Ending Harmful Conventions - NGOs Responses to Female Genital Cutting/Mutilation - Essay Example

In fact, even if there have been many international conventions denouncing violence against women and criminalizing abuses against them as well as any form of discrimination whatsoever, there are still daily and incessant violations on their rights. Gender issues are still very serious concerns in Africa, and these issues are particularly acute when speaking of the girl-child – females who are minors of age and who cope both with the burdens that bear upon children because of their youth and special vulnerabilities, as well as the burden of being a woman in a society that still remains to be largely patriarchal.

It is for these reasons – personal and intense for the author – that the subject of this paper focuses on female genital mutilation. It ends with the desire that clear and concrete measures are taken by the world at large to ensure that women all over are protected from what is clearly a harmful and violent incursion not only on their rights but on their body and their autonomy. This paper, therefore, focuses on analysing female genital mutilation and interventions that have been done to lead to its eradication.

In an effort to explore the subject of this thesis, the paper will take on several parts. The first part will give an introduction and an overview of the Concept behind Female Genital Mutilation cutting across the evolution of female genital mutilation, the cultural and theoretical foundations of Female Genital Mutilation and a discussion on the areas in which it is practiced.