UNFPA Calls For Elimination Of FGM, Other Harmful Practices From Liberia

Promoting the International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) merit and demerit, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) in Liberia has called on the Liberian government and traditional leaders to abolish the practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and other practices that are harmful to human wellbeing, especially women.

The ICPD, which was held in Cairo, Egypt 1994, attendees were 79 governments with some 11,000 registered participants—governments, UN specialize agencies, and organization, among others, which discussed the population merit and demerit.

The FGM abolition call was recently intensified again by the UNFPA’s authority during a two-day media network engagement at the One UN House, where journalists were trained on critical reporting, sexual and reproductive health and rights, gender equality, population dynamics, youth empowerment, maternal health, and so on.

The training also widened journalists’ regular reportorial ethics like, sourcing credible information, effective interviewing, and data usage in news reporting, and reporting on multifaceted population and development issues that are consumable for the public glare.

According to the UNFPA, FGM is harmful for female wellbeing and must be eradicated.

“When FGM occurs, a woman body goes into 28 size of affect,” UNFPA said.

UNICEF study report also shows that 25% of children from 0—14 years also undergo FGM.

Mostly, effort to legally ban FGM in Liberia has faced resistance in the Legislature overtime because the practice is linked to traditional rite of passage for adolescent girls.

Apart from the FGM elimination campaign call by the UNFPA, it has alarmed on huge gender-based violence actions that have been meted against women.

According to its report, 60% of women aged 15—49 are experiencing physical violence in their lifetime.

However, gender-based violence cases that occurred in the past years are evidential, beginning from 2021—2025: in 2021, 1,761 cases recorded; 2022, 1,975, cases recorded; 2023, 3,204 cases recorded; 2024, 2,802 cases recorded, and 2025, 3,823 cases recorded.

UNFPA’s work is to achieve transformative results, ending preventable maternal deaths, ending the unmet need for family planning and ending gender-based violence and harmful practices.

The UNFPA says it is against violence practice in society, FGM, maternal mortality, and so on, called on the media for vigorous campaign exercise to minimize or eliminate those harmful societal practices.