Ending FGM is essential to give girls control over their own lives

In a world where power and choice are determined by gender, millions of girls are robbed of their childhoods, education, health, and aspirations every day by the harmful practices of child, early and forced marriage, and female genital mutilation (FGM). In many communities, early marriage and FGM go hand-in-hand because they believe that cutting a girl increases her marriageability.

Over 200 million women and girls alive today in 31 countries have undergone genital mutilation, although small-scale studies, media reports, and anecdotal evidence suggest FGM may be present in more than 90 countries.

Compared to three decades ago, girls today are one third less likely to undergo FGM, but the COVID-19 pandemic appears to be increasing the practice. Not only is it limiting our scope for critical prevention work, but many traditional cutters badly in need of an income during the economic downturn have started again, approaching families directly, door to door, in search of work. Without action, by 2030 we could see as many as 2 million FGM cases that could otherwise have been avoided. Data from UN Women and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) show that the crisis will push 96 million people into extreme poverty by 2021, something which can lead to FGM and child marriage being used as negative coping mechanisms to ease extreme physical and financial uncertainty.

Girls from the most marginalized groups will be at even higher risk of FGM and child marriage. Pandemic-related school closures provide increased opportunities for FGM to be undertaken on girls at home, which only heightens the risk of health complications as well as the transmission of COVID-19. And with the crisis putting 11 million girls at high risk of never returning to school, future generations of uneducated women are more likely to support the continuation of the practice.