International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation 2020: History, Significance, Theme

The International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation is a United Nations (UN) campaign held on February 6 to stop genital mutilation to girls and ladies and to raise awareness and educate individuals about the threats of female genital mutilation (FGM) and to take solid activities against it. The theme for 2020 is “Unleashing Youth Power: One decade of accelerating actions for zero female genital mutilation.”

International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation is a United Nations-supported annual awareness day that happens on February 6 as part of the UN’s efforts to eradicate female genital mutilation. It was first presented in 2003.

What is Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)?

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is defined by WHO (World Health Organization) and the UN offices as “the partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or another injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons”.

Female genital mutilation is likewise once in a while known as circumcision wherein the external female genitalia is evacuated mostly or totally or another injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. Principally, it is done between infancy and the age of 15. Grown-up ladies may likewise experience the methodology.

FGM is performed essentially in Africa, especially in North-Eastern, Eastern and Western Africa. It additionally happens in the Middle East, in South-East Asia and among immigrants in Europe.

International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation Significance

Around 120 to 140 million women have been subject to FGM and 3 million girls are in danger every year, as indicated by the World Health Organization (WHO). It is a push to make the world aware of FGM and to promote its destruction. The World Health Organization has said that “Though the practice has persisted for over a thousand years, programmatic evidence suggests that FGM/C can end in one generation.”

FGM identifies with all techniques that include partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or another injury to the female genital organs for non-medicinal reasons. This practice is the maltreatment of human rights and causes genuine health complications, including deadly bleeding.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is globally perceived as a human rights infringement. UNFPA, mutually with UNICEF, leads the biggest global program to quicken the elimination of FGM.

In 2012, the UN General Assembly assigned 6 February as the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation. This day is seen to improve awareness of the issue and to encourage solid activities against the practice.

To mark the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, UNFPA is organizing an exhibition that reveals insight into a harmful practice that is as yet prevalent in numerous parts of the world. The occasion will happen at the UN Headquarters.

This day spread awareness about Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) which is a violation of the human rights of girls and women. Most likely, it reflects inequality between the genders and accounts for a type of discrimination against ladies. Let us reveal to you that for the most part it is done on minors. It does not just violate an individual’s rights to health, security, physical integrity yet, also, merciless, inhuman, right to life when strategies result in death.

Why does female genital mutilation occur?

Contrary to what many may think, this cruel custom has no religious origin. A large portion of the issue is connected to the absence of education and to the refusal of abandoning habits that are viewed as normal, if not key, for community life. In reality, mutilation represents a symbolic – and material – type of the definitive transition from childhood to adulthood – in this way, to marriage – along these lines preferring community cohesion.

“If we allow girls to go to school, the phenomenon will be wiped out in just a few years. But if they’re going to be illiterate, who is going to develop the community? Who is going to tell people that cutting girls is wrong?,” according to Lucy Yepe Itore, who has been saving Masai and Kenyan girls from mutilation and forced marriages for many years.

In any case, the phenomenon doesn’t influence just developing nations, however Western ones as well, where it is done by those families originating from places where FGM continues being viewed as a custom.

International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation History

One of the beliefs in help during the current day recognizes that culture is in “constant flux,” and with the worries begetting FGM being so high-hazard, the abrogation of such practices must be prompt. This is a movement for the rights of women and their bodies, as well as the protection of their physical health-which, which can be enormously influenced later in life. These efforts are to profit activities battling viciousness against women and girls as a whole.

Every Woman, Every Child (a global movement), reports that “Although primarily concentrated in 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East, FGM is a universal problem and is also practiced in some countries in Asia and Latin America. FGM continues to persist amongst immigrant populations living in Western Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand.” In the United States alone, the recent reports of what number of women and girls are influenced by FGM amazingly significantly increased in numbers in comparison to the past reports in 1990.

Against the act of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), WHO in 1997 gave a joint explanation together with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). From that point forward a few endeavors were made to counteract FGM.

The UN first formally recognized the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation on February 6, 2003. It keeps on battling against FGM through a range of activities in addition to the recognition.

The International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM is certainly not an open occasion, yet a day of worldwide perception. This day is a part of a combined exertion by the UN to meet one of its “Sustainable Development Goals, which the elimination of FGM is a key target under Goal 5.”

The recognition of FGM keeps on being practiced every year on February 6th and will be incredibly sought after by the UN and other social activism parties in endeavors to eliminate with FGM by the year 2030. Awareness has been ascending for FGM with a steady pursuit for activism. On Zero Tolerance Day, February 6, 2015, it was reported by Equality Now that “the White House, the Department of Justice, the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women’s Issues, and the USCIS all issued statements condemning FGM from being practiced.”

2020 International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation Theme

The theme for 2020 is “Unleashing Youth Power: One decade of accelerating actions for zero female genital mutilation.”

The fundamental point of the day is to end Female Genital Mutilation in one decade and it will require support from every quarter particularly youth. Thusly, the theme spotlights on activating youth around the eliminations of harmful practices, including female genital mutilation.

In 2012, the UN General Assembly assigned February 6th as the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, with the intent to enhance and direct the efforts on the elimination of this practice.

Ending female genital mutilation in one decade will require support from every quarter. With critical populace development, particularly among youth, investing in youngsters gets key. That is the reason this International Day will concentrate on preparing youth around the eliminations of hurtful practices, including female genital mutilation under the theme: “Unleashing Youth Power: One decade of accelerating actions for zero female genital mutilation.”

International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation Celebration

Different activities and occasions are held on February 6 every year to elevate the UN’s campaign to raise awareness and teach individuals about the perils of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Public conferences and forums regularly include FGM survivors who are welcome to share their encounters. Different activities incorporate photograph articles and round-table conversations on making strategies and laws to end FGM.

A campaign is organized on 6 February by the UNFPA to be specific “A Piece of Me” that praises three survivors of female genital mutilation (FGM) to raise awareness to end FGM.