MALI

• Attempts to ban FGM in Mali (namely the 2017 Ministry for the Advancement of Women, Children, and the Family) has faced continued objections, particularly from high-profile religious leaders who support the practice.
• Cosmopolitanism Framework

  • Mali ratified CEDAW in 1985 and acceded to the Optional Protocol in 2000.
  • The Government proposed bills to prohibit FGM and gender-based violence on several occasions between 2002 to 2017 but failed to adopt the draft bills due to opposition from religious leaders.
• • In a 2018 report, the Committee found that Mali failed to comply with its obligation to adopt and enforce a law prohibiting FGM, thereby violating the right of Malian women to live free from gender-based violence and discrimination.
  • The Committee made 31 recommendations for action. These include laws on the prevention and punishment of gender-based violence.
  • Committee members visited Mali in December 2018 to conduct an inquiry into allegations by NGOs that women in Mali had been subjected to FGM, and that there had been little progress in eliminating it.
• • The Committee received the full cooperation of the Government of Mali and it remains ready to continue to work with government, religious and community leaders and other stakeholders in the implementation of the national programme to combat FGM.
• REALIST FRAMEWORK

  CEDAW said in June 2020 that the failure to criminalise FGM was putting the lives of girls and women in Mali, as well as from neighbouring states, at risk. It voiced concerns over the transnational nature of FGM with reports of girls from Burkina Faso, Benin, Guinea and Togo that prohibit FGM being taken to Mali to undergo the procedure.
• BERKELEY JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

  • Parties have cited religious, cultural and legal reasons for being unable to abide by the provisions. As a result, a party can evade accountability in practices such as FGM.
  • FGM/C Research Intiative: 70% of women and 68% of men between these aforementioned aged believe the FGM is a requirement of their religion. 
  • CEDAW does not address FGM, and therefore Mali has failed to criminalise FGM.
• • It was not until a 2020 Committee report that the Comittee condemned Mali’s failure to criminalise FGM. 
  • Millions of women and girls in Mali are subjected to ‘grave and systematic violations of rights’ through FGM.
• • According to UNICEF, in Mali, nearly eight million girls and women have undergone FGM
  • Fewer than one in five girls and women think that FGM should stop, and opposition is even lower among boys and men. 
  • FGM is mostly likely to occur before the age of five.