UN in Sierra Leone: Statement on harmful traditional practices affecting women and children Freetown, Sierra Leone, 8 March 2007 --- The United Nations in Sierra Leone takes the opportunity of the International Women’s Day, to call for an end to the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), early and forced marriages, and all harmful traditional practices against women and children. As part of the efforts towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, particularly those of improving maternal health and promoting gender equality, the UN considers FGM as an infringement of the basic rights of women and girls. The practice violates the right to be free from violence, abuse, torture, cruel and inhuman or degrading treatment as enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Sierra Leone is signatory. Apart from exposing women and girls, some of them very young, to serious physical and mental health risks, FGM affects the education of girls as many are taken from schools and kept in “initiation bushes” for weeks.

In this regard, the United Nations calls upon the leadership of Sierra Leone, at all levels, to commit themselves to intensified efforts towards stopping the practice of FGM in all its forms, as well as early and forced marriages. We urge the Government, at the earliest, to accelerate the enactment of the Child Rights Bill to give effect to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the three drafts bills - Domestic Violence, Registration of Customary Marriages and Divorce, and Devolution of
Estates. The enactment of these bills will create the conditions for the implementation of the Convention on the Eradication of all forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).The United Nations further calls upon all Political Parties to desist from underwriting the costs of FGM or using the practice as a political campaign strategy for the 2007 elections.

The United Nations also appeals to the religious leaders of all faiths to exercise their moral authority to end the practice, and to Civil Society Organizations to embark upon concerted sensitization of the populations on the dangerous effects of the practice with the view of bringing about change in attitude.

The United Nations reaffirms its support to every effort aimed at ending all harmful traditional practices and promoting gender equality and human rights, including those of women and girls.


聯合國搭上三八的婦女節的列車，趁機在獅子山內宣導破除以往傷害婦女以及孩童的習俗，像是FGM (female genital mutilation)這種違反人權的習俗。同時，聯合國也呼籲各層階級的官員去制止這種行為再次發生；也希望各種宗教的領袖以道德的方式去說服當地的人民破除這項習俗。
資料來源：http://www.uniosil.org/