More than 200 million girls and women across the globe have undergone FGM, that’s over 1 in 20 girls and women in the world. Yet this is an issue that is entirely solvable. FGM is a practice that has been undertaken for 3,000 years, without religious requirement or financial gain. Despite its devastating health consequences, lack of education, awareness or on the ground action have prevented this brutal tradition from coming to an end.

Data has shown that by using the voices of local religious and political leaders, on local media and social media outlets, there is a dramatic reduction in FGM. In collaboration with the Global Media Campaign and Anotherway Now, The Conduit will host an expert panel to discuss how as individuals and as a collective we can harness our skills and influence to widen support for the FGM frontline women’s movement and bring an end to FGM by 2030.

Over 300 FGM media activists will be tuning in to the event from across Africa and speakers will include award winning Chief International Correspondent and Senior Presenter for BBC World News television Lyse Doucet, award-winning human rights activist Rugiatu Neneh Koroma (nee Turay), highly experienced activist for Global Media Campaign Rev. Dr. Lucy-Ann Ganda, long-term #EndFGM campaigner Jeremiah Kipainoi, former award-winning war correspondent with the Guardian Maggie O’Kane and award-winning human rights lawyer Dexter Dias QC alongside the Co-Founder of The Conduit and its Chief Creative Officer Paul Van Zyl in The Conduit. This event promises to be informative, impactful and a channel to increase momentum behind the anti-FGM movement, building support and creating change.

Moderator: 

Paul Van Zyl is a Co-Founder of The Conduit and its Chief Creative Officer. Paul trained as a human rights lawyer and went on to serve as the Executive Secretary of South Africa’s post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission. He later co-founded the International Centre for Transitional Justice.

Speakers:

Lyse Doucet is an award winning Chief International Correspondent and Senior Presenter for BBC World News television and BBC World Service Radio. Regularly deployed to anchor news coverage from the field and interview world leaders, Lyse played a key role in the BBC’s coverage of the “Arab Springs” across the Middle East and North Africa. As well as often visiting Afghanistan and Pakistan, Lyse also focuses on major natural disasters, including the Indian Ocean tsunami, and more recently Pakistan floods. Before joining the BBC’s team of presenters in 1999, Lyse spent 15 years as a BBC foreign correspondent with postings in Jerusalem, Amman, Tehran, Islamabad, Kabul and Abidjan. Lyse is the recipient of many awards, which include an Edward R Murrow award for radio reports from Tunisia in 2012, a Peabody and David Bloom Award in 2010 for television films from Afghanistan and International Television Personality of the Year from the Association for International Broadcasting. She has also been nominated for two Emmy awards and is an O.B.E. for services to broadcasting.

Rugiatu Neneh Koroma (nee Turay) is an award-winning human rights activist. She has used her power as a politician and teacher to protect women and girls from FGM across Guinea and Sierra Leone, often working in the face of violent threats from her opponents. She has built safe houses, established schools and fought corruption across the region, and currently Chairs a coalition of 21 organisations working to end FGM.

Rev. Dr. Lucy-Ann Ganda is a highly experienced activist for Global Media Campaign as well as a Country Representative for ‘Safe Hands for Girls’ in Sierra Leone.  She has also coordinated the Sierra Leone Media Teams on FGM Activities for the past six years.

Jeremiah Kipainoi is a long-term #EndFGM campaigner and Director of Communications at GMC – working with activists to effectively run their on-ground and media campaigns to end FGM in 9 African countries. He is an award-winning multimedia journalist covering women’s rights issues and has been published on the BBC, Deutsche Welle, The New York Times, among others. He is the producer and host for the End FGM Podcast and the End FGM Live, bringing together local and global stakeholders working to end FGM. 

Maggie O’Kane, is a former award-winning war correspondent with the Guardian who covered most of the major wars of the 90s – from Bosnia through the Gulf War to Afghanistan. In 2014 she co-founded the Global Media Campaign to end FGM, after making a film on FGM in Kenya. In 2018 she left the Guardian to work full time with the Global Media Campaign to play a part in eradicating FGM globally by 2030 using her media background.
Dexter Dias QC is an award-winning human rights lawyer, a prize-winning scholar and Visiting Researcher at Cambridge University (and previously Harvard).  He lectures all over the country and at think tanks internationally on race, racial justice and human rights. He is author of best-selling books, such as Ten Types of Human (Penguin RH), has advised the UN and was Chair and chief author of the influential report by the Bar Human Rights Committee to the Parliamentary Inquiry into FGM that helped strengthen the UK’s protective mechanism and created FGM Protective Orders, as recommended by his joint report. His work was paid tribute to in both Houses of Parliament. He’s been a Special Human Rights Adviser to UNICEF UK and his work as Chair of the Global Media Campaign to end FGM is an example of how every walk of life, including the legal one, can work towards ending FGM by 2030.