A/RES/69/150
Intensifying global efforts for the elimination of female genital mutilations
and Development 11 and the Programme of Action of the World Summit for Social
Development 12 and their 5-, 10-, 15- and 20-year reviews, as well as the United
Nations Millennium Declaration, 13 and the commitments relevant to women and
girls made at the 2005 World Summit 14 and reiterated in Assembly resolution 65/1
of 22 September 2010, entitled “Keeping the promise: united to achieve the
Millennium Development Goals”,
Recalling the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights
on the Rights of Women in Africa, adopted in Maputo on 11 July 2003, which
contains, inter alia, undertakings and commitments on ending female genital
mutilation and marks a significant milestone towards the abandonment and ending
of female genital mutilation,
Recalling also the decision of the African Union, adopted in Malabo on 1 July
2011, to support the adoption by the General Assembly at its sixty-sixth session of a
resolution banning female genital mutilation,
Recalling further the recommendation of the Commission on the Status of
Women at its fifty-sixth session that the Economic and Social Council recommend
to the General Assembly the adoption of a decision to consider the issue of ending
female genital mutilation at its sixty-seventh session under the item entitled
“Advancement of women”, 15
Recognizing that female genital mutilations constitute irreparable, irreversible
harm that impairs the human rights of women and girls, affecting about 100 million
to 140 million women and girls worldwide, and that each year an estimated further
3 million girls are at risk of being subjected to the practice throughout the world,
Reaffirming that female genital mutilations are a harmful practice, constituting
a serious threat to the health of women and girls, including their psychological,
sexual and reproductive health, increasing their vulnerability to HIV and possibly
having adverse obstetric and prenatal outcomes, as well as fatal consequences for
the mother and the newborn, and that the abandonment of this harmful practice can
be achieved as a result of a comprehensive movement that involves all public and
private stakeholders in society, including girls and boys, women and men,
Concerned about evidence of an increase in the incidence of female genital
mutilations being carried out by medical personnel in all regions in which they are
practised,
Recognizing that negative discriminatory stereotypical attitudes and
behaviours have direct implications for the status and treatment of women and girls
and that such negative stereotypes impede the implementation of legislative and
normative frameworks that guarantee gender equality and prohibit discrimination on
the basis of sex,
Recognizing also that the campaign of the Secretary-General entitled “UNiTE
to End Violence against Women” and the database on violence against women have
contributed to addressing the elimination of female genital mutilations,
_______________
11
Report of the International Conference on Population and Development, Cairo, 5-13 September 1994
(United Nations publication, Sales No. E.95.XIII.18), chap. I, resolution 1, annex.
12
Report of the World Summit for Social Development, Copenhagen, 6-12 March 1995 (United Nations
publication, Sales No. E.96.IV.8), chap. I, resolution 1, annex II.
13
Resolution 55/2.
14
See resolution 60/1.
15
See Official Records of the Economic and Social Council, 2012, Supplement No. 7 and corrigendum
(E/2012/27 and Corr.1), chap. I, sect. A.
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