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Background Paper
Background Paper
provide effective financial assistance, impulse law trade, guarantee security, and
and keeping dialogue, the Arab League manages conflicts and issues in the common
region peacefully.
to ban Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) worldwide (A/RES/67/ 146). Its adoption by
violation of human rights which all countries should address through “all necessary
measures, including enacting and enforcing legislation to prohibit FGM and to protect
women and girls.” Since the Resolution was adopted, eliminating this practice has
achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls (United Nations, 2016).
Female Genital Mutilation affects over 200 million girls and women globally
with an estimated 30–70 million girls under the age of 15 at risk of FGM over the
next decade (Shell-Duncan et al., 2016; UNICEF, 2016). The practice is highly
concentrated in thirty countries in Africa, the Middle East, and South East Asia
(UNICEF, 2016).
The Arab League contains countries with some of the highest FGM adult
prevalence rates in the world. It contains six countries with prevalence rates of FGM
in females aged 15–49 of over 60%, which are classed by UNFPA as High Prevalence
Countries (see Table 1). These are Somalia (98%), Djibouti (93%), Egypt (87%),
Arab Charter of Human Rights, approved by the Arab Commission for Human Rights
of the League of Arab States in 1994 and revised in 2000. This document, in its article
39, refers to the right to health and indicates that the States party adopting the
measures that are necessary to combat the practices traditional that control the health
of the person (United Nations Human Rights, 2021). In this sense, it is evident that
female genital mutilation harms a woman's health as it causes serious problems that
affect both their mental health and their physical health and have severe consequences
The Fourth Annual Report on Human Development in the Arab World of the
the vision referred. Among other issues, the inequality suffered by Arab women is
denounced, especially in the most intimate sphere, in the family and conjugal sphere
(UNDP, 2016). The fight against genital mutilation of women and girls is ultimately
part of the own struggle for the recognition of the equality of women; equality relative
https://www.unicef-irc.org/publications/402-changing-a-harmful-social-
convention-female-genital-mutilation-cutting-arabic-version.html
● UNICEF (2020). Genital Mutilation in the Middle East and North Africa.
Middle-East-North-Africa-brochure_2020.pdf
https://arab.org/directory/league-of-arab-states/
Retrieved from
https://www.undp.org/content/dam/rbas/report/AHDR%20Reports/AHDR%202016/
AHDR%20Final%202016/AHDR2016En.pdf
and empower all women and girls. Sustainable Development Knowledge Platform.
https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg5
United Nations Human Rights (2021). Arab Charter on Human Rights. Retrieved from
https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/RuleOfLaw/CompilationDemocracy/Pages/
ArabCharter.aspx