{"id":226,"date":"2013-08-15T16:44:47","date_gmt":"2013-08-15T16:44:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/?p=226"},"modified":"2022-10-17T11:58:26","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T10:58:26","slug":"u-n-pressures-indonesia-to-stop-health-workers-performing-fgm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/u-n-pressures-indonesia-to-stop-health-workers-performing-fgm\/","title":{"rendered":"U.N. pressures Indonesia to stop health workers performing FGM"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) \u2013 Indonesia should stop allowing doctors, midwives and other health workers to carry out female genital mutilation (FGM) on children and babies as young as six months, the United Nations Human Rights Committee (OHCHR) has said.\u00a0The committee also urged the country to pass legislation banning any form of FGM and to put in place penalties that reflect the \u201cgravity of this offence\u201d, which campaigners say is a serious human rights violation. OHCHR made its comments on Friday in observations on the state of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.\u00a0The \u201cmedicalisation\u201d of FGM \u2013 a term used for when the practice is performed by health practitioners \u2013 has emerged as a\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.trust.org\/item\/20130611122841-m1ncx\/\">trend in several countries<\/a>\u00a0and campaigners say it is setting back global efforts to eradicate the ancient ritual. It is also seen as one of the biggest risk factors as it is often seen as legitimising FGM.<\/p>\n<p>But Indonesia says it is better medically trained people carry out the procedure to avoid parents resorting to traditional circumcisers who might endanger their daughters&#8217; health.\u00a0\u201cMedicalised FGM is on the rise,\u201d Efua Dorkenoo, advocacy director of Equality Now\u2019s FGM programme told Thomson Reuters Foundation. This is not just the case in Indonesia, but also in Kenya, Nigeria and in countries where bodies representing health professionals fail to take strong action against it, she added.<\/p>\n<p>In Indonesia\u2019s case, medicalised FGM was allowed following a\u00a0<i>fatwa<\/i>\u00a0\u2013 a ruling by a religious authority \u2013 and this came after a ban on FGM was reversed on the grounds it had led to an increase in the practice by non-medical practitioners.\u00a0Following the\u00a0<i>fatwa<\/i>, the ministry of health issued a regulation in 2010 permitting medicalised FGM, which goes against a number of international resolutions and treaties such as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), of which Indonesia is a signatory, according to\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.equalitynow.org\/take_action\/fgm_action431\">Equality Now<\/a>.\u00a0\u201cWe tried all kinds of actions \u2013 not just [through] the government but &#8230; through international medical associations to bring pressure in terms of violations of various treaties that they have ratified on this [the medicalisation of FGM] \u2013 and they\u2019ve not been successful,\u201d Dorkenoo said.<\/p>\n<p>Read more:\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.trust.org\/item\/20130812154402-2himf\/?source=gep\">http:\/\/www.trust.org\/item\/20130812154402-2himf\/?source=gep<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>LONDON (Thomson Reuters Foundation) \u2013 Indonesia should stop allowing doctors, midwives and other health workers to carry out female genital mutilation (FGM) on children and babies as young as six months, the United Nations Human Rights Committee (OHCHR) has said.\u00a0The committee also urged the country to pass legislation banning any form of FGM and to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[95,96,45,7,4,3],"class_list":["post-226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-ban","tag-eradicate","tag-female-genital-mutilation","tag-forced-marriage","tag-halo-project","tag-haloproject"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1971,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions\/1971"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.haloproject.org.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}