“For many years now, Italy has been in the front line in combating Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and has been taking this campaign forward within Italy too, with very advanced legislation”. This was part of the statement made by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Paolo Gentiloni, to mark the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation.
“FGM endangers women’s health and is the result of social and cultural conditioning on which we need to act through education and awareness-raising”, continued the Minister.
“The United Nations General Assembly adopted 2 historic resolutions on Female Gentile Mutilation in 2012 and 2014, by consensus. They define FGM as an irreparable, irreversible abuse that violates the human rights of women and girls. In both cases”, continued Gentiloni, “Italy played a decisive role in an action that involved civil society, the international organisations and the countries most severely affected”.
“We are very pleased that the countries where FGM is still practised themselves promoted the two Resolutions at the UN”, declared the Minister.
“We now need to continue our awareness-raising and training activities and initiatives against gender-based violence and discriminatory practices with a view to increasing the affected populations’ awareness of the injustice and danger of this practice”, continued Minister Gentiloni. He concluded that “today, Italy’s Permanent Missions to the United Nations in New York and Geneva will be jointly organising two awareness-raising events, along with a broad inter-regional group of countries and United Nations bodies and agencies most closely involved in the campaign against FGM”.
