WHO WE ARE AND WHAT WE DO
Beyond FGM charity is made up of a group of UK midwives and friends who got together to help end FGM within the Pokot community following one of their members having worked as a midwifery tutor at a school of nursing in Pokot and witnessing FGM as a social norm with all the inherent dangers and trauma caused to young girls and women. It is a UK registered charity working at grassroots with the Kenyan C.B.O. (community based organisation) C.I.C.R. (centre for indigenous child rights) and the social enterprise AfriReuse, both of which organisations were founded with support from Beyond FGM.
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We are very much interlinked and support each other in our goal of ending FGM in Pokot county by 2022 in line with the Kenyan Government's declaration. This is ahead of the UN goal to end FGM by 2030. Despite the challenges of the Coronavirus pandemic which has set back efforts to end FGM globally, we strive to increase our efforts to reach out to the remotest villages where FGM prevalence remains very high; in many villages almost 100% of girls are cut. As the UN pledges no one will be left behind and to that aim we too shall endeavour "to reach the furthest behind first".
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WHAT IS FGM?
Female genital mutilation (FGM) comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, including the clitoris and labia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.
The harmful effects of FGM can include haemorrhage, shock, sepsis, psychological trauma and even death.
The practice is mostly carried out by traditional circumcisers, who often play other central roles in communities, such as attending childbirths. Increasingly, however, FGM is being performed by health care providers.
An estimated 100 to 140 million girls and women worldwide are currently living with the consequences of FGM. (World Health Organisation figures)
MORE ABOUT FGM
FEBRUARY 6, 2018
WORLD HEALTH ORGANISATION
Female genital mutilation (FGM) comprises all procedures involving partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. It has no health benefits and harms girls and women in many ways.
Beyond FGM is a UK registered charity working at grass roots with Kepsteno Rotwo
a community based organisation in Pokot, kenya to eradicate FGM.
MORE ABOUT US IN THE NEWS
THE MIDWIFE ON A MISSION TO STOP FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION - THE GUARDIAN
APRIL 15, 2011
It feels incongruous to be sitting in a cafe in Kendal – a town they call "the gateway to the Lake District" – discussing women's rights in the Rift Valley. And yet it couldn't be more relevant: because Cath Holland, the down-to-earth Lancashire midwife I'm with, has managed almost singlehandedly, and in her spare time, on a tiny budget, to steer an entire province of northern Kenya towards eradicating a practice that surely rates as the most extreme example of male domination today...
