Female Gender Mutilation, or FGM, is the inhumane practice of cutting or removing of the genital organs on young girls. It is generally carried out with the belief that it will preserve the purity of the girl.

FGM can cause severe bleeding, complete loss of sensitivity, complications during childbirth, infertility, severe pain during sex, infections, sepsis and in some cases death. FGM is internationally recognized as a violation of human rights. It reflects deep-rooted gender inequality, and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women.

More than 200 million females have been subjected to FGM globally. But with a prevalence of 87.2% in a population of over 100 million, Egypt has the greatest number of FGM victims globally.

Despite repeated governmental efforts to raise awareness about the harms of FGM, it continues to be widespread among Egyptians- simply shifting the performing the procedure from traditional practitioners to health professionals.

We launched the movement on the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation by attacking the practice further upstream than anyone had before.

We partnered with local hospitals to reach the parents of newborn girls, who were brought out to their parents with the pin proudly displayed on their chests, loudly protesting against the harmful effects of FGM.

Along with the pin, the parents were educated on the harmful physical, psychological and social effects of Female Genital Mutilation on their daughters. They were then encouraged to protect their child's rights by signing a pledge to never perform the procedure on her.

As widespread and damaging as the issue was, we realized a simple truth, if we could create a real impact, FGM could disappear in one generation.

And in order to effect behavior change, we had to create an impact on those directly responsible for making the decision of performing this mutilation on the young girls- their parents.

We knew that although these parents were in fact horribly mutilating their daughters and damaging them beyond repair, in their own way they were doing so thinking they were doing what’s good for their daughters. We knew that to affect them effectively, we had to do so at a moment were they at their most emotional and aware of their daughters vulnerability in their hands- when they first held their newborn daughters.

480M impressions

500+ pledges in first month

35 global NGO’s have adopted the symbol

7 countries officially using the ribbon

To be presented at the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women 2019