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STORY: UN / FGM WRAP
TRT: 02:45
SOURCE: UNIFEED - UNTV
RESTRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / FRENCH / NATS
DATELINE: 08 FEBRUARY 2016, NEW YORK CITY / FILE
FILE – RECENT, NEW YORK CITY
1. Wide shot, United Nations headquarters
08 FEBRUARY 2016, NEW YORK CITY
2. Wide shot, dais
3. SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General:
“Since 2007, more than a dozen countries have enacted measures to tackle FGM. More than 950 legal cases have been prosecuted. And today, nearly all countries where it is prevalent outlaw the practice. We are working to extend that legal protection everywhere.”
4. Med shot, participants
5. SOUNDBITE (English) Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General:
“Let us shift the focus away from mutilation to education. Let us make a world where FGM stands for Focus on Girls’ Minds. How about this: FGM stands for Focus on Girls Minds. The, another way, in this way, we will create conditions where, as one NGO rightly says, Finally Girls Matter. FGM”
6. Med shot, audience applause
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Babatunde Osotimehin, UNFPA Executive Director
“Together, let us make the sustainable goals a reality and female genital mutilation history before 2030.”
8. Wide shot, audience applause
9. SOUNDBITE (English) Inna Modja, Singer and FGM Victim:
“As an African woman I went through female genital mutilation. I know what it is and I know how harmful it is. And I want to protect those younger girls and those generations coming, because FGM has to end.”
10. Various shots, Inna Modja musical performance
11. SOUNDBITE (French) Inna Modja, Singer and FGM Victim:
"Getting repaired, via reconstructive surgery by Professor Pierre Foldes, also helped me to heal. It helped me to heal physically and psychologically, and somehow it repaired me. But when you say repair, there is always a scar. It’s like when you break a glass and glue it back together. There are always break lines, and my excisions are my break lines."
12. Various shots, Inna Modja musical performance
Senior United Nations officials are urging the world to eliminate female genital mutilation (FGM) by 2030, calling it a violent practice that scars girls for life, endangering their health, depriving them of their rights, and denying them the chance to reach their full potential.
At an event at the United Nations in New York marking the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted the advance that have been made on the issue in recent years.
Ban said “since 2007, more than a dozen countries have enacted measures to tackle FGM. More than 950 legal cases have been prosecuted. And today, nearly all countries where it is prevalent outlaw the practice. We are working to extend that legal protection everywhere.”
The Secretary-General said “let us shift the focus away from mutilation to education. Let us make a world where FGM stands for Focus on Girls’ Minds.”
To general applause, he added, “we will create conditions where, as one NGO rightly says, Finnally Girls Matter. FGM”
The Executive Director of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Babatunde Osotimehin, stressed that the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), adopted unanimously by UN Member States last year, contain a specific target calling for an end to FGM.
Osotimehin said “together, let us make the sustainable goals a reality and female genital mutilation history before 2030.”
At least 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone female genital mutilation in 30 countries, according to a new statistical report published by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Malian singer Inna Modja, who performed at the event and was a victim of FGM in her childhood, called for an end of the practice.
She said “as an African woman I went through female genital mutilation. I know what it is and I know how harmful it is. And I want to protect those younger girls and those generations coming, because FGM has to end.”
Modja spoke about having reconstructive surgery to revert FGM.
She said “getting repaired, via reconstructive surgery by Professor Pierre Foldes, also helped me to heal. It helped me to heal physically and psychologically, and somehow it repaired me. But when you say repair, there is always a scar. It’s like when you break a glass and glue it back together. There are always break lines, and my excisions are my break lines."
UNICEF says momentum to address female genital mutilation is growing. FGM prevalence rates among girls aged 15 to 19 have declined, including by 41 percentage points in Liberia, 31 in Burkina Faso, 30 in Kenya and 27 in Egypt over the last 30 years.
Since 2008, more than 15,000 communities and sub-districts in 20 countries have publicly declared that they are abandoning FGM, including more than 2,000 communities last year. Five countries have passed national legislation criminalizing the practice. Data also indicate widespread disapproval of the practice as the majority of people in countries where FGM data exists think it should end. This includes nearly two-thirds of boys and men.
But the overall rate of progress is not enough to keep up with population growth.
