On 8 June 2010, the Parliament of Ugandan unanimously adopted a motion requesting the Head of State, as well as the East African Community and the African Union, to present a Resolution banning female genital mutilation worldwide at the forthcoming 65th Session of the UN General Assembly in September 2010.
This initiative, tabled by the Ugandan MPs Chris Baryomunsi, Jane Alisemera, and Herbert Sabila, follows the Inter-Parliamentary Conference “Towards a United Nations ban on FGM”, organised in Dakar by the Ministry of Family Affairs of Senegal in partnership with No Peace Without Justice and the Senegalese organisation La Palabre on 3-4 May 2010, the Final Declaration of which underlines the need to work towards a universal ban on FGM.
Recalling the Final Declaration of the Dakar Inter-parliamentary Conference, the Ugandan parliamentary motion states that female genital mutilation, as a wide-scale and blatant violation of the human rights of women and girls, is a challenge to the international community as a whole, which needs to be addressed by the United Nations, also in order to consolidate the measures that individual countries have already taken as well as to spur commitments by states which have not already done so to facilitate the common goal of eliminating female genital mutilation once and for all.
Statement by Sergio Stanzani and Niccolo’ Figa-Talamanca, President and Secretary-General of No Peace Without Justice:
“We welcome the adoption of this motion by the Parliament of Uganda and call on Uganda, as well as other affected States, to take a leading and active role in the drafting of and advocacy for a United Nations General Assembly Resolution explicitly calling for a global ban on female genital mutilation.
We strongly hope that Uganda will bring the subject to the table at the forthcoming African Union Summit, which will take place in Kampala on 19-27 July 2010. An African Union Declaration calling upon the United Nations to pass a Resolution Banning FGM Worldwide would be an important step in the Campaign.
A United Nations Resolution Banning FGM Worldwide could spur greater and more cohesive political mobilisation among activists, parliamentarians and governments in Africa and throughout the world and would help to create the foundations of a real and strong international alliance to defeat female genital mutilation once and for all”.
For more information, contact Alvilda Jablonko, Coordinator of the FGM Program, on ajablonko@npwj.org / phone: +32 494 533 915 or Nicola Giovannini on ngiovannini@npwj.org or +32 (0)2 548-39 14.
