure that local voices are empowered to allow change to happen at the community level.
It’s also vital that this issue is not left in the margins, but taken into the mainstream, so that the social, community, economic and health impacts are more widely known.
Why now?
Because female genital cutting is a human rights violation that can end.
Because the world’s agencies, such as the United Nations have stated that their wish is to end FGC “within the next generation.” Unfortunately, there is no end date nor timescale for a generation.
Because we now know what works. Projects that use a community-led approach and human rights education model are growing, and a huge shift is sweeping West Africa.
Orchid will work towards achieving a significant reduction in FGC around the world by 2025, and ultimately, towards ensuring no future generations of girls will be cut. There is a unique, historic opportunity to enable this to happen, but only if we act now.
We could be the last generation to witness and experience FGC.
Early interventions were based on health consequences alone, which has led to some countries medicalising the issue. However, medicalisation of FGC does not does not eliminate the physical and psychological complications of FGC and creates an implied approval of the practice.
In our view, medicalisation of FGC should not be considered to be a legitimate alternative to ending it.
