Launch of EU Campaign in
Guinea-Bissau
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is the cultural phenomenon that affects the lives of women forever, impacting approximately 230 million women worldwide.
In Guinea Bissau the prevalence rate is 52.1% amongst women aged between 15 and 49. In the country certain regions are more impacted like Bafata with a prevalence rate of 86.9% of women who have undergone FGM and Gabu which is the region with one of the highest prevalence rates in the world with almost 96% of girls and women who are being cut.
“Preventing and Combating FGM in Guinea Bissau”.
Financed by the European Union, this 18-month nationwide campaign targets regions like Gabu, where FGM prevalence is alarming at 95% among girls aged 15 to 49. The event drew distinguished guests including the EU ambassador and Senegalese and The Gambian ambassadors, the King of Gabù, The Governor of Gabù, and the representative of the Women, Family and Social Action’s Minister, religious leaders, doctors, activists, journalists etc.
Implemented by the National Committee for the Abandonment of Harmful Traditional Practices of Guinea Bissau in partnership with Global Media Campaign, the EU Ambassador to Guinea Bissau, Artis Bertulis said:
“We are determined to work with the government to see an end to this practice in Guinea Bissau within the next few years’ Today, we got hundreds of people together in a place where almost all girls are mutilated and started a process that we believe will succeed in Guinea Bissau, before 2030 and that’s ending FGM.”
The Abandonment of Harmful Traditional Practices Marliatu Djalo Conde, said:
“This is a new direct way of giving control to the the community to end this practice – it is the only way we can do this quickly- and we really honoured that Africa’s very first Born Perfect Women’s Caravan has been launched in Guinea Bissau.”
Activities included training academies, caravans, and media campaigns aimed at sparking social change from within practicing communities, led by grassroots efforts and survivors. This campaign marks a crucial step towards eradicating FGM in Guinea Bissau.
The Caravan’s journey in pictures below
Pictures by Quintino Ramalho
Guinea Bissau’s first FGM Prevention and Combat Project was launched to support the Frontline feminists to work with the government to end FGM. Religious leaders, including the highly influential Imam Mamadou Balde, among other imams, are also supporting the caravan.
The Born Perfect Women’s Caravans tours village by village across each country with local campaigners, medics, government officials, religious leaders and even singers on board calling on people to abandon FGM and other form of violence against women.
Other Born Perfect Women’s Caravans will be launch in Mauritania this month, Kenya in September and Tanzania in October 2024. Over the next two years it will run across 20 countries in Africa.
The Programme Director of the Global Media Campaign Fatou Binetou Diop said:
“We are shifting the power. Millions of dollars has been spent by donors trying to end FGM but it has not been getting to the frontline – we are here to change that and the EU is changing the way the grassroots organisations are funded.“
Activists, medical professionals and religious leaders from high prevalence areas in Guinea Bissau will also hold a series of events and radio broadcasts tailored to local challenges in eradicating FGM.
The Born Perfect Women’s Caravans campaign, inspired by the “pink bus” anti-FGM movements that started nearly a decade ago in the Gambia will also carry the global Avaz petition (now signed by almost 800,000 people to stop the reversal of the ban).
The Training
After the 5 day academy of legal, medical and media training of FGM frontline organisations where 56 activists gathered to begin grassroots campaign training the project of the first Born Perfect Caravan has launched in Bissau on May 10th.
After the launch of the “Born Perfect” Caravan, part of the #FrontlineEndingFGM Initiative on May 10, 2024, in Bissau, the Caravan proceeded to the Gabu Region visiting different localities within the region, including border areas. Activities kicked off on Sunday, May 12, in the Sonaco Sector and will continue to other localities within the region. This initiative is a collaborative effort between #CNAPN and #GMC, with financial backing from the European Union in Guinea-Bissau. On May 13, the Caravan moved to the Boe Sector, specifically to Beli, for another evening of cinema and music on Tuesday, May 14. The Caravan will stop in Buruntuma in the Pitche Sector on May 16, continue in the Pirada Sector in Pirada on May 18, and finish in Gabu on May 20. The program will reach the entire national territory through radio broadcasts covering the progress of the caravan every day, visiting different localities within the region, including border areas.
Using a combination of campaigns, jingles on local radio and organised interventions involving religious leaders, local politicians and medical personnel, it hoped that the activists in Guinea Bissau will repeat the success of similar grassroots #FrontlineEndingFGM campaigns run in Kenya. In the Tana River region of Kenya, the rates of worst forms of FGM were driven down by 95%, in just three years using the voices of influential local religious leaders on local radio to call on the population to abandon the practice.
The Guinea-Bissau Campaign is funded by the European Union. The content of this website are solo responsibility of Global Media Campaign and #FrontlineEnding FGM.
