Intensifying Global Efforts for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation

A/RES/71/168No PDF available

Who created this mandate?

A Resolution of the General Assembly, under agenda item 27Advancement of women, published in 2017.

What other versions does this mandate have?

5 versions · 2017–2024

This is an older version — the most recent is A/RES/79/153

2024A/RES/79/153Intensifying global efforts for the elimination of female genital mutilationLatestCompare with previous version
2022A/RES/77/195Intensifying global efforts for the elimination of female genital mutilationCompare with previous version
2020A/RES/75/160Intensifying global efforts for the elimination of female genital mutilationCompare with previous version
2019A/RES/73/149Intensifying global efforts for the elimination of female genital mutilationCompare with previous version
2017A/RES/71/168Intensifying global efforts for the elimination 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?

6 topics

Female Genital Mutilation Health Education Reproductive Health Women's Education Women's Health Women's Rights

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

1 report of the Secretary-General submitted under this mandate, 2018.

2018A/73/266Intensifying global efforts for the elimination of female genital mutilation report of the Secretary-General

Identified automatically from the metadata in each report’s UN Digital Library catalogue record.

What does this mandate say?

26 operative paragraphs

Stresses that the empowerment of women and girls is key to breaking the cycle of discrimination and violence and for the promotion and protection of human rights, including the right to the highest attainable standard of mental and physical health, including sexual and reproductive health, and calls upon States parties to fulfil their obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child7 and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,8 as well as their commitments to implement the Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women, the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development,12 the Beijing Platform for Action10 and the outcomes of the twenty-third special session of the General Assembly, entitled “Women 2000: gender equality, development and peace for the twenty-first century”,11 and of the special session of the General Assembly on children;

Calls upon States to place a stronger focus on the development and implementation of comprehensive prevention strategies, including the enhancement of educational campaigns, awareness-raising and formal, non-formal and informal education and training in order to promote the direct engagement of girls and boys, women and men and to ensure that all key actors, government officials, including law enforcement and judicial personnel, immigration officials and parliamentarians, health-care providers, civil society, the private sector, community and religious leaders, teachers, employers, media professionals and those directly working with girls, as well as parents, families and communities, work to eliminate attitudes and harmful practices, in particular all forms of female genital mutilation, that negatively affect women and girls;

Also calls upon States to strengthen advocacy and awareness-raising programmes, to mobilize girls and boys to take an active part in developing preventive and elimination programmes to address harmful practices, especially female genital mutilation, and to engage families, local community and religious leaders, educational institutions, the media and civil society and provide increased financial support to efforts at all levels to end discriminatory social norms and practices;

Urges States to condemn all harmful practices that affect women and girls, in particular female genital mutilation, whether committed within or outside a medical institution, and to take all necessary measures, especially through educational campaigns, including enacting and enforcing legislation, to prohibit female genital mutilation and to protect women and girls from this form of violence, and to hold perpetrators to account;

Also urges States to complement punitive measures with awareness-raising and educational activities designed to promote a process of consensus towards the elimination of female genital mutilation, and further urges States to protect and support women and girls who have been subjected to female genital mutilation and those at risk, including by developing social and psychological support services and care and appropriate remedies, and to take measures to improve their health, including sexual and reproductive health, in order to assist women and girls who are subjected to the practice;

Further urges States to promote gender-sensitive, empowering educational processes by reviewing and revising, as appropriate, school curricula, educational materials and teacher-training programmes and elaborating policies and programmes of zero tolerance for violence against girls, including female genital mutilation, placing special emphasis on education about the harmful effects of female genital mutilation, and to further integrate a comprehensive understanding of the causes and consequences of gender-based violence and discrimination against women and girls into education and training curricula at all levels;

Urges States to ensure that the protection and provision of support to women and girls subject to, or at risk of, female genital mutilation are an integral part of policies and programmes that address the practice, and to provide women and girls with coordinated, specialized, accessible and quality multisectoral prevention and response, including education, as well as legal, psychological, health-care and social services, provided by qualified personnel, consistent with the guidelines of medical ethics;

Calls upon States to ensure that national action plans and strategies on the elimination of female genital mutilation are comprehensive and multidisciplinary in scope and that they include projected timelines for goals and incorporate clear targets and indicators for the effective monitoring, impact assessment and coordination of programmes among all relevant stakeholders and promote their participation, including the participation of affected groups, practising communities and non-governmental organizations, in the development, implementation and evaluation of such plans and strategies;

Urges States to take, within the general framework of integration policies and in consultation with affected communities, effective and specific targeted measures for refugee women and women migrants and their communities in order to protect girls from female genital mutilation, including when the practice occurs outside the country of residence;

Calls upon States to develop information and awareness-raising campaigns and programmes to systematically reach the general public, relevant professionals, families and communities, including through the media, featuring television and radio discussions about the harmful effect of female genital mutilation and the fact that this practice still exists, as well as about national and international levels of support for the elimination of female genital mutilation;

Urges States to pursue a comprehensive, culturally sensitive, systematic approach that incorporates a social perspective and is based on human rights and gender-equality principles in providing education and training to families, local community leaders and members of all professions relevant to the protection and empowerment of women and girls in order to increase awareness of and commitment to the elimination of female genital mutilation;

Also urges States to ensure the national implementation of international and regional commitments and obligations undertaken as States parties to various international instruments protecting the full enjoyment of all human rights and the fundamental freedoms of women and girls;

Calls upon States to develop policies and regulations to ensure the effective implementation of national legislative frameworks on eliminating discrimination and violence against women and girls, in particular female genital mutilation, and to put in place adequate accountability mechanisms at the national and local levels to monitor adherence to and implementation of those legislative frameworks;

Also calls upon States to develop unified methods and standards for the collection of data on all forms of discrimination and violence against women and girls, especially forms that are underdocumented, harmful practices such as female genital mutilation, to develop additional indicators to effectively measure progress in eliminating the practice and to reinforce the sharing of good practices relating to the prevention and elimination of the practice at the subregional, regional and global levels;

Urges States to allocate sufficient resources to the implementation of policies and programmes and legislative frameworks aimed at eliminating female genital mutilation;

Calls upon States to develop, support and implement comprehensive and integrated strategies for the prevention of female genital mutilation, including the training of social workers, medical personnel, community and religious leaders and relevant professionals, and to ensure that they provide competent, supportive services and care to women and girls who are at risk of or who have undergone female genital mutilation and encourage them to report to the appropriate authorities cases in which they believe women or girls are at risk;

Also calls upon States to support, as part of a comprehensive approach to eliminate female genital mutilation, programmes that engage local community practitioners of female genital mutilation in community-based initiatives for the elimination of the practice, including, where relevant, the identification by communities of alternative livelihoods for them;

Calls upon the international community, the relevant United Nations entities and civil society and international financial institutions to continue to actively support, through the allocation of increased financial resources and technical assistance, targeted comprehensive programmes that address the needs and priorities of women and girls at risk of or subjected to female genital mutilation;

Calls upon the international community to strongly support, including through increased financial support, a third phase of the Joint Programme on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: Accelerating Change of the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Children’s Fund, which will run until 2020, as well as national programmes focused on the elimination of female genital mutilation;

Stresses that some progress has been made in combating female genital mutilation in a number of countries using a common coordinated approach that promotes positive social change at the community, national, regional and international levels, and recalls the goal set out in the United Nations inter-agency statement that female genital mutilation is to be eliminated within a generation, with some of the main achievements being obtained by 2030, in line with the Sustainable Development Goals;

Encourages men and boys to take positive initiatives and to work in partnership with women and girls to combat violence and discriminatory practices against women and girls, in particular female genital mutilation, through networks, peer programmes, information campaigns and training programmes;

Calls upon States, the United Nations system, civil society and all stakeholders to continue to observe 6 February as the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation and to use the day to enhance awareness-raising campaigns and to take concrete actions against female genital mutilation;

Calls upon States to improve the collection and analysis of quantitative and qualitative data and, where appropriate, to collaborate with existing data collection systems, which are crucial for evidence-based legal and policy development, programme design and implementation and the monitoring of the elimination of female genital mutilation;

Acknowledges that intensifying efforts is urgently needed for the elimination of female genital mutilation, and in this regard also acknowledges the importance of giving the issue due consideration in the efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030;

Requests the Secretary-General to ensure that all relevant organizations and bodies of the United Nations system, in particular the United Nations Population Fund, the United Nations Children’s Fund, the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women), the World Health Organization, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the United Nations Development Programme and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, individually and collectively, take into account the protection and promotion of the rights of women and girls against female genital mutilation in their country programmes, as appropriate and in accordance with national priorities, in order to further strengthen their efforts in this regard;

Renews its request to the Secretary-General that he submit to the General Assembly, at its seventy-third session, an in-depth multidisciplinary report on the root causes of and factors contributing to the practice of female genital mutilation, its prevalence worldwide and its impact on women and girls, including evidence and data, analysis of progress made to date and action-oriented recommendations for eliminating this practice, on the basis of information provided by Member States, relevant actors of the United Nations system working on the issue and other relevant stakeholders.

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Who created this mandate?

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What subjects does this mandate have?

Which reports were submitted under this mandate?

What does this mandate say?

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