ADDIS ABABA, 31 July 2007 (IRIN) – The number of girls and women who undergo female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) has declined in Ethiopia’s Southern Regional State, and could be reduced further if stronger penalties were enforced, an NGO leader said.
“Previously people did not even mention FGM/C; it was a taboo,” said Bogaletch Gebre, executive director of Kembatta Women’s Self-Help Centre, a local NGO engaged in educating the public in Kembatta, Alaba and Tembaro zones.
According to official statistics, FGM/C prevalence in the state decreased from 80 percent in 2000 to 74 percent in 2005. Bogaletch said this could improve with legal reform.
“The law in our country is very weak and not a deterrent,” she said. “When this happens, people are not afraid of breaking it. My life as a woman is not worth more than 500 Birr [US$55].”
Under the Ethiopian Penal Code, FGM/C carries a punishment of imprisonment of not less than three months or a fine of not less than 500 Birr.
“Ethiopia is a signatory to many international laws, but has not yet ratified the Maputo protocol,” she told IRIN in the capital, Addis Ababa, on the sidelines of an African consultative meeting on FGM/C.
The Maputo Protocol came into force in November 2005 and is an African initiative that prohibits and condemns FGM/C. As a result, 16 African countries have banned the practice.
The consultative meeting heard that the occurrence of FGM has reduced in several other African countries.
“Prevalence decline is visible in countries like Kenya, Eritrea, Mali and Nigeria where anti-FGM/C interventions have been going for some years,” said Fama Hane Ba, African Division Director at the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). “This is good news.”
FGM/C, which involves the partial or total removal or injury to the female genitalia, is practised as a deterrent to promiscuity in some African communities.
”Prevalence decline is visible in countries like Kenya, Eritrea, Mali and Nigeria where anti-FGM/C interventions have been going on for some years”
Hane Ba said the majority of women at risk are in 28 African countries. “An estimated 120 to 140 million women and girls have also been subjected to the FGM/C practice throughout the world,” she said.
She added: “It is encouraging to note that many organisations are implementing innovative programmatic strategies combining law enforcement and culturally sensitive approaches to sustain behavioural change.”
Community dialogue, alternative rites of passage ceremonies, role modelling by families and consensus-building among communities were cited as achieving positive results in Burkina Faso, Senegal, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya and Egypt.
“Community dialogue uses a wide range of participatory methodologies and culturally sensitive advocacy strategies, such as story-telling, active listening and strategic questioning to generate a deep and complex understanding of the nature of FGM/C,” Hane Ba said. “Through this process, many communities are saying ‘no’ to FGM/C.”
ADDIS ABABA, 31 July 2007 (IRIN) – The number of girls and women who undergo female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) has declined in Ethiopia’s Southern Regional State, and could be reduced further if stronger penalties were enforced, an NGO leader said.
“Previously people did not even mention FGM/C; it was a taboo,” said Bogaletch Gebre, executive director of Kembatta Women’s Self-Help Centre, a local NGO engaged in educating the public in Kembatta, Alaba and Tembaro zones.
According to official statistics, FGM/C prevalence in the state decreased from 80 percent in 2000 to 74 percent in 2005. Bogaletch said this could improve with legal reform.
“The law in our country is very weak and not a deterrent,” she said. “When this happens, people are not afraid of breaking it. My life as a woman is not worth more than 500 Birr [US$55].”
Under the Ethiopian Penal Code, FGM/C carries a punishment of imprisonment of not less than three months or a fine of not less than 500 Birr.
“Ethiopia is a signatory to many international laws, but has not yet ratified the Maputo protocol,” she told IRIN in the capital, Addis Ababa, on the sidelines of an African consultative meeting on FGM/C.
The Maputo Protocol came into force in November 2005 and is an African initiative that prohibits and condemns FGM/C. As a result, 16 African countries have banned the practice.
The consultative meeting heard that the occurrence of FGM has reduced in several other African countries.
“Prevalence decline is visible in countries like Kenya, Eritrea, Mali and Nigeria where anti-FGM/C interventions have been going for some years,” said Fama Hane Ba, African Division Director at the UN Population Fund (UNFPA). “This is good news.”
FGM/C, which involves the partial or total removal or injury to the female genitalia, is practised as a deterrent to promiscuity in some African communities.
”Prevalence decline is visible in countries like Kenya, Eritrea, Mali and Nigeria where anti-FGM/C interventions have been going on for some years”
Hane Ba said the majority of women at risk are in 28 African countries. “An estimated 120 to 140 million women and girls have also been subjected to the FGM/C practice throughout the world,” she said.
She added: “It is encouraging to note that many organisations are implementing innovative programmatic strategies combining law enforcement and culturally sensitive approaches to sustain behavioural change.”
Community dialogue, alternative rites of passage ceremonies, role modelling by families and consensus-building among communities were cited as achieving positive results in Burkina Faso, Senegal, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Uganda, Kenya and Egypt.
“Community dialogue uses a wide range of participatory methodologies and culturally sensitive advocacy strategies, such as story-telling, active listening and strategic questioning to generate a deep and complex understanding of the nature of FGM/C,” Hane Ba said. “Through this process, many communities are saying ‘no’ to FGM/C.”
New York, July 10, 2007—For the first time in his illustrious career, Ethiopian distance legend Haile Gebrselassie will race in the bright lights of New York City. He will run the NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE on Sunday, August 5, it was announced today by New York Road Runners president and CEO Mary Wittenberg.
“Haile is an all-time great, combining those rare abilities of being a champion on the road and track and off as a goodwill ambassador for our sport,” Wittenberg said. “His running in New York is as historic as when soccer legend Pelé came to New York to play in the final stages of his fabulous career.”
In just its second year, the NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE has immediately established itself as a must-run event for the world’s leading men and women professionals, and the 2007 race will have a sold-out field of more than 10,000 runners from around the world.
“Haile’s running here serves notice to the world that the NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE is the half to run—similar to our city’s great marathon,” Wittenberg said.
Widely considered the greatest distance runner of all time, Gebrselassie, 34, has won all seven of his previous 13.1-mile races, including a world-record 58 minutes, 55 seconds in 2006 in Tempe, AZ, the last time he competed in the United States. (The record was later broken by Samuel Wanjiru of Kenya.) The 1996 and 2000 Olympic 10,000-meter gold medalist has won 107 races in 55 different cities, only three of which (Atlanta, Boston, and Tempe) have been in the United States.
Gebrselassie is fresh off a double-world-record effort on June 27, having established world bests for the one-hour run and 20,000 meters on the track at the Golden Spike Grand Prix in Ostrava, Czech Republic. He has now set 24 world records in his career.
“I’m so happy to run my first half-marathon in the Big Apple next month. I’m sure I will like the race and the atmosphere,” said Gebrselassie, who has resumed training at home in Ethiopia. “Who knows which races in New York might follow in the future?”
Gebrselassie is the first professional athlete announced for the NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE, which will serve as a tune-up for many of the international runners also competing at the IAAF Track & Field World Championships, to be held August 25–September 1 in Osaka, Japan. Athletes will be racing in New York for a prize purse of more than $70,000, with the male and female winners each receiving $10,000.
A nine-time world champion, Gebrselassie has focused on road racing and the marathon since the 2004 Olympic Games, and he captured his first title in a World Marathon Majors race in Berlin in 2006. He has also claimed marathon victories in Fukuoka, Japan (2006), and Amsterdam (2005).
On a course designed to celebrate New York City, the NYC Half-Marathon Presented by NIKE will take runners on a loop through Central Park, down Seventh Avenue through Times Square, across 42nd Street, and along the expansive West Side Highway to Battery Park in the heart of the city’s financial district, finishing with a view of the Statue of Liberty.
New York Road Runners is working in collaboration with the Mayor’s Office, City of New York Parks & Recreation, NYC & Company, New York City Sports Commission, New York City Police Department, Department of Transportation, Department of Sanitation, New York City Fire Department, and all the other city agencies that help throughout the year to produce its world-class events.
New York Road Runners
New York Road Runners, soon to celebrate its 50th anniversary, is dedicated to promoting the sport of distance running, enhancing health and fitness for all, and responding to community needs. Our road races and other fitness programs draw upwards of 300,000 runners annually, and together with our magazine and website support and promote professional and recreational running. A staff of more than 100, assisted by thousands of volunteers, stages the ING New York City Marathon, as well as a road race nearly every weekend plus many track and cross country events. NYRR’s home base in New York, and its lifelong identification with Central Park, have given many of its events iconic status, attracting the world’s top professional runners. Our youth programs provide running to 25,000 schoolchildren in New York City and around the country who would otherwise have few or no fitness opportunities.
Visiting British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Monday that he and President Bush will step up pressure to end violence in Sudan’s Darfur province. Brown, who and President Bush wrapped up two days of talks Monday in the United States, said they agreed to expedite the UN resolution for a joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force for Darfur. Congressman Donald Payne is chairman of the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Africa and Global Health. He told VOA he hopes the new breed of European leaders would force the United States to do more about Darfur.“I hope that the new prime minister of Great Britain and the new president in France have both taken a very strong interest, and this is a good sign, if we could get the Europeans more engaged to put pressure on and push our government. The members of Congress want to go further, but we’ve seen the administration sort of slow down once again because Sudan is supposed to be assisting us against al-Qaeda, they claim,” he said.Congressman Payne said the United States was once again looking the other way while thousands continue to die in Darfur.“Once again, we are looking the other way as people die because one issue is supposed to be paramount to this so-called war on terror. We cannot compromise all the principles for people we consider to be our allies because they say they support the war on terror,” Payne saidCongressman Payne called for a boycott of the 2008 Summer Olympics if China does not stop selling what he called illegal arms to Sudan.“We must keep the pressure on China. I’d like to even see, if they continue to sell illegal arms to the government, that we should have a boycott of the Olympics in Beijing in ’08. It would be the blood Olympics, and we can’t let them have it both ways,” Payne said.Payne, who also sponsored the Ethiopia Freedom, Democracy, and Human Rights Advancement Act of 2007 last month, said Congress was pleased about the recent release from prison of 38 opposition politicians.But he said the United States must keep up the pressure on the Ethiopian government.“There are hundreds of more political prisoners, and the United States needs to keep pressure on Ethiopia as we would on any other country that’s our ally and friend, to tell them that they must respect the rights of their people. We cannot go back to the days of the Cold War where we supported totalitarian governments just because they were on our side because in the long run you lose,” he said.
On Zimbabwe, Congressman Payne hoped that the Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries would prevail on President Robert Mugabe to relinquish what he called his strangle hold on his people.
“Mr. Mugabe has just turned his back on many of us who have been trying to help Zimbabwe. And so something has to happen. The country cannot exist much longer in the manner in which he is running it,” Payne said.
ETHIOPIAN Airlines has purchased one MD-11 from Boeing for conversion. The aircraft will be delivered to Ethiopian in December 2008.
Ethiopian is also negotiating for a second converted MD-11 freighter aircraft on a lease basis scheduled for delivery at the end of 2009. Ethiopian currently operates two B757 freighters.
“Currently, the Ethiopian export market is exhibiting a dramatic annual average growth rate and ET’s total international freight traffic uplift has been increasing at 12.03 per cent annually. The addition of these two freighter aircraft will bolster cargo capacity of the airline supporting the increasing export market of the country.”
Ethiopian Cargo provides services to and from various points in Europe, Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Ethiopian operates eight times per week en route Brussels, the airlines cargo hub in Europe; five times a week to Dubai; four times to Djibouti; three times to Mumbai; two times to Lagos; Kinshasa and flies weekly to Bujumbura, N’djamena, Jeddah and Kigali, in addition to belly-hold cargo space on scheduled passenger services.
Butty interview with Payne