A/HRC/29/20 (g) Measures to ensure girls’ access to high-quality education, including comprehensive sexuality education; (h) Accessible protection mechanisms and services to safeguard girls at risk, including services such as emergency help lines, health care, legal services, counselling and shelter for girls who run away in order to avoid female genital mutilation; (i) Adequate social and medical services for women and girls and women who are living with female genital mutilation. 68. States should strengthen efforts to share experiences and good practices, including concerning data-collection tools, methodologies and expertise. Furthermore, States should take the necessary measures to ensure the coherent and consistent harmonization of all relevant legislation and to ensure its primacy over customary, traditional or religious law. 69. States should incorporate evidence-based training on female genital mutilation into medical, midwifery and nursing curricula so as to improve the diagnosis and management of the practice and to prevent its medicalization. 70. States should allocate sufficient resources to civil society groups and other partners so as to effectively carry out programmes at the community level to eliminate the practice. This should include the creation of safe spaces in schools and communities where girls and young women can gather and discuss the issues that affect them. 71. States should ensure that adequate safeguards are in place to prevent crossborder female genital mutilation. States should also make it a criminal offense to perform of or be involved in carrying out the practice abroad, regardless of the nationality or residence status of the perpetrator and even where the victim is not a national or does not have permanent or similar habitual residence of the country, in accordance with the Convention on the Right of the Child. 72. Political leadership is crucial to address female genital mutilation. Political, religious and community leaders play an important role in speaking out against the practice. 17

Select target paragraph3

Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents