Help fight FGM
Donate to keep up the fight against female genital mutilation and your gift will be DOUBLED**
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Photo: Cawo, 23, says effects of FGM have blighted her life. © Plan International Australia
Cawo didn’t feel joy when her first child was born.
Instead, she experienced excruciating pain and was paralysed for the first forty days of her daughter’s life. All because of the female genital mutilation (FGM) she was subject to as a ten year old girl.
FGM is a dangerous and harmful procedure where all or part of a girl’s external genitalia is removed. It can cause severe bleeding, shock, infection, agonizing pain, long-term health complications, and even death.
We know it’s a confronting issue, but it’s too important to shy away.
Today alone, around 12,000 girls will be at risk of harm from FGM. This high number is partly driven by the widespread crisis conditions in the world, which we know lead to more girls being subjected to FGM.
But girls aren’t giving up. Cawo is part of a new generation of women and girls fighting to have the practice that harmed them be abandoned. But they urgently need your support.
Please donate to help them keep up the fight against FGM.
Your support could help:
- set up Girls’ Clubs so girls can become leaders and anti-FGM campaigners.
- train maternal health nurses to provide care and information to new mothers about FGM.
- fund mobile clinics to bring healthcare to women and girls living with the health impacts of FGM.
We know from past experience that these measures work. We just need your help.
Please help make sure the fight against FGM continues, even through conflict and crisis.
Photo: Cawo wants to see an end to the practice of FGM. © Plan International Australia
Help fight FGM
No girl should be subjected to FGM
There is no reason for any girl to ever undergo FGM. It is not a religious or medical practice, only a violent violation of girls’ rights.
And right now, the risk to girls is on the rise. Widespread conflict and crisis conditions increase the risk to girls in the following ways – making your urgent support all the more critical:
- All forms of violence against women, including FGM, increase during crisis.
- Girls are pulled from education and schools close, taking away a safe space where they can learn about their rights and how to stand up for them.
- Conflict puts everyone under financial strain – including girls’ parents and the ‘cutters’ who perform FGM. Some families cope by marrying off their daughters and may feel pressure to have them cut to make them more eligible.
- It’s more dangerous to deliver anti-FGM programs in places impacted by violence.
Progress has already been made in the fight against FGM. But your support is needed more than ever during this time of increased risk.
Over the past two decades, the number of women and girls who want to put an end to FGM has doubled. They are bravely standing up against tradition, and their own families, to put an end to the practice.
Photo: Barwaaqe, an FGM survivor, was left traumatised by her experience. © Plan International Australia
- Sadia Allin, Plan International’s Country Director for Somalia.
“It can be a terrible and traumatising experience for them to speak out. But those who have the courage are speaking. And the mothers and fathers and community leaders are listening,” says Sadia Allin.
FGM can be stopped. Plan International’s work to educate communities about the harms of FGM led to 12 villages in Mali abandoning the practice just last year.
And in Somalia, we recently influenced the creation of a Child Rights Protection Act – paving the way for anti-FGM laws which we continue to work for.
But to keep up the momentum, it’s critical to keep educating communities and empowering the girls and women standing against FGM in their communities.
There is no reason any girl should ever be subjected to FGM. It is an oppressive and violent violation of her rights that can have devastating, lifelong impacts on her physical and mental health.
The increase in conflict and crisis around the world is showing no signs of slowing down. Your gift is urgently needed to fund more of the resources, training, and programs that can put an end to FGM.
Please donate. And if you hurry, your gift will be DOUBLED by our passionate group of Equality Leaders.
Photo: Sadia Allin, Country Director of Plan International Somalia. © Plan International Australia
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