High-Level Meeting “From Cairo to Ouagadougou: Towards a Global Ban of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)”

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, 9-10 November 2009


The Government of Burkina Faso, through the Ministry of Social Action and National Solidarity, and the international NGO No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ), with the support of the Italian Cooperation and in partnership with UNOPS, organised the High Level Meeting “From Cairo to Ouagadougou: Towards a Global Ban of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)” that took place in Ouagadougou on 9-10 November 2009.
 
The high-level meeting was held under the patronage of the First Lady of Burkina Faso, H.E. Mrs Chantal Compaoré, and attended by ministers, parliamentarians and civil society representatives from 13 West African countries concerned by the practice, as well as Djibouti, Uganda, and Egypt. Its scope was to take stock of the positive developments that have been achieved in many countries and to discuss the important next steps that need to be taken towards a global ban on FGM as a violation of the human rights of women and girls.
 
One year after the “Cairo Declaration on FGM +5” Conference of 14-15 December 2008, aimed at eliminating FGM "by outlawing it once and for all", this meeting provided a renewed opportunity for assessing the progresses achieved and the major challenges encountered during anti-FGM campaigns. Critically, it also reinforced the opportunities for strengthening and accelerating the global movement towards the prohibition of FGM as a violation of human rights.
 
The High-Level Meeting “From Cairo to Ouagadougou: Towards a Global Ban of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) concluded with the adoption by consensus of a Final Declaration stressing the need to foster a transnational political mobilisation for the elimination of FGM.

Among its main recommendations, the Final Declaration calls not only for the adoption of effective national legislation banning FGM in all countries where it is practised, but also to work towards their harmonisation so that their scope and the sanctions they foresee are analogous, in order to tackle the increasingly cross-border aspect of the practice. Addressing  FGM within the sub-regional and regional context, and not only at an isolated national level, is of fundamental importance.
 
 
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