Liberia: Lawless Liberia - Legal Failure Renews International Calls for Female Genital Cut Law

Liberia: Lawless Liberia - Legal Failure Renews International Calls for Female Genital Cut Law
Tecee Boley, Front Page Africa , 03 Jun 2013

 The case of Ruth Berry Peal has prompted renewed calls from anti-FGC activists for the Liberian government to join that 24 other African countries that have passed laws that specifically make female genital cutting illegal. No such law exists in Liberia at present, prompting lawyers acting on behalf of clients like Berry Peal to pursue other charges such as kidnapping and felonious restraint. Lawyers say such charges may not be as clear-cut for the court system and may not attract a jail sentence that is appropriate for the crime. In June 2011 then Internal Affairs Minister Nelson Blamo promised FGC opponents that he would work with the Ministry of Justice to draft a law banning FGC. In November 2011 the government took steps towards ending FGC by persuading Sande leaders to stop the practice. President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf attended a ceremony to mark the event. The Ministry then issued a notice to all countries directing that all Sande activities by shut down and promising that violators would be held liable. Some members of Sande have promised to defy that dictate and numerous incidences of cutting have been reported. To date there has been no more action to introduce a law banning FGC. (...) The international community has made a strong push against the practice, also known as female genital mutilation or FGM, in recent years, because of the health effects on women who have undergone it. In December 2012, the UN General Assembly passed an Africa-led resolution calling for a global ban on female genital cutting. That represented the first time that the General Assembly agreed to include the elimination of FGC on its agenda. Its adoption represented the culmination of years of advocacy work by the Ban FGM Campaign, an international coalition of human rights groups led by No Peace Without Justice, and including the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices, Equality Now, Euronet-FGM, La Palabre, and Manifesto 99.

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