A technical team from the United Nations’ headquarters and the regional office for the Middle East and North Africa of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) commended efforts of Egypt’s National Council for Women (NCW) in raising awareness about the dangers of female genital mutilation (FGM).
This came during the delegation’s visit to the NCW by the UN teams to get first hand information about the Council’s efforts in the FGM file, within the framework of the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Program on the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM).
NCW President Aml Ammar reviewed efforts of the council and the history of combating FGM in Egypt since 2000, through raising community awareness and enacting legislation and laws to combat this crime.
She highlighted the significant leap in the file of empowering Egyptian women, thanks to the wise political will that supports women’s empowerment in all fields, including the criminalization of the FGM.
Ammar shed light on Law no 10 of 2021 that introduced amendments to several provisions of the Penal Code to toughen penalty for Female genital mutilation (FGM).
She added that door-to-door campaigns have been launched in several governorates to raise awareness about the law among families.
The aforementioned efforts have contributed to cutting down FGM rates among girls aged 0-19 years to 14 percent in 2021, compared to 21 percent in 2014, according to the Central Agency for Public Mobilization and Statistics (CAPMAS), Ammar went on to say.
