In coordination with the Ministry of Public Health and Population, HUMAN ACCESS in Aden Governorate organized a workshop to combat female genital mutilations (FGM), with funding from the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), as part of ongoing efforts to confront the harmful phenomenon of FGM, which causes long-term negative physical, psychological, and social consequences.
The event took place in the presence of the Deputy Minister of Public Health and Population, Dr. Abdullah Dahhan, the Assistant Undersecretary of the Ministry of Health for the Population Sector, Dr. Abdulraqeeb Al-Haidari, the Director-General of the Women’s Department at the Ministry of Health, Dr. Zainab Al-Qaisi, the Director-General of the National Program for Health and Population Education and Information, Dr. Aref Al-Hawshabi, and Ms. Elizabeth Kigen, representative of the UNFPA in Aden.
In a workshop attended by 30 participants, including the general directors of the Department of Women and Children of several ministries, gender officials, and a variety of stakeholders, the participants discussed the proposed role of the authorities in advocating and pressing for the adoption of a national strategy to end and criminalize FGM and protect girls.
The workshop addressed ways to provide prevention and response to women and girls at risk of genital deformities and those affected by them.
Furthermore, the workshop discussed FGM in Yemen, the innovation initiative to end the practice, the system of challenges facing it, as well as the main frameworks that could support the adoption of a national strategy to end FGM, given its dangers, since healthy and natural tissues are eradicated and damaged.
The participants in the workshop stressed the importance of concerted official and popular efforts in Yemen towards the issues of FGM, urging the formation of an alliance to support these efforts and the adoption of awareness and education messages to reduce these wrong practices, which constitute a form of gender-based violence and human rights violations that violate girls' and women's basic human rights.
