With over 90 per cent of girls and woman subjected to the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), the authorities in Somalia have said they will prosecute those responsible for the death of Deeqa Dahir Nuur, a 10-year-old girl who bled to death recently after the exercise.
The prosecution, if taken, would be the first of its kind in Somalia.
The move comes amid efforts this week, involving a number of Irish campaigners in Somalia, to build local alliances against FGM.
A week-long campaign was launched on recently in Mogadishu by the Somali-born Irishwoman, Ifrah Ahmed, whose Ifrah Foundation is working with the London-based Global Media Campaign Against FGM, run by the former journalist Maggie O’Kane, and supported by Irish and other EU diplomats in eastern Africa.
The campaign is seeking to enlist the support of local religious leaders for a so-called zero tolerance approach to FGM, and also using local media and medics to convince parents to cease subjecting their daughters to the practice. FGM has no medical benefit and predates both Islam and Christianity, but is linked to efforts to control female sexuality and reproduction.
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The death of Nuur days before the launch of the campaign received media attention in Somalia and internationally.
The girl had FGM performed on her on Sunday 15th July and died two days later from blood loss and further complications caused by tetanus.
The cut is understood to have severed artery – not a vein as earlier reported – leading to severe blood loss and tetanus. Deequ Dahir Nuur was cut in a “ceremony” with her three sisters, two were older and one younger.
According to sources in Somalia, all four were all subjected to the most extreme form of FGM which is the complete removal of the clitoris and labia using a knife or razor blade.