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Daughters of Somalia, a continuous pledge to end female genital mutilation

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Girls participate in an event at their school in Garowe, Puntland, during which Y-PEER explains the harmful effects of FGM. UNFPA Somalia/Tobin Jones

In Somalia, over 90 per cent or more of girls and women, have been subjected to female genital mutilation, or FGM. Despite the practice having devastating health ramifications for women and girls – including pain, bleeding, permanent disability and even death – discussion over how to end the harmful tradition, remains taboo.

The United Nations has called for collaboration at all levels, and across all sectors of society across the world, to protect millions at risk from FGM every year.

As the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation is marked on 6 February, the UN sexual and reproductive health agency, UNFPA, continues to lead the UN effort to end FGM.

Dear Daughters

Last fall, and in collaboration with the Ifrah Foundation, the UN agency launched the Dear Daughter campaign, as part of the effort to end FGM once and for all. The idea is to get individual parents not to cut their daughters. Through letter-writing, they pledge instead, to protect them, and support their right to govern their own bodies.

‘Dear Daughter’ works towards ending FGM in Somalia, which has one of the highest prevalence rates of the practice in the world. To date, 100 Somali mothers have signed the pledge.

By targeting rural and urban individuals and communities, that are making an extraordinary commitment, to change the FGM narrative. For Nkiru I. Igbokwe, gender-based violence specialist at UNFPA in Somalia, it is “accelerating the voices of women and men alike, to end FGM in the country”.

As part of the campaign, women living in an internally displaced persons (IDP) camp on the outskirts of the capital Mogadishu – home to 280 households that fled Danunay village nearly 250 kilometres away, due to insurgent violence – have been learning about the harmful effects of FGM.

Halima*, 50, a mother of five daughters and five sons, was among them. As a camp gatekeeper and a community member with influence, she was identified as someone who could advocate to help end the harmful practice that she and her first daughter had also endured.

Flashbacks

Like so many other women in her community, Halima underwent FGM as a child, subjecting her to lifelong health problems.

“The procedure was painful, with no anesthesia. I bled for days,” she recalled. “I was in bed for more than three months and urinating was a problem”.

When Halima reached adolescence, passing menstrual blood was also difficult, and as a newlywed, sex with her husband was a painful experience. When she became an expectant mother, childbirth was excruciating with labour lasting for days, putting her life at risk.

Despite her suffering, Halima allowed her first daughter to be cut, just like her mother had done.

‘She felt the pain’

“My daughter underwent the Sunna type of FGM (removal of part or all of the clitoris), and she felt the pain I have been through,” Halima said. But because it was not the more severe ‘pharaonic’ procedure (stitching the opening closed), people insulted them, she said, saying her daughter was unclean. 

The World Health Organization (WHO) is opposed to all types of FGM and is opposed to health care providers performing FGM.

“Throughout the training course, I had flashback memories of how the practice has badly impacted my life,” she said. 

Three years ago, a young girl in the same camp died as a result of FGM, and Halima started galvanizing the community, to try and make sure the tragedy is never repeated.

Changing the future for Somali girls

The Ifrah Foundation, together with the Global Media Campaign to End FGM, distributed UNFPA-supplied radio transmitters to 100 households so residents could listen to awareness campaigns and information.

“It has been a long-standing dream of mine to work to save girls from the unnecessary pain and suffering I endured as a result of FGM,” said survivor Ifrah Ahmed, founder of the foundation that bears her name. “Halima is an example of how we can change the future for all Somali girls”, she added.

Halima’s advocacy has expanded beyond FGM. She encourages pregnant and lactating mothers to visit health centres and raises awareness over sexual and gender-based violence.

She also notes that community members used to stay silent about rape due to fear of stigmatization, but now they seek help.

According to UNFPA, because of her leadership, almost 100 mothers have pledged not to practice female genital mutilation, sparing about 200 girls in the settlement.

“I don’t want my other daughters and other young girls to go through the pain we have gone through,” Halima said.

The numbers across the world

According to WHO, more than 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia, where FGM is practiced.

Only in Somalia, based on the 2020 Somali Health and Demographic Survey, 99 per cent of women aged 15 to 49 in Somalia, have been subjected to FGM, the majority between ages five and nine. The survey also reports that 72 per cent of women believe it is an Islamic requirement, though some religious leaders have said Islam actually condemns it.

In 2020, UNFPA provided 52,225 Somali women and girls protection, prevention or care services related to female genital mutilation. While there is no national legislation outlawing the practice, Puntland state passed a FGM Zero Tolerance Bill last year. 

This year, WHO will launch a training manual on person-centered communication, a counselling approach that encourages health care providers to challenge their FGM-related attitudes, and build their communication skills to effectively provide FGM prevention counselling.

COVID-19 challenges

The COVID-19 pandemic has increased the risk of female genital mutilation continuing unfettered, with the UN predicting than an additional two million girls will be victimized in the next ten years.

Prolonged school closures have provided cover for girls recovering from FGM. In addition, movement restrictions have prevented campaigners against FGM from accessing some villages.

In 2018, it was estimated by UNFPA that globally 68 million girls were at risk; now the figure stands at 70 million.

*The name in the story has been changed for privacy and protection.

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Assad-Xi Jinping meeting: China-Syria strategic partnership

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Image source: Xinhua

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad on Friday jointly announced the establishment of a China-Syria strategic partnership, Chinese Xinhua Net informs.

The two presidents met in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, ahead of the opening of the 19th Asian Games.

Syria was one of the first Arab countries that established diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China, and was one of the countries that co-sponsored the resolution to restore the lawful seat of the People’s Republic of China in the United Nations, Xi said.

Over the 67 years since the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, the China-Syria relationship has stood the test of changes in the international situation, and their friendship has grown stronger over time, he said.

Xi noted that the establishment of the strategic partnership will be an important milestone in the history of bilateral ties.

China is willing to work with Syria to enrich their relationship and continuously advance the China-Syria strategic partnership, Xi said.

Xi emphasized that China will continue to work with Syria to firmly support each other on issues concerning the two sides’ respective core interests and major concerns, safeguard the common interests of both countries and other developing countries, and uphold international fairness and justice.

China supports Syria in opposing foreign interference, rejecting unilateralism and bullying, and safeguarding national independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity, he said.

China supports Syria in conducting reconstruction, enhancing counter-terrorism capacity building, and promoting a political settlement of the Syrian issue following the “Syrian-led, Syrian-owned” principle, Xi said.

China also supports Syria in improving its relations with other Arab countries and playing a greater role in international and regional affairs, he added.

China is willing to strengthen Belt and Road cooperation with Syria, increase the import of high-quality agricultural products from Syria, and jointly implement the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative to make active contributions to regional and global peace and development.

Assad said that in international affairs, China has always aligned itself with international fairness and justice, and upheld international law and humanitarianism, playing an important and constructive role.

Syria highly appreciates and firmly supports the Belt and Road Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative and the Global Civilization Initiative, and will actively participate in them, Assad added.

The Syrian side thanks the Chinese government for its invaluable support to the Syrian people, firmly opposes any act of interference in China’s internal affairs, and is willing to be China’s long-term and staunch friend and partner, he said.

Assad said Syria will take the establishment of the Syria-China strategic partnership as an opportunity to strengthen bilateral friendly cooperation and step up their communication and coordination in international and regional affairs.

After the talks, the two heads of state witnessed the signing of bilateral cooperation documents in areas including Belt and Road cooperation, and economic and technological cooperation.

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Seymour Hersh: “Zelensky’s army no longer has any chance of a victory”

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In Kramatorsk, rescues dismantle rubble of a residential building destroyed by Russian missile on February 1, 2023. By Serhii Korovainyi

Next Tuesday will be the anniversary of the Biden administration’s destruction of three of the four pipelines of Nord Stream 1 and 2. There is more I have to say about it, but it will have to wait. Why? Because the war between Russia and Ukraine, with the White House continuing to reject any talk of a ceasefire, is at a turning point, writes Seymour Hersh, a famous American investigative journalist.

There are significant elements in the American intelligence community, relying on field reports and technical intelligence, who believe that the demoralized Ukraine army has given up on the possibility of overcoming the heavily mined three-tier Russian defense lines and taking the war to Crimea and the four oblasts seized and annexed by Russia.

The reality is that Volodymyr Zelensky’s battered army no longer has any chance of a victory.

The war continues, I have been told by an official with access to current intelligence, because Zelensky insists that it must. There is no discussion in his headquarters or in the Biden White House of a ceasefire and no interest in talks that could lead to an end to the slaughter. “It’s all lies,” the official said, speaking of the Ukrainian claims of incremental progress in the offensive that has suffered staggering losses, while gaining ground in a few scattered areas that the Ukrainian military measures in meters per week.

“There were some early Ukrainian penetrations in the opening days of the June offensive,” the official said, “at or near” the heavily trapped first of Russia’s three formidable concrete barriers of defense, “and the Russians retreated to sucker them in. And they all got killed.” After weeks of high casualties and little progress, along with horrific losses to tanks and armored vehicles, he said, major elements of the Ukrainian army, without declaring so, virtually canceled the offensive. The two villages that the Ukrainian army recently claimed as captured “are so tiny that they couldn’t fit between two Burma-Shave signs” — referring to billboards that seemed to be on every American highway after World War II.

Zelensky’s message this week to the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York offered little new and, the Washington Post reported, he received the obligatory “warm welcome” from those in attendance. But, the Post noted, “he delivered his address to a half-full house, with many delegations declining to appear and listen to what he had to say.” Leaders of some developing nations, the report added, were “frustrated” that the multiple billions being spent without serious accountability by the Biden administration to finance the Ukraine war was diminishing support for their own struggles to deal with “a warming world, confronting poverty and ensuring a more secure life for their citizens.”

President Biden, in his earlier speech to the General Assembly, did not deal with Ukraine’s perilous position in the war with Russia but renewed his resounding support for Ukraine.

Biden, with the support of Secretary Blinken and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan — but diminishing support elsewhere in America — has turned his unrelenting financial and moral support for the Ukraine war into a do-or-die issue for his re-election.

The American intelligence official I spoke with spent the early years of his career working against Soviet aggression and spying has respect for Putin’s intellect but contempt for his decision to go to war with Ukraine and to initiate the death and destruction that war brings. But, as he told me, “The war is over. Russia has won. There is no Ukrainian offensive anymore, but the White House and the American media have to keep the lie going. The truth is if the Ukrainian army is ordered to continue the offensive, the army would mutiny. The soldiers aren’t willing to die any more, but this doesn’t fit the B.S. that is being authored by the Biden White House,” Seymour Hersh concludes.

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Biden UN speech: no Ukraine compromise, negotiation

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President Joseph R. Biden of the United States of America addresses the general debate of the General Assembly. UN Photo/Cia Pak

President Joe Biden gave an address to the United Nations General Assembly on September 20th. The speech was a disaster, stresses Stephen Bryen at Asia Times. Putting aside Biden’s slurred words, the message from Biden is there will be no compromise at all when it comes to Ukraine.

By saying that the US will “not allow Ukraine to be carved up” Biden is claiming that there can be no territorial compromise in respect to Ukraine.

Virtually every peace plan put forward by numerous parties has foreseen territorial compromise as the only way a solution can be found. Even the Minsk Agreements, which Ukraine signed in 2014 and again in 2015, allowed for compromise on territory.

Ruling out territorial compromise is a message that already is understood in Russia. Russia is fighting the Ukraine war because, in its view, it wants to (a) protect the Russian speaking population of Ukraine and (b) to keep NATO out.

NATO’s presence in Ukraine is a Russian red line.

In respect to the first, protecting the Russian speaking population, this applies to the recently returned to Russia parts of Ukraine – Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaphorize and Kherson. Previously Russia returned Crimea as its historic part and held a plebiscite.

As a practical matter, there is no chance that Ukraine has any ability to retake any significant part of these annexed areas. Almost all the fighting along the contact line, especially since the start of Ukraine’s counter-offensive, has been about a Ukrainian attempt to break Russia’s first line of defense protecting these territories. Today there is a consensus that the counter-offensive has failed to achieve any meaningful results other than to kill tens of thousands of Ukrainians and chew up billions of dollars of western military assistance.

Biden had nothing to say about NATO and Ukrainian membership, even though for Russia this has been a red line from the start, and it was NATO’s buildup of Ukrainian forces that triggered the Russian special military operation in the first place. The Russians declared many warnings to the United States and NATO about NATO’s presence in Ukraine, as late as more than a month before Russian troops crossed into Ukrainian territory. The US and NATO refused to have any discussion with Russia on the subject.

Biden did not discuss any peace process other than saying that Russia can do what Zelensky has demanded, namely leave Ukrainian territory and accept punishment of its military and civilian leaders for alleged war crimes.

Meanwhile the US and its allies have been working overtime to destabilize Russia by promoting attacks from Ukraine on Russian territory, assassinations and bombings in Russia, and sabotage inside Russian territory. These measures have triggered calls in Russia for the use of nuclear weapons as a way of terminating the Ukraine war and erasing Ukraine from the map.

Russia continues its military buildup, including enlarging its army and producing more weapons and ammunition. NATO and the United States’ massive support for Ukraine has changed the strategic landscape in Europe. From Russia’s point of view, it is involved in a war against NATO with Ukraine as the proxy. There is, unfortunately, a point where the proxy fails and where the war’s backers decide to put their own troops on the front line. There already are NATO “advisers” in Ukraine, as US “advisers” once were in Vietnam before the US sent in the Marines and the Army.

If Biden is reelected, it is almost a certainty he will send in US troops to try and “save” Ukraine. In turn that will mean war in Europe.

One of the questions is how long Russia can accept attacks on its territory. The US wants to step up these attacks, as Victoria Nuland has made clear. Such measures are not going to tame the Russians. To the contrary, the Russians will put even more pressure on Ukraine, and may start to strike US and NATO assets elsewhere.

Unfortunately Biden’s speech was a disaster from the point of view of finding a peaceful solution for Ukraine. Probably the speech was intended to help his reelection, notes Asia Times.

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