As world leaders gather today to talk about progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we are excited to announce one of the many ways that we are working towards Goal 5: Gender Equality.
Together with The Five Foundation, we have joined a global partnership to help make gender equality a reality by working to end female genital mutilation by 2030.
Brita Fernandez Schmidt, Executive Director of Women for Women International – UK, says of the partnership, “I'm so excited that Women for Women International is a founding partner of The Five Foundation because female genital mutilation is a real challenge that the majority of the women we serve in northern Iraq have been facing. We know that it will take a concerted global effort – that brings organizations and institutions together – to fight against this harmful traditional practice.”
For more information about The Five Foundation and this global partnership to end this violation of women and girls all over the world, see the video and press release below.
GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP TO END FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION LAUNCHES IN NYC
The Five Foundation, The Global Partnership To End FGM, launches in late September 2019 in New York. It brings together some of the world's leading organisations working to end female genital mutilation (FGM), a human rights violation that has affected over 200 million women and girls around the world.
Governments have committed to eliminating FGM by 2030, but unless we dramatically increase funding to grassroots activists this will simply not happen. At the moment, only 75c of funding is provided for each girl or woman at risk or affected by it, while several countries including Sierra Leone, Sudan, Mali and Liberia have yet to ban it.
The Five Foundation, co-founded by survivor activist Nimco Ali OBE, works to build the strongest global network of activists, and to leverage new sources of funding for the movement to end this extreme form of violence against women and girls. Founding partners of this brand new initiative include Women for Women International, Plan International, Action Aid, the ONE Campaign and many other local and international groups. Partnership is now open for any groups working on this issue that are passionate about the rights of girls and women to live free from violence and discrimination.
The launch on September 25th at Purpose, 115 5th Avenue, New York, will bring together senior government ministers including the UK Secretary of State Alok Sharma MP, activists, other foundations and potential donors.
“As a survivor of FGM I know only too well the power and gender imbalances that have allowed it to carry on for centuries. This extreme form of violence is carried out to keep girls and women quiet, and to put them in their place. African women are often sidelined in the conversation on the international stage - but it was Africans who first bought the horrors of FGM to the UN. Trailblazers like Edna Adan from Somaliland stood outside the doors of power and demanded that we listen and act; women such as Agnes Pareyio fought against death threats to bring her “wooden vagina” to show the harms to the Maasai region of Kenya - and in The Gambia, Isatou Touray went to prison for her activism to protect the rights of girls to be free from FGM.
I am living proof that we can break the silence on FGM in families and societies - and that survivors are best placed to lead on this issue. However, to protect the 68 million girls at risk, we need foundations, individual donors and governments to start committing new and significantly higher levels of funding than they have done to date. This is the key to unlocking not only gender equality, but also lasting peace and prosperity.
- Nimco Ali, CEO, The Five Foundation, The Global Partnership To End FGM.
More information is available at www.thefivefoundation.org
FOUNDING PARTNERS OF THE FIVE FOUNDATION
GLOBAL
28 Too Many
Action Aid
Donor Direct Action
ONE Campaign
One Young World
Plan International
Purpose Foundation
Safe Hands
Women for Women International
AFRICA
Inter African Committee
CANADA
End FGM Canada Network
EGYPT
WCGLA
THE GAMBIA
Safe Hands For Girls
GUINEA
There Is No Limit Foundation
IRELAND
Akidwa
KENYA
Men End FGM
Samburu Girls Foundation
Tasaru Ntomonok Initiative
SIERRA LEONE
A Girl At A Time
Amazonian Initiative Movement (AIM)
Not In My Name Coalition
SOMALIA
Ifrah Foundation
Nafis Network (Somaliland)
The Galkayo Center (Puntland)
UK
Save The Children