Zero tolerance.

That’s what the United Nations, health professionals, and those who advocate for women and girls say is necessary to end female genital mutilation (FGM), a practice that still plagues millions of women and girls around the world, reflecting deep-rooted inequality between sexes and extreme discrimination against women and children.

“In every country, whether legal or not, medical providers who perform FGM are violating the fundamental rights of girls and women.”
—Joint statement from UNFPA, UNICEF, International Confederation of Midwives, International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics

Friday marks the UN’s International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, following what the Guardian describes as “12 months of historic change and growing awareness of the practice.” 

The focus of this year’s commemoration is on the troubling ‘medicalization’ of FGM, a trend in which healthcare providers engage in the practice, in turn lending their tacit approval. Around one in five girls have been cut by a trained health-care provider, they say, with that number going as high as three in four girls in some countries.

In a statement, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on health workers around the world to eliminate what he called a “deeply harmful” practice, which is concentrated in about 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East. The UN claims FGM is a violation of both children’s and women’s rights to health, security, freedom from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and the right to life when the procedure results in death.

“If everyone mobilized—women, men and young people—it is possible, in this generation, to end a practice that currently affects some 130 million girls and women in 29 countries where we have data,” said the Secretary-General. “I call for all people to end FGM and create the future we want where every girl can grow up free of violence and discrimination, with full dignity, human rights and equality.”

According to the UN, the practice has no medical benefits, yet harms girls and women in many ways. It involves removing and damaging healthy and normal female genital tissue, and interferes with the natural functions of girls’ and women’s bodies.

Immediate complications can include severe pain and bleeding, shock, infection, and injury to nearby genital tissue. Long-term consequences can include recurrent bladder and urinary tract infections, cysts, infertility, an increased risk of childbirth complications and newborn deaths, and the need for later surgeries.

“Health workers… have a deep understanding of the harmful consequences of this practice,” read a joint statement from the UN Population Fund, UNICEF, the International Confederation of Midwives, and the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics, which came together on Friday to issue a call to action for health workers around the world to mobilize against FGM. “And, they also witness the emotional wounds FGM inflicts, trauma which often lasts a lifetime.”