{"id":24113,"date":"2016-03-24T01:40:37","date_gmt":"2016-03-24T01:40:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/somalia-prime-minister-sharmarke-backs-anti-fgm\/"},"modified":"2016-03-24T01:41:45","modified_gmt":"2016-03-24T01:41:45","slug":"somalia-prime-minister-sharmarke-backs-anti-fgm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/somalia-prime-minister-sharmarke-backs-anti-fgm\/","title":{"rendered":"Somalia Prime Minister Sharmarke backs anti-FGM campaign"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Somalia&#8217;s prime minister has publicly backed a campaign to ban female genital mutilation (FGM) in his country.}<\/p>\n<p>It is currently against the constitution but parliament has not yet passed a bill outlawing the practice.<\/p>\n<p>Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke has joined more than a million others by signing an online petition calling for a comprehensive ban.<\/p>\n<p>The UN children&#8217;s agency, Unicef, estimates that more than 90% of Somali girls undergo FGM.<\/p>\n<p>It says that it is mainly performed on four to 11-year-olds and can have a long-lasting impact on the girls&#8217; physical and mental health.<\/p>\n<p>Somali anti-FGM campaigner Ifrah Ahmed told the BBC that she had persuaded Mr Sharmarke to sign the petition organised by online campaign group Avaaz.<\/p>\n<p>She said that it was a significant move as many people in Somalia do not openly speak about the issue.<\/p>\n<p>{{Types of FGM}}<\/p>\n<p>\u2022Clitoridectomy &#8211; partial or total removal of the clitoris<\/p>\n<p>\u2022Excision &#8211; removal of the clitoris and inner labia (lips), with or without the outer labia<\/p>\n<p>\u2022Infibulation &#8211; cutting, removing and sewing up the genitalia<\/p>\n<p>\u2022Any other type of intentional damage to the female genitalia (burning, scraping et cetera)<\/p>\n<p>Ms Ahmed, who has experienced FGM herself, thought it would help put pressure on the lawmakers to pass the bill.<\/p>\n<p>She has worked with Somalia&#8217;s Women&#8217;s Affairs Minister Sahra Samatar in drawing up the draft legislation.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Samatar told the BBC&#8217;s Newsday programme that the prime minister&#8217;s action was a &#8220;huge boost&#8221; to the efforts to get the law passed.<\/p>\n<p>{{Long way to go}}<\/p>\n<p>But campaigners acknowledge that it will take more than a law to end the practice.<\/p>\n<p>Ms Ahmed said that an education campaign, as well as a willingness to enforce the legislation, will be necessary.<\/p>\n<p>She said that it is widely practised in Somalia as people believe it is a religious requirement and girls who have not undergone it are taunted for not being cut.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-11136 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/_88913458_fgm.jpg\" alt=\"Ifrah Ahmed persuaded the prime minister to sign the petition\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Somalia&#8217;s prime minister has publicly backed a campaign to ban female genital mutilation (FGM) in his country.} It is currently against the constitution but parliament has not yet passed a bill outlawing the practice. Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke has joined more than a million others by signing an online petition calling for a comprehensive ban. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[100],"byline":[249],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-24113","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-africa","byline-bbc"],"bylines":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"contributors":[{"id":249,"name":"BBC","slug":"bbc","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":104}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24113"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24113\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24113"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=24113"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=24113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}