By Joke Kujenya
PAINFUL MEMORIES, missed classrooms and broken childhoods framed the mood as survivors, nurses and advocates gathered ahead of the United Nation’s women’s summit, warning that millions of girls remain at risk of genital cutting and menstrual neglect despite world leaders’ promises to end both by 2030, with barely 58 months left to keep that pledge.
JKNewsMedia.com reports that it was a quiet conference room filled with policy experts, lawyers, nurses and survivors carried the weight of a broken promise.
At fifty-eight months remaining until 2030, the year governments across the world had pledged to eliminate Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) and guarantee menstrual health and dignity for all; sadly, the numbers moving across presentation slides at the SHE & Rights session in February 2026 told a starkly different story: instead of decline, the practice is growing.
Progress, speakers also warned, is not just slow. It is sliding backwards.
Across continents, girls are still cut, the conference noted agreeably.
Consequently, girls are still missing school because they bleed. And courts are stepping in where governments have failed as survivors are leading the fight.
Rising Numbers Behind Global Promises
Way back in 2015, global leaders committed under the Sustainable Development Goal 5.3 to end FGM/C by 2030.
Now, it’s eleven years later, the trajectory is moving in the wrong direction – reversed.
“Female genital mutilation/cutting is among the most heinous crimes,” said Shobha Shukla, Host of SHE & Rights and Executive Director of CNS. “Yet despite promises, the number of women and girls affected has risen.”
Data Presented At The Session Showed:
▪️200 million affected in 2016
▪️Over 230 million in 2024
▪️A 15% increase in eight years
▪️About one-third – nearly 80 million – in Asia
At the current pace however, elimination by 2030 is mathematically implausible.
In fact, instead of reducing prevalence, population growth combined with stalled prevention means more girls are at risk each year, experts at the conference alerted.
They also described this as a policy failure disguised by rhetoric.
“I knew where the shoe hurts” said a survivor at her turning point. For Catherine Menganyi, the statistics are not abstract.
Her voice softened as she spoke, then steadied. “My journey did not begin in an office,” she said. “It began when I knew where the shoe hurts most.”
As a young girl in Kenya, she told the audience she was subjected to FGM/C.
“That pain and psychosocial trauma is so raw even today,” she reiterated.
Now a nurse epidemiologist and co-founder of Women in Global Health, Kenya, Menganyi has helped protect more than a thousand girls from being cut.
She works village by village, persuading families, mentoring girls, and building trust in the communities.
Continuing, “we need community-led and community-owned solutions,” said Catherine and adds “Communities understand why these practices occur. They are best placed to stop them.”
Thus, for her, FGM/C is not an isolated ritual but a system.
“It limits choices. It normalises violence. It controls girls’ bodies. Ending it is not charity. It is justice.”
Asia’s Hidden Crisis And The Danger Of Medicalisation
For eons, FGM/C is often framed as an African issue. However, the data contradicts that narrative.
Safiya Riyaz of the Asian-Pacific Resource & Research Centre for Women (ARROW) listed 13 countries in South and Southeast Asia where the practice is documented, including India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Sri Lanka and Singapore.
About 35% of global cases occur in Asia, she said.
More worrying is a new trend: medicalisation.
Healthcare workers are increasingly performing FGM/C under the guise of safety.
“It has no medical benefit. None,” Riyaz said. “When doctors perform it, they legitimise harm.”
But the World Health Organisation (WHO), the International Federation of Gynaecology and Obstetrics, and other global bodies explicitly condemn this practice.
Complications documented by these agencies, include:
▪️infections
▪️haemorrhage
▪️childbirth trauma
▪️chronic pain
▪️sexual dysfunction
▪️lasting psychological distress, among others.
Even so-called “milder” Type 1 procedures can cause severe damage, they noted.
“It boils down to control of sexuality,” she added. “Ideas of purity. Of obedience.”
Others include ‘law on the books, justice out of reach’ and ‘legal bans exist but enforcement lags,’ she noted.
A release issued from the conference also notes that “Equality Now’s new report, Towards Justice: Global Challenges and Opportunities in Litigating Cases of Female Genital Mutilation, reviewed practices across 94 countries.”
Further findings also reveal:
▪️94 countries report FGM/C
▪️Only 59 have specific laws
▪️Prosecutions remain rare
▪️Survivors face barriers to justice
“Strategic litigation can clarify the law and drive reform,” said Divya Srinivasan, Global Lead at Equality Now. “But justice systems often fail survivors.”
Also, the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), the UN’s peer-review human rights mechanism, has helped push countries like India to address the issue. Yet, political pushback is growing.
In some places, protections are being challenged or weakened.
Accountability, speakers also stressed, must match commitments.
Menstrual Health: The Other Invisible Crisis
While one fight focuses on cutting, another centres on bleeding.
Menstrual health remains neglected across much of the world despite being fundamental to education and dignity.
India’s Supreme Court recently declared menstrual hygiene a fundamental right under the Constitution. The intervention was striking and telling.
“Why did the highest court have to step in for something so basic?” asked journalist and lawyer Ruchi Bhattar.
Already, government figures show around four million girls dropped out of primary school in four years and they have found that menstruation is a major factor.
Debanjana Choudhuri, also a gender justice activist, described locked toilets, lack of water, no sanitary products, and stigma that forces girls to stay home.
“What begins as temporary absence becomes academic failure,” she said. “Then she simply stops going to school.”
Menstrual poverty, she called it, is a “silent killer” and adds: “Invisible. Under-measured. Devastating.”
The 127-page Supreme Court order now also mandates:
▪️functional gender-segregated toilets
▪️clean water and handwashing facilities
▪️free biodegradable sanitary pads
▪️disposal systems
▪️emergency supplies
▪️menstrual education
▪️inspections and monitoring
JKNewsMedia.com also reports that the court’s message to girls was blunt and compassionate: the fault is not yours.
Moreover, the session reveals community solutions that work while governments debate, communities are quietly proving change is possible.
In 570 villages across Uttar Pradesh and Karnataka, Humana People to People India launched “Swasthya Setu, A Bridge of Trust, Courage, and Early Hope”.
The focus: breast cancer screening. Using theatre, street plays and small group discussions, the team broke taboos around women’s health. In the end,
▪️More than 233,583 women were screened.
▪️448 flagged unusual symptoms
▪️21 confirmed breast cancer
▪️15 already began treatment
▪️88% completed referrals – far above national averages
In addition, ASHAs, frontline health volunteers, walked women to hospitals, explained procedures, waited outside clinics.
“Knowing one’s body is not shameful,” said programme coordinator Subrat Mohanty. “It is empowering.”
The lesson, advocates said, applies equally to FGM/C and menstrual health: trust communities and the following change ensued.
▪️Fifty-eight months left
▪️By the time CSW70 convenes, fewer than five years will remain to meet the 2030 targets.
▪️At current trends, millions more girls will be cut. Millions more will miss school.
▪️The distance between global pledges and lived reality is widening.
But inside this February meeting room, the most persuasive voices were not policymakers.
▪️They were survivors, nurses, teachers and village volunteers.
▪️People who refuse to let the promise expire.
“Every girl has the right to grow up whole,” Catherine said. Sadly, the clock is ticking.
For them, this is not about targets or reports. It is about the next child, Catherine alerted, JKNewsMedia.com reports.
