A multi-pronged strategy to end female genital mutilation A multi-pronged strategy to end female genital mutilation [FGM] in Mauritania is making gradual progress, though campaigners acknowledge much remains to be done in a country where more than two-thirds of girls suffer excision, the Inter Press Service news agency has said.
"The national programme, supported by several development partners, includes lobbying for the adoption of a law criminalising excision, raising awareness of a fatwa (a religious notice) forbidding excision, and the setting up of regional offices to monitor the practice," according to the news service.
Khatto Mint Jiddou, who heads the campaign against gender-based violence at Mauritania's Ministry for Social Affairs, Childhood and the Family, told IPS that the initiative involved a wide range of people, including civil society activists, doctors and religious leaders. "We are seeing a positive trend, even if this phenomenon, rooted in socio-cultural considerations, is far from being brought under control," Aziza Mint Meslem, who works with an NGO called the Mauritanian Association for the Health and Development of Women, said, according to IPS