Throughout the Americas, hundreds of thousands of women and girls are living with or have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM). These affected populations are residents and residents of nations the place protections are incomplete, completely targeted on criminalisation, inconsistently enforced, or completely absent.
FGM will not be a “overseas” difficulty. It’s a human rights violation unfolding inside nationwide borders, one that each one governments within the Americas have the authorized and ethical accountability to deal with.
Glimmers of progress are starting to emerge throughout the area. On April 28, 2026, Connecticut state legislators in the US handed a invoice banning FGM and strengthening protections for survivors throughout the state, a long-awaited victory for survivors and advocates who’ve spent years calling for motion.
As regional governing mechanisms, just like the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), begin to formally recognise FGM as a human rights issue within the Americas, states have extra concrete steering on their obligations to take motion to stop and eradicate this type of violence towards girls and ladies.
An underrepresented actuality for a whole bunch of hundreds of women
Feminine genital mutilation (FGM), which affects more than 230 million women and girls worldwide, is a grave human rights violation deeply rooted in gender inequality and discrimination. FGM refers back to the partial or complete removing or different damage to feminine genital organs for non-medical causes.
Throughout the Americas, FGM stays a hidden, poorly documented, and largely ignored follow impacting greater than 700,000 women and girls. Though progress has been made all through the hemisphere to fight numerous types of gender-based violence, FGM has remained on the margins of public consideration and safety insurance policies.
The incidence of this dangerous follow is formally recognised in the US, Canada, and Colombia, but none of those nations has a complete authorized framework to deal with it. Whereas the US and Canada have federal felony legal guidelines, neither nation has devoted prevention or instructional provisions. On the state degree within the US, whereas 41 states have enacted particular laws, these legal guidelines fluctuate significantly of their scope and degree of comprehensiveness, and 9 states nonetheless lack any focused authorized protections. In Colombia, regardless of rising recognition and advocacy, there may be at the moment no nationwide regulation addressing FGM.
Throughout Latin America and the Caribbean, the place knowledge gaps depart the total extent of the follow virtually completely unmeasured, a persistent fantasy frames FGM as solely an African or Asian phenomenon with no presence within the area. In North America, two parallel misconceptions hinder progress: that FGM is a “global south” problem or that it’s confined to particular Indigenous or diaspora communities and subsequently doesn’t require a complete nationwide coverage response.
These misconceptions contribute to the invisibility of the difficulty and reinforce the shortage of efficient measures for its prevention and elimination.
Worldwide human rights mechanisms communicate up
FGM has lengthy been recognised globally as a extreme type of gender-based violence and a violation of ladies’s and ladies’ human rights. Equality Now and its companions have collated evidence of FGM in 94 countries, together with the US, Colombia, and Canada. Solely 59 of these nations have a selected regulation prohibiting FGM, and appreciable enchancment is required to make sure higher entry to justice and help for survivors.
Quite a few human rights mechanisms, together with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the Istanbul Convention, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, affirm that states have a legal and moral duty to prohibit FGM, forestall, and supply survivor-centred help providers.
In March 2026, the IACHR, the important thing regional physique of the Group of American States (OAS), charged with defending human rights throughout the Americas, grew to become the most recent inter-regional mechanism to formally recognise the presence of FGM in the Americas and referred to as on states to take complete motion.
Grounded in states’ obligations beneath the Belém do Pará Convention and the American Convention on Human Rights, the Fee urged governments to advertise dialogue with communities to drive sociocultural change, and to strengthen authorized and coverage frameworks that guarantee early detection, survivor-centered care, and entry to providers, all grounded in intercultural, gender-responsive approaches and backed by sustained funding.
This landmark acknowledgement adopted the first-ever dedicated thematic hearing held by an international human rights mechanism focused on FGM/C in the Americas, simply 4 months prior. The general public announcement by the IACHR has the potential to redefine how FGM is known beneath regional regulation, situate the violation throughout the regional human rights framework, and demand coordinated State motion, accountability, and recognition that each girl and woman has the best to dwell free from this type of gender primarily based violence.
As we method the tip of legislative periods the place pending FGM laws has been proposed throughout the Americas, we should acknowledge the narrowing window for governments to behave.
The present standing of anti-FGM laws within the Americas
Throughout the Americas, momentum is mounting to enact anti-FGM laws.
The newest on anti-FGM laws within the United States
No less than 577,000 girls and ladies are estimated to be in danger or affected by FGM. Federal regulation at the moment prohibits the violation by the STOP FGM Act, although latest proposals comparable to Congressional Bill H.R. 3492 wrongly conflate FGM with gender-affirming care and dangers undermining enforcement of anti-FGM protections for survivors nationally.
These developments have sparked an extra drive towards state-level motion to comprehensively defend towards the follow. Particular person state businesses and officers have far higher capability than federal authorities to immediately help girls and ladies in native communities. An interactive map by Equality Now and the U.S. Finish FGM/C Community shares FGM/C legal provisions and gaps in every US state.
The scenario in Connecticut
In a long-awaited landmark vote, Connecticut legislators unanimously handed Senate Bill 259 on April 28, 2026. After years of sustained advocacy by survivors, FGM advocates, civil society organisations, well being consultants, and authorized coverage consultants, as soon as enacted, Connecticut can be one step nearer to aligning its state laws with worldwide human rights requirements.
Beforehand, legislators and advocates made six unsuccessful makes an attempt to go a regulation addressing FGM within the state. Proposed payments in 2018, 2020, and 2021 aimed toward prohibiting FGM or finding out its prevalence didn’t progress past the committee stage, whereas in 2019, a invoice was rejected by the State Senate. In 2024, a drafted invoice didn’t be launched, and in 2025, a invoice was by no means raised to the Home flooring for a vote in the course of the legislative session.
Senate Invoice 259 will finally establish a state-level ban and provide essential protections for thousands of survivors and ladies in danger by establishing the crime of feminine genital mutilation in Connecticut and setting larger safeguards for women. The invoice would additionally:
- Authorise a civil motion inside 30 years after the sufferer reaches age 18;
- Enable testimony exterior the courtroom for victims aged 12 or youthful;
- Prohibit a sufferer from being mechanically deemed incompetent to testify due to age;
- Waive parent-child immunity in FGM instances, enabling authorized representatives to safe needed parental testimony;
The newest on anti-FGM laws in Colombia
Legislators have till 20 June 2026 to enact Proyecto de Ley No. 440 de 2025 Senado-018 de 2024 Cámara, a invoice that may set up the primary particular authorized framework towards FGM in Latin America.
The invoice combines prevention, intercultural schooling, obligatory well being protocols, and knowledge assortment obligations, reflecting a complete, survivor-centred, and intersectional method developed in shut collaboration with Indigenous girls leaders whose communities are most affected by the follow.
Authorities well being knowledge exhibits that FGM disproportionately affects Indigenous girls in Colombia. Between 2020 and 2025, 204 instances had been documented nationwide, 177 of them involving Indigenous ladies, primarily within the departments of Risaralda and Chocó. Specialists warn that such figures considerably underestimate the true prevalence resulting from persistent underreporting of FGM. With out correct knowledge, assessing the extent of the issue and designing applicable responses is difficult.
In March 2026, the Senate’s First Fee authorized the invoice in its third debate, solidifying a big step ahead after years of advocacy. Now, consideration turns to the Senate plenary, the place the ultimate vote will determine whether or not it turns into regulation. For Indigenous girls leaders, advocates, and communities who’ve lengthy referred to as for motion, the tip of this legislative session can be their defining second.
The newest on anti-FGM laws in Canada
The End FGM Canada Network estimates there are more than 100,000 survivors of FGM/C. Nonetheless, publicly accessible knowledge estimating the size of the issue throughout the nation stays scarce.
Below the Canadian Criminal Code section 268(3), any particular person discovered responsible of conducting FGM faces as much as 14 years imprisonment; nonetheless, to this point, there have been no felony prosecutions or convictions for FGM within the nation.
A holistic finish to FGM
Throughout the Americas, rising greatest follow factors to the clear conclusion {that a} sole deal with the criminalization of FGM will not be sufficient to stop, eradicate, or adequately defend survivors from hurt.
Efficient authorized frameworks should be holistic in ways in which mix prevention, schooling, neighborhood engagement, and survivor-centred help providers.
Colombia’s bill offers an instructive model in this regard. Relatively than centering felony punishment, it establishes obligations round prevention, intercultural schooling, obligatory well being protocols, and knowledge assortment, recognizing {that a} follow sustained by social norms and neighborhood constructions requires responses that work inside and alongside these communities, not solely towards people.
Punitive frameworks, when utilized in isolation, threat driving the follow underground, deterring survivors from looking for care, and criminalising communities with out addressing the circumstances that enable FGM to persist.
Nonetheless, the effectiveness of even the most robust legal frameworks is finally depending on sustained and devoted funding. Authorized obligations should be matched by funding in frontline coaching for healthcare suppliers and educators, in community-led prevention initiatives, and in accessible, survivor-centred providers. With out this resourcing, legal guidelines threat remaining largely symbolic, unable to ship significant safety in follow.
Crucially, laws should even be rigorously drafted to avoid conflating FGM with distinct medical procedures, including gender-affirming care. Such conflation dangers undermining each authorized readability and entry to important well being providers.
In Colombia and past, complete approaches along with political dedication towards the adoption of laws and significant implementation can be important to translate these efforts into sustainable protections for all girls and ladies throughout the Americas.
Governments, regional our bodies, civil society, and advocates should work collectively to take collective motion to align nationwide legal guidelines, guarantee public accountability and monitoring, and guarantee survivor help. Fragmented approaches, remoted legal guidelines, underfunded packages, or short-term political consideration is not going to ship lasting change. A coordinated response, grounded in shared accountability and sustained collaboration, can.
Cowl Picture: Journalists collect in entrance of the Connecticut State Capitol Constructing throughout a press convention on SB259 and an anti-FGM artwork set up
Picture credit score: Bryna Subherwal, Equality Now
Mel Bailey, Affiliate Communications Supervisor, & Tamara Rusansky, Affiliate Supervisor, Communications Latin America and the Caribbean with Equality Now
