Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation

A/HRC/RES/50/16View PDF

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the Human Rights Council, under agenda item 3Promotion and protection of all human rights, civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights, including the right to development, published in 2022.

What other versions does this mandate have?

5 versions · 2016–2025

This is an older version — the most recent is A/HRC/RES/59/16

2025A/HRC/RES/59/16Elimination of female genital mutilationLatestCompare with previous version
2022A/HRC/RES/50/16Elimination of female genital mutilationCompare with previous version
2020A/HRC/RES/44/16Elimination of female genital mutilationCompare with previous version
2018A/HRC/RES/38/6Elimination of female genital mutilationCompare with previous version
2016A/HRC/RES/32/21Elimination of female genital mutilation

Versions are identified automatically by matching titles within the same organ (~97% accuracy on a manual audit).

What subjects does this mandate have?

8 topics

Crime Prevention Female Genital Mutilation Gender Discrimination Gender-Based Violence Harmful Traditional Practices International Cooperation Regional Cooperation Women's Rights

What does this mandate say?

35 operative paragraphs

Condemns all forms of violence and harmful practices that affect women and girls, in particular female genital mutilation, and urges States to take all necessary measures in accordance with their obligations under applicable international human rights law, including legislative and policy measures, to prohibit female genital mutilation and to protect women and girls, including women and girls from cross-border and other affected communities, from this form of violence;

Urges States to respect, protect and fulfil the human rights of all women and girls, and to adopt and expedite the implementation of laws, policies and programmes that protect and enable the enjoyment by them of all human rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, including but not limited to sexual and reproductive health;

Calls upon States to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance against women and girls, and not perpetuate structural racism in addressing cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation by applying pervasive racial, ethnic or religious stereotypes, prejudice or bias in law enforcement, particularly at borders;

Urges States to adopt and enforce regional and national legislation prohibiting female genital mutilation, in accordance with States’ obligations under applicable international human rights law, to ensure its strict application, and to effectively combat cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation, including by:

Enacting and, as appropriate, harmonizing national laws on relevant matters such as the nature and seriousness of the offence, types of perpetrators, penalties, and assistance and support aimed at restitution, rehabilitation, compensation and satisfaction, guarantees of non-repetition, and other social protection measures, including through the development of regional model laws, using a victim- and survivor-centred approach;

Incorporating in national laws legal clauses allowing the possibility to prosecute national citizens and residents for facilitating cross-border female genital mutilation, including the act of taking a woman or girl to another country in order to have female genital mutilation performed on her;

Developing, as relevant, strong regional and national coordination mechanisms to monitor and evaluate the enforcement of laws in relation to cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation, in partnership with cross-border and other affected communities;

Strengthening transnational police and judicial cooperation in the exchange of information on victims and perpetrators of female genital mutilation, and organizations and persons who facilitate the movement of women and girls across national borders for the purpose of having female genital mutilation performed on them;

Also urges States to ensure the protection of, and provision of support to, women and girls subjected to or at risk of female genital mutilation, including cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation, and to address the underlying systemic and structural causes in which this harmful practice is rooted by establishing regional, national and multisectoral prevention and response strategies that respond to the needs of women and girls, including supportive legislation and policies, programmes and budgetary measures based on integrated, coordinated and collective approaches combining political commitment, civil society engagement and accountability at the regional, national, local and community levels;

Encourages States to put in place regional cooperation and coordination mechanisms to prevent and eliminate cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation and to ensure their sustainability and effectiveness by providing them with adequate financial resources and capacities so that they can oversee the implementation of comprehensive and multisectoral regional, national and subnational plans, strategies, policies and programmes, with the active engagement and participation of relevant actors, including international organizations, regional and international networks of parliamentarians, national human rights institutions, professional associations, including of health-care providers, civil society organizations, including human rights groups, women human rights organizations, and youth-led organizations, as well as traditional and religious leaders and faith-based organizations, men and boys, parents, legal guardians and family members, victims and survivors;

Also encourages States to integrate the prevention of and response to female genital mutilation into national development plans and poverty reduction strategies through the active participation of all relevant ministries, parliamentarians, the judiciary, national human rights institutions, civil society organizations and other relevant stakeholders;

Calls upon States to take comprehensive, multisectoral and international and regional cooperation measures, in partnership with cross-border and other affected communities, to prevent and eliminate cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation by:

Addressing the root causes of gender inequality, including negative gender stereotypes and social norms, attitudes and behaviours, the socioeconomic drivers of violence and unequal power relations in which women and girls are viewed as subordinate to men and boys, which perpetuate female genital mutilation, by developing and implementing, inter alia, awareness-raising programmes that provide accurate information about the negative impact of female genital mutilation on women and girls and society at large, and by creating bridges for dialogue between cross-border and other affected communities with their communities of origin;

Developing, supporting and promoting educational programmes on human rights, gender equality, health and life skills that challenge the stereotypes and harmful attitudes and practices that sustain female genital mutilation and perpetuate violence and discrimination against women and girls;

Mobilizing and raising the awareness of opinion makers, including politicians at the national and local levels, parliamentarians, religious, traditional and community leaders, civil society organizations, the media, journalists, bloggers and social media influencers on the harmful impact of female genital mutilation on the human rights and well-being of women and girls, including the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, on the special protection needs of women and girls from cross-border and other affected communities, including refugees and asylum seekers, and on the important role of parents, families, men and boys and religious and traditional leaders in championing the elimination of the practice;

Protecting and supporting women and girls from cross-border and other affected communities who have been subjected to female genital mutilation and those who are at risk, by developing interdisciplinary, accessible, sustained and coordinated legal, psychosocial, education and health-care services and by raising awareness about the practice of cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation to relevant professionals, including law enforcement and judicial officials, school teachers, social workers and health-care providers, while encouraging them to report cases in which they believe that women or girls are at risk of cross-border or transnational female genital mutilation;

Ensuring that universal health coverage includes the prevention and treatment of the health risks and complications associated with female genital mutilation, including through access at the primary health-care level to female genital mutilation-related protection and care services for women and girls affected by or at risk of female genital mutilation, including cross-border or transnational female genital mutilation;

Stopping the medicalization of female genital mutilation, which includes drafting and disseminating guidance and legal provisions for medical personnel and traditional birth attendants so that they are able to respond to social pressures in their interaction with cross-border and other affected communities and their communities of origin to perform medicalized female genital mutilation;

Ensuring a more holistic and coordinated approach to the humanitarian-development nexus by integrating the prevention of and response to female genital mutilation into humanitarian preparedness and response plans, including in the continuum of essential services for gender-based violence in emergencies, with particular attention to the protection needs of refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and internally displaced women and girls living in cross-border communities;

Urges States to take measures to develop and strengthen regional and national accountability systems in the context of comprehensive and multisectoral cooperation strategies, policies, plans and budgets to prevent and eliminate cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation, including by:

Holding all relevant duty bearers, such as health-care providers, teachers, religious leaders, traditional authorities, politicians and law enforcement officials, accountable for not complying with or upholding laws and regulations relating to female genital mutilation, in order to prevent and respond in an age- and gender-sensitive manner, to end impunity and to avoid the perpetuation of the practice;

Ensuring timely and effective legal remedies for women and girls at risk of or affected by female genital mutilation, including cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation, including by informing women and girls about their legal rights, removing all barriers to access to legal assistance and remedies, including linguistic barriers, providing gender- and age-sensitive training for law enforcement officials and other relevant authorities, and ensuring that justice processes take into account, as appropriate, the best interests of the child as a primary consideration and the right to privacy at all stages of proceedings;

Ensuring that judicial and administrative protection measures to prevent cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation are used as a last resort and are consistent with the principles of non-discrimination, physical and psychological integrity and the best interests of the child, and properly informed by ex-ante risk assessments conducted by judicial or government officials in consultation with women and girls at risk of female genital mutilation, their families and relevant community members;

Establishing or strengthening mechanisms to enable safe reporting of cross-border and transnational cases that are likely or have occurred, and to provide referrals to needed services and accurate gender-sensitive and age-appropriate information about female genital mutilation;

Taking, within the general framework of integration policies and in consultation with affected communities, women and girls, young people, parents, legal guardians and family members, effective and specific targeted measures for refugee and migrant women and girls, their families and their communities to protect women and girls everywhere from female genital mutilation, including when the practice occurs outside the country of residence;

Assisting regional and national professional associations and trade unions of health-care service providers in adopting declarations, protocols, codes of ethics and internal disciplinary rules prohibiting their members from engaging in cross-border or transnational female genital mutilation;

Ensuring that regional and national strategies and coordination mechanisms to prevent and eliminate female genital mutilation, including cross-border and transnational practices, include transparent forms of monitoring, review and oversight of strategies, policies, programmes and budgets in partnership with cross-border and other affected communities and women and girls at risk of or affected by female genital mutilation in order to improve the quality and responsiveness of prevention and response services;

Developing the capacity of national human rights institutions to monitor progress in the elimination of cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation and to investigate human rights violations or abuses by promoting cooperation and joint investigations between national human rights institutions from neighbouring countries and supporting global and regional networks of national human rights institutions to promote South-South and North-South cooperation by exchanging of information on regional trends, monitoring frameworks and methodologies and other good practices;

Strengthening and systematizing the collection of data on cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation disaggregated by, inter alia, age, nationality, geographical location and ethnic, migrant, refugee and migration status, encouraging research, particularly at the university level, transparency, accountability and data-sharing by relevant stakeholders and between countries and cross-border and other affected communities, consistent with privacy and data protection concerns, using the results of research to strengthen international and regional cooperation, policy formulation, public information and awareness-raising activities, and measuring their effectiveness in preventing and eliminating cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation;

Developing and maintaining regional and national information management systems to allow relevant government entities, including law enforcement and judicial officials, health-care providers and social workers to share among themselves and with their respective regional peers information on trends, challenges and factors that affect cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation, and on the status of implementation of concrete initiatives and activities addressing those trends and challenges;

Promoting within cross-border and other affected communities and their communities of origin the free, active, informed and meaningful participation of civil society organizations and of women and girls at risk of or affected by female genital mutilation in social accountability mechanisms to monitor regional and national policies, programmes and budgets, as well as local services designed to prevent and eliminate female genital mutilation, and the effective implementation of public declarations of abandonment;

Taking all necessary and appropriate measures to enable the equal participation of affected girls and of youth-led organizations in regional intergovernmental cooperation and coordination mechanism to end cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation, including, but not limited to, by providing youth-friendly information on regional, national and local participation processes, making available financial resources to cover the costs related to their participation, and ensuring that their participation is not instrumentalized or deemed irrelevant by dominant entities within participatory processes;

Calls upon all States to increase their development cooperation efforts – technical and financial assistance, and South-South and triangular cooperation – in consultation with United Nations bodies, other specialized agencies and other relevant stakeholders for the effective implementation of regional, national and subnational comprehensive and multisectoral strategies, policies, programmes and action plans to prevent and eliminate cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation, and encourages States and development cooperation agencies to consider increasing their financial support for organizations and programmes that support women and girls affected by or at risk of female genital mutilation, including the Joint Programme on the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation: Delivering the Global Promise to End Female Genital Mutilation by 2030 of the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Children’s Fund, and for other initiatives at the local, regional and international levels working on the elimination of cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation;

Requests the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, in consultation with States, United Nations agencies, regional organizations, national human rights institutions, human rights experts and civil society organizations, including women’s human rights organizations, youth-led organizations and representatives of cross-border and other affected communities, to prepare a report on human rights challenges and good practices in relation to international and regional cooperation and coordination efforts and the implementation of national and subnational laws, policies, programmes and other initiatives to address cross-border and transnational female genital mutilation, and to submit the report to the Human Rights Council at its fifty-sixth session;

Decides to continue its consideration of the question of female genital mutilation in accordance with its programme of work.

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