Female Genital Mutilation

Ⅰ. INTRODUCTION Let us imagine that the atrocious World War Ⅱ has just now swept around the whole world, and yet there are no protections of Human Rights. In a completely devastated village there are a healthy Black man, 99-year-old Caucasian woman, an Asian boy, and a Black girl waiting for their savior. Finally, a rescue worker comes but he can only take three people and can never come back, which means he has to leave one behind. If you were in this situation which of the three would you care to rescue? Since World War Ⅱ, Human Rights has been internationalized and the order of Human Rights that international society cared to protect first was on 1965, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; 1979, Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women[1]; 1989, Convention on the Rights of the Child[2]. Therefore, if the rescuer were to operate his rescuing activity according only to an orderly form of the above international treaties, a black girl would have been the last one to get saved, or left behind. Some might say that as the world has become globalized and internationalized, women have acquired their rights, but the question still remains; have women truly been eliminated from all forms of discrimination? The above imaginary situation is in fact exaggerated, though upon careful scrutiny of the Human Rights matter, even nowadays Black girls are not even protected from barbaric, evil tradition; “Female Genital Mutilation[3]” (hereinafter referred to as ‘FGM’). Bearing in mind that there are around 130 million women worldwide affected by FGM (Amnesty International est.) and recognizing hundreds and thousands of girls still going through this indescribably painful act; I would like to contemplate over various issues dealt in FGM. Moreover, I will also look through a violation of the rights of the child as FGM is nearly always carried out on minors, and what actions is there that

Bibliography: Commentaries Vitit Muntarbhorn, A Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 34, Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse of Children, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2007 Bruce Abramson, A Commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Article 2, The Right of Non-Discrimination, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2008 Books John A. Voss, Desert Flower (secondary title: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad), Writers Club Press, 2002 Somaly Mam, Road of Lost Innocence, Bantam Dell Pub Group, 2008 Ruth Roubio-Marin, What Happened to the Women? : Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations, Social Science Research Council, 2006 Internet Websites [1] Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, G.A. res. 34/180, adopted 18 Dec. 1979, 34 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 46) at 198, U.N. Doc. A/34/46, entered into force 3 Sept. 1981. [7] The United Nations Children 's Fund (or UNICEF) was created by the United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 1946, to provide emergency food and healthcare to children in countries that had been devastated by World War II. [9] Jutta M. Joachim, Agenda Setting, the UN, and NGOs Gender Violencand NGOs ― Gender Violence and Reproductive Rights pp.103-105, Georgetown University Press, 2007 [10] United Nations Development Fund for Women, 2006b [22] UNIFEM 2006a [23] Ruth Roubio-Marin, What Happened to the Women? : Gender and Reparations for Human Rights Violations, Social Science Research Council, 2006 [28] Natsoulas, Theodore: “The Politicization of the Ban of Female Circumcision and the Rise of the Independent School Movement in Kenya. The KCA, the Missions and Government, 1929-1932”. Journal of African Studies 33(2):137-158, 1998. [29] Birch/Abril, Nicholas. "An End to Female Genital Cutting?", Time Magazine, 2008-01-04. Retrieved on 2008-01-08. [30] Vento, Mary (1998-03-07). "One Thousand Years of Chinese Footbinding: Its Origins, Popularity and Demise". Retrieved 2008-01-08.