The World Health Organization (WHO) announced on Monday, April 28 that he wanted to establish a code of conduct that prohibits health professionals from practicing female genital mutilation (MGF), which still concerns 4 million girls every year.
When publishing new guidelines on how to end female genital mutilation, WHO highlighted the important role played by health professionals in detecting this practice to a large extent condemned and in the support provided to survivors.
However, he pointed out that convincing elements suggested that, in several regions of the world, health professionals themselves were often called to practice intervention, instead of the local communities that do it.
230 million girls and women have undergone this practice
“Female genital mutilations constitute a serious violation of the rights of girls and seriously put their health,” said Pascale Allotey, health and sexual research manager.
“Health professionals must be agents of change instead of authors of this harmful practice and must also provide high quality medical care to those who suffer the effects,” he added.
The MGF implies the partial or total elimination of women’s external genitals or other injuries to female genital organs. They can lead to serious health problems, which include infections, hemorrhages, sterility and complications during childbirth.
According to UN women, it is estimated that 230 million girls and women lives today have suffered one, the MGFs are generally practiced in girls before reaching puberty.
Considerable efforts have been made to end this traumatic and painful procedure, which is linked to cultural standards and has no advantage for health.
According to WHO, the probability that a girl has suffered this procedure has been divided by three since 1990.
Doctors commitment, “a key element”
However, this practice remains common in around thirty countries, and about four million young people are still exposed to this risk every year.
WHO said the medicalization of MGFS probably “legitimizes practice involuntarily”, thus compromising the efforts made to eradicate it. In their new guidelines, he requests that professional management codes expressly prohibit health professionals from practicing these MGF.
“Research shows that health professionals can be influential opinion leaders to develop mentalities in MGFS,” said Christina Pallitto, a WHO scientist who directed the development of this new code.
“The commitment of doctors, nurses and midwives should be a key element in prevention and fight against female genital mutilation,” he said.
Emphasizing the wide variety of short and long term health problems caused by this practice, who recalled that “survivors may need a variety of health services at different stages of their lives, ranging from mental health care to obstetric risk management and, if necessary, surgical repairs.”
Source: BFM TV
