\n<\/p>\n
Frontline activists and leaders in the fight against female genital mutilation, which has affected more than 230 million women and girls worldwide, have welcomed an unprecedented $15.5m (\u00a311.4m) fund aimed at creating \u201cunstoppable momentum\u201d to finally end the practice.<\/p>\n
The launch of the fund comes as women\u2019s rights are increasingly under attack and donor funding is in sharp decline, particularly for work led by FGM survivors in local communities. It is thought to be the largest single philanthropic contribution to ending the practice of FGM.<\/p>\n
The United Nations has set a goal of elimination by by 2030, but progress is not on track as funding declines and legal protections are challenged.<\/p>\n
Funding received by the largest initiative to end the practice \u2013 a joint programme operated in 18 countries by the UN\u2019s sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA, and the UN humanitarian organisation for children, Unicef \u2013 fell by 45% last year, from $29.6m to $16.3m.<\/p>\n
The Her Horizon Fund has been seeded with $14m from the Wallace Global Fund, plus an additional $1.5m contribution from an anonymous donor, making $15.5m in total.<\/p>\n
The aim of Her Horizon Fund, set up by the US-based Wallace Global Fund, is to pool $100m from donors to reach a \u201ctipping point\u201d towards ending FGM within a generation.<\/p>\n
Ifrah Ahmed, a Somali-Irish activist and survivor of FGM who set up the Ifrah Foundation to end practice in Somalia, where it is nearly universal, said: \u201cBy giving $14m, the global fund will ensure activists can continue their work in this area.\u201d<\/p>\n
UN funding worth $300,000 to her organisation was cut by UNFPA last year, but Ahmed managed to raise money from elsewhere. The Ifrah Foundation has helped push for anti-FGM legislation in Somalia, she said.<\/p>\n
Three of Somalia\u2019s seven federal member states have enacted anti-FGM laws, while in two other states bills banning the practice have been endorsed by cabinet and are awaiting parliamentary approval, albeit with opposition by religious leaders in some areas.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we don\u2019t continue to raise money, the dream where this practice will end will have died for young girls,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n
Advocates warn that while international recognition of FGM as a human rights violation has grown, and countries such as Burkina Faso, the Gambia and Kenya have criminalised the practice, progress remains fragile.<\/p>\n
In recent years, survivors and frontline groups have been trying to protect gains made over several decades.<\/p>\n
The Gambia\u2019s supreme court, for instance, is considering a constitutional challenge to the country\u2019s 2015 ban on female genital mutilation and cutting. The case follows a 2024 parliamentary effort to repeal the ban, which lawmakers rejected after months of debate, amid strong resistance from women\u2019s rights groups. In Sierra Leone, the new Child Rights Act does not prohibit FGM, despite sustained campaigning from rights groups.<\/p>\n
Susan Gibbs, the Wallace Global Fund\u2019s senior adviser on women\u2019s rights and FGM, said: \u201cFemale genital mutilation is a global crisis, an extreme manifestation of gender-based violence and violence against children, and a public health emergency.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been decades of progress, and UN data indicates declines in prevalence in a number of countries. But there have also been anti-rights pushback and political crises. Obviously, donor funding is in decline. So it\u2019s a mixed picture.\u201d<\/p>\n
skip past newsletter promotionFree newsletter | Every fortnight<\/p>\n
Sign up to Global Dispatch<\/span><\/p>\n Get a different world view with a roundup of the best news, features, opinion and photography, curated by our global development team<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n She added: \u201cWe\u2019re at this critical inflection point. Most frontline organisations have been absolutely starved for resources, and so more direct funding would allow them to sustain and scale [up] their work.\u201d<\/p>\n Gibbs, who attended a Justice for Girls global gathering in Kenya earlier this month, where the fund was officially launched, said the momentum at the meeting was \u201cincredible\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cLasting change must be led by the frontline \u2013 it cannot be imposed from the outside. Frontline survivors, activists, they know their communities and they know what it will take. They must have the resources and power to lead.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m convinced the impact [of the fund] will be catalytic,\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s no doubt in my mind that with adequate funding, these frontline activists have what it takes to get this done.\u201d<\/p>\n FGM is the partial or total removal of female genitalia for non-medical reasons. It has been endured by more than 144 million women and girls in Africa, 80 million in Asia and 6 million in the Middle East. The practice can cause immediate health complications such as severe pain, excessive bleeding and infection, as well as long-term consequences that include complications during childbirth, chronic pain and lasting psychological trauma.<\/p>\n A 2025 study estimated that FGM causes approximately 44,000 deaths each year in the 15 countries examined, making it one of the leading causes of death for women and girls in those countries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Frontline activists and leaders in the fight against female genital mutilation, which has affected more than 230 million women and girls worldwide, have welcomed an unprecedented $15.5m (\u00a311.4m) fund aimed at creating \u201cunstoppable momentum\u201d to finally end the practice. The launch of the fund comes as women\u2019s rights are increasingly under attack and donor funding<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52202,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[4159,1807,6998,21947,1051,4170,10289,13355,702,3465,1214,13261],"class_list":{"0":"post-52201","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-15m","9":"tag-create","10":"tag-equality","11":"tag-fgm","12":"tag-fund","13":"tag-gender","14":"tag-launched","15":"tag-momentum","16":"tag-rights","17":"tag-unstoppable","18":"tag-womens","19":"tag-worldwide"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52202"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}