Ten years back at the United Nations General Assembly, all world leaders promised to eliminate harmful practice of female genital mutilation/ cutting (SDG-5 target 5.3) by 2030. But instead of declining, female genital mutilation/ cutting has instead increased by 15% over the past 8 years: from 200 million in 2016 to over 230 million in 2024.
More than 230 million girls and women alive today have undergone female genital mutilation/ cutting in 92 countries – mostly in Africa (144 million), the Middle East (6 million), and Asia (80 million) where it is practiced still.
Female genital mutilation/cutting is a violation of the human rights of girls and women. Without urgent, accelerated action, an additional 27 million girls are projected to undergo the procedure by 2030.
“We cannot meet SDGs when half the population is harmed, silenced or excluded. Development justice demands that policies centre women’s safety, agency, and bodily integrity. Female genital mutilation/ cutting is a human rights violation,” says Dr Huda Syyed, an Australia-based researcher, Founder of Sahara Sisters’ Collective and a key part of Asian Network to end female genital mutilation/ cutting (FGM/C).
The devil of patriarchy ferments such gruesome and shocking practices like female genital mutilation/ cutting. After all, patriarchy is all about wrongly ‘normalising’ male privileges, entitlements and rights (and pleasures) and ‘legitimising’ their denial to women and girls and other genders.
FGM/C is a gross human rights violation
According to the UN health agency – the World Health Organization (WHO), the practice of female genital mutilation/ cutting is recognised internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women.
Female genital mutilation/ cutting reflects deep-rooted gender inequality and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against girls and women. It is nearly always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children.
The practice also violates a person’s right to health, security, physical integrity and bodily autonomy; the right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment; and the right to life, in instances when the procedure results in death.
No gain but all to lose with FGM/C
Female genital mutilation/ cutting (FGM/C) comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. The practice has no health benefits for girls and women and can result in severe bleeding and problems urinating, and later cysts, menstrual difficulties, infections, as well as complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths.
WHO agrees that “female genital mutilation/ cutting has NO health benefits, and it harms girls and women in many ways. It involves removing and damaging healthy and normal female genital tissue, and it interferes with the natural functions of girls’ and women’s bodies.”
Fundamentally, ending female genital mutilation/ cutting is human rights imperative. But even if you take economic impact into account, there is an astronomical economic cost too: Treatment of its health complications is estimated to cost health systems US$ 1.4 billion per year, a number expected to rise unless urgent action is taken towards its abandonment.
With only 5 years left to deliver on SDGs, it is high time for accountability because instead of progressing towards elimination of female genital mutilation/ cutting by 2030, the rates have risen in recent years.
We cannot deliver on Agenda 2030 of Sustainable Development “where no one is left behind” unless we completely end harmful practices like female genital mutilation/ cutting. Gender equality and human rights are bedrocks for progressing towards SDGs.
