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UN News - <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/02/1056802?utm_source=UN+News+-+Newsletter&utm_campaign=41799ea5b8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_02_06_12_50&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fdbf1af606-41799ea5b8-105792637" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;">
<span style="color:blue">https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/02/1056802?utm_source=UN+News+-+Newsletter&utm_campaign=41799ea5b8-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2020_02_06_12_50&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fdbf1af606-41799ea5b8-105792637</span></a></p>
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<span style="font-size:14.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif; color:#333333">Female Genital Mutilation - FGM - Costs $1.4 Billion Annually + Priceless Pain: UN Agencies</span></p>
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<b><span style="font-size:21.0pt; font-family:"Georgia",serif; color:#333333"> </span></b><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10.5pt;"> </span></p>
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<b><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#737373">6 February 2020 -
</span></b><b><span style="font-size:10.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#4D4D4D">Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) poses serious risks to the health and well-being of women and girls, but it also exacts a crippling economic toll, according to the
World Health Organization (<a href="https://www.who.int/" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#00AEEF">WHO</span></a>). </span></b></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">New modelling by the UN agency to coincide with <a href="https://www.un.org/en/observances/female-genital-mutilation-day" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#00AEEF">the
International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation</span></a>, marked on Thursday, reveals that the cost of treating the total health impacts of FGM would amount to $1.4 billion globally per year. </span><span style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Times New Roman",serif; color:#2B7BB9; text-decoration:none"></span></span></p>
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<span lang="EN" style="font-size:12.0pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#1C2022">Zahra, a survivor of female genital mutilation (FGM), wants the world to know it's time to end this harmful practice.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/SeeAPieceOfMe?src=hash" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#2B7BB9; text-decoration:none">#SeeAPieceOfMe</span></a>
to be inspired by her story and join the global movement to <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/EndFGM?src=hash" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;">
<span style="color:#2B7BB9; text-decoration:none">#EndFGM</span></a>: <a href="https://t.co/GcJuYYNmZb" target="_blank" title="http://unf.pa/zahra" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;">
<span style="color:#2B7BB9; text-decoration:none">http://</span><span style="color:#2B7BB9">unf.pa/zahra</span><span style="color:#2B7BB9; text-decoration:none"> </span></a></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">The figure sees individual countries devoting nearly 10 per cent of their yearly expenditure to treat FGM; for some countries, it could be as high as 30 per cent. </span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">“FGM is not only a catastrophic abuse of human rights that significantly harms the physical and mental health of millions of girls and women; it is also a drain on a country’s
vital economic resources”, said Dr Ian Askew, Director of <a href="http://www.who.int/en/" target="_blank" title="World Health Organization" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#00AEEF">WHO</span></a>’s Department
of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research. </span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">“More investment is urgently needed to stop FGM and end the suffering it inflicts.” </span></p>
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<b><span style="font-size:14.0pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#0072BB">More than 200 million affected </span></b></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">It is estimated that more than 200 million women and girls today have undergone FGM, which involves altering or injuring female genital organs for cultural or non-medical reasons.
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">The procedure is mostly carried out on young girls between infancy and 15-years-old, and the impacts on their health and well-being can be immediate—from infections, bleeding,
or psychological trauma—to chronic health conditions that can occur throughout life. </span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">Women subjected to FGM are also more likely to suffer life-threatening complications during childbirth, and to experience pain or problems when they menstruate, urinate or have
sex. </span></p>
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<b><span style="font-size:14.0pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#0072BB">Medicalized FGM on the rise</span></b></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">The UN Children’s Fund <a href="https://www.unicef.org/" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#00AEEF">(UNICEF</span></a>) further reports
that around a quarter of FGM survivors, or roughly 52 million women and girls, were cut by health care providers. The death of a 12-year-old girl in Egypt last month highlighted the dangers of medicalized FGM.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">Although the Egyptian authorities banned FGM in 2008, it is still common there and in Sudan, according to <a href="https://www.unicef.org/" target="_blank" title="United Nations Children’s Fund" style="color: rgb(5, 99, 193); text-decoration: underline;"><span style="color:#00AEEF">UNICEF</span></a>.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">Agency analysis indicates that medicalized FGM is increasing due to the misguided belief that the dangers of FGM are medical, rather than a fundamental violation of a girl’s rights. </span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">“Doctor-sanctioned mutilation is still mutilation. Trained health-care professionals who perform FGM violate girls’ fundamental rights, physical integrity and health,” said UNICEF
Executive Director Henrietta Fore. </span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">“Medicalizing the practice does not make it safe, moral, or defensible.”</span></p>
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<b><span style="font-size:14.0pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#0072BB">Abandoning FGM is possible</span></b></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">The trend toward medicalized FGM comes as opposition to the practice continues to grow.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">Since 1997, global efforts have led to 26 countries in Africa and the Middle East enacting legislation against FGM, while 33 other countries with migrant populations from nations
where it is practiced have also followed suit.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">UNICEF also found that the proportion of girls and women in high-prevalence countries who want FGM stopped has doubled over the past two decades.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">“We are making progress. Attitudes are changing. Behaviors are changing. And overall fewer girls are getting cut," said Ms. Fore, the agency's chief.</span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">Dr. Christina Pallitto, a scientist at WHO, added that many countries and communities are showing that abandoning FGM is possible. </span></p>
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<span style="font-size:11.5pt; font-family:"Helvetica",sans-serif; color:#666666">“If countries invest to end female genital mutilation, they can prevent their girls from undergoing this harmful practice and promote the health, rights and well-being of women
and girls,” she stated.</span></p>
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