FGM: Human Rights Council unanimously adopts resolution

GENEVA, JULY 17 – The United Nations Human Rights Council today unanimously adopted a new resolution on the elimination of female genital mutilation. The text, promoted by the African Group countries, expresses strong condemnation on behalf of the international community for the practice which constitutes “a form of torture or ill-treatment” and a “threat to the full exercise of fundamental rights and freedoms of women and girls” .

The Resolution adopted today “represents a further step forward in the fight against female genital mutilation and new progress in the UN, and in particular in Geneva, which confirmed that female genital mutilation constitutes a serious violation of human rights,” Ambassador Gian Lorenzo Cornado, Permanent Representative of Italy to the United Nations in Geneva, commented after the adoption of the text.

According to data published by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), female genital mutilation still affects about 200 million girls on a global scale. It is one of the priorities of Italy’s international action for the promotion and protection of human rights and an important point for the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals which commits the international community to to put and end to this practice as well as to early and forced marriages by 2030.

In this circumstance, as in many others, Italy has confirmed its historic commitment and leadership on the issue by participating in the negotiations on behalf of the entire European Union and by fostering consensus on the text, whose success is demonstrated by the strong support already ensured from 107 co-sponsored countries. (@OnuItalia)