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Urgent global action needed to end harmful practices against women and girls, says the United Nations Population Fund
Urgent action is needed to stop female genital mutilation, child marriage, and other harmful practices to which millions of women and girls are subjected to every year. This according to the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) State of World Population report for 2020.
“Our reports cites at least 19 specific practices against girls and women that are most universally been denounced as abused and violations of human rights ranking from breast ironing to virginity testing,” said UNFPA Director Monica at the presentation of the report at the United Nations in Geneva under embargo on Monday.
“It is the first analysis of its kind to show that these practices are grounded in negative attitudes about the value of girls and other means for controlling their bodies and sexuality. It is also groundbreaking in its treatment of harmful practices as a human rights violation,” Ms. Ferro said.
Every day, hundreds of thousands of girls around the world are subjected to practices that harm them physically or psychologically, or both -- with the full knowledge and consent of their families, friends and communities, according to UNFPA.
“Harmful practices against girls they cause profound and lasting trauma, robbing them of their right to reach their potential in life”, Ms. Ferro said. “Harmful practices such as child marriage and female genital mutilation are inflicted on girls by their families and propped up by discrimination and community norms”.
Three widespread practices that cause harm are female genital mutilation, child marriage and the preference for male children.
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is an invasive procedure which entails partial or total removal of female external genitalia or other injury to female genital organs for non-medical reasons. The procedure is mostly carried out on young girls between infancy and age 15.
“This year, for example, 4.1 million girls are at risk of female genital mutilation”, warned the Director of the UNFPA Geneva Office “One in five marriages today is to underage females. One pernicious effect of preferring sons over daughters is a shocking deficit of 140 million females,” she said.
The UNFPA estimates that every day some 33,000 girls under age 18 will be forced into marriage, often to much older men. Also, an extreme preference for sons over daughters in some countries has fueled gender-biased sex selection or extreme neglect that leads to their death as children, resulting in 140 million “missing females”.
“Only equal treatment can bring equal outcomes,” Monica Ferro said. “We have to stop treating girls like commodities, to be treated or objects to be controlled, and afford girls the same rights and opportunities as boys.” “Governments must fulfill their obligations under Human Rights Treaties that require elimination of female genital mutilation and child marriage,” she added.
Countries that ratified international treaties such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child have a duty to end the harm, the report states. Many have responded with laws, but what is needed, UNFPA says, are grassroots approaches to bring change.
”The good news is that the tide is turning”, Ms Ferro said. “More and more people are defined the persistent hold of harmful practices, parliamentarians are passing effective laws, traditional practitioners are putting down their tools, mothers and fathers are choosing to keep their daughters in school. Community leaders are telling friends and neighbors to protect girls from violations of their humanity. The rights, choices and bodies of girls – these are their own”.
While progress has been made in ending some harmful practices worldwide, the Covid-19 pandemic threatens to reverse those gains.
“Covid-19 will also disrupt our efforts to end child marriage, potentially resulting in an additional 13 million child marriages between now and 2030”, Ms. Ferro predicted.
“We also know that as the Covid pandemic rages on, the number of women unable to access family planning facing unwanted pregnancies, gender-based violence and other harmful practices could skyrocket in the months ahead. We cannot slow down the pace”, she concluded.
- Wide shot: exterior, UN Geneva flag alley.
- Wide shot, Podium Press room, UN Geneva
- SOUNDBITE (EN) – Monica Ferro, UNFPA Geneva Director: “Our reports cites at least 19 specific practices against girls and women that are most universally been denounced as abused and violations of human rights ranking from breast ironing to virginity testing. It is the first analysis of its kind to show that these practices are grounded in negative attitudes about the value of girls and other means for controlling their bodies and sexuality. It is also groundbreaking in its treatment of harmful practices as a human rights violation”.
- Medium shot: Podium and screen behind
- SOUNDBITE (EN) - Monica Ferro, UNFPA Geneva Director: “Harmful practices against girls they cause profound and lasting trauma, robbing them of their right to reach their potential in life. Harmful practices such as child marriage and female genital mutilation are inflicted on girls by their families and propped up by discrimination and community norms”.
- Medium shot: Journalist
- SOUNDBITE (EN) - Monica Ferro, UNFPA Geneva Director: “This year, for example, 4.1 million girls are at risk of female genital mutilation. One in five marriages today is to underage females. One pernicious effect of preferring sons over daughters is a shocking deficit of 140 million females”.
- Medium shot: Podium with speaker
- SOUNDBITE (EN) – Monica Ferro, UNFPA Geneva Director: “Only equal treatment can bring equal outcomes. We have to stop treating girls like commodities, to be treated or objects to be controlled, and afford girls the same rights and opportunities as boys”.
- Wide shot: Press room
- SOUNDBITE (EN) – Monica Ferro, UNFPA Geneva Director:“Governments must fulfill their obligations under Human Rights Treaties that require elimination of female genital mutilation and child marriage”.
- Wide shot: UN Palace, Entrance Pregny
- SOUNDBITE (EN) – Monica Ferro, UNFPA Geneva Director:” The good news is that the tide is turning. More and more people are defined the persistent hold of harmful practices, parliamentarians are passing effective laws, traditional practitioners are putting down their tools, mothers and fathers are choosing to keep their daughters in school. Community leaders are telling friends and neighbors to protect girls from violations of their humanity. The rights, choices and bodies of girls – these are their own”.
- Wide shot, Place des Nations with broken chair and UN building behind
- SOUNDBITE (EN) – Monica Ferro, UNFPA Geneva Director:” Covid-19 will also disrupt our efforts to end child marriage, potentially resulting in an additional 13 million child marriages between now and 2030. And we also know that as the Covid pandemic rages on, the number of women unable to access family planning facing unwanted pregnancies, gender-based violence and other harmful practices could skyrocket in the months ahead. We cannot slow down the pace”.
- Medium shot, UN Palace
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New data showing that rivers were at their lowest level for decades last year provides further evidence that the climate crisis is real and countries must act immediately to protect themselves from the increasing threat to communities and livelihoods, the UN World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Thursday.
The key findings from WMO’s State of Global Water Resources 2025 report covering the hydrological cycle and extreme events in the five-year period to last year:
- 2025 was one of driest years for river discharge in 35 years
- Past seven years have seen abnorfmal river flows
- Water storage on Earth’s land surface has decreased in past decade
- Widespread glacier loss across all regions for fourth consecutive year
- Asia and Africa are regions most affected by water-related disasters
- Water data availability has improved, but gaps remain in hard-hit areas
Highlighting the long-term decline in the Earth’s freshwater storage and glacier melt, WMO Secretary-General Celeste Saulo explained that the planet’s water reserves used to act as a planetary “savings account” that absorbed the occasional dry season, avoiding a water crisis. “One of the central stories of the 2025 report is what is happening to that savings account? And the simple answer is that we are depleting it,” she told journalists in Geneva.
Groundwater reserves are equally stretched and have been in decline since 2014, WMO’s report states, with nearly two-thirds of monitored wells worldwide showing levels lower than the historical norm and indicating a shift “further toward deficit…not recovery”.
“At the same time, we are seeing more water-related disasters,” Ms. Saulo said, while also stressing that the currently strengthening El Niño “will increase the risk of drought in some areas, and flooding in others”.
Glaciers disappearing
In 2025, for the fourth consecutive year, every major glaciated region on Earth lost ice mass, leading to short-term hazards including floods and long-term water insecurity, according to WMO.
Responding to a question about whether the changing global water cycle might have contributed to the deadly Nepal-China flooding disaster, Ms. Saulo explained that melting ice and rock was just one factor in the chain of events that ultimately sent a massive and deadly wall of water and debris downstream on 26 August, killing at least 1,367 people.
“You asked if it could happen again? Absolutely; the problem in this region is that there’s 63,700 glaciers at the last count,” she told a Press Conference in Geneva. “Even if you’re looking with remote sensing with satellites at these glaciers, you might see some faults, you might see some slight shifting, that does not mean necessarily catastrophic collapse. So, in order to plan for this, it’s very, very difficult. But the international community is looking very hard at ways in which we can bring people together to solve some of these monitoring issues.”
Data indicates that glaciers shrank between 2023 and 2025 with cumulative losses of 1,400 gigatonnes of water – or about one third of annual fresh water needs.
Every major glacier region on Earth lost ice for the fourth consecutive year.
“All 19 glacier regions around the globe lost ice; in Central Asia, Iceland, the Russian Arctic and western Canada and the United States, it was among the three worst years on record,” said Wayne Jenkinson, WMO’s Director of Hydrology and Cryosphere.
Some regions with smaller glaciers such as Central Europe, the Caucasus, the western Canada and the United States may already have reached “peak water”, Mr. Jenkinson warned.
“After this point, the glacier gives less meltwater each year simply because there is less ice left to melt. That matters for every community downstream that relies on water during hot, dry summers,” he explained.
Narelle van der Wel, WMO’s Head of Cryosphere Monitoring, Predictions and Services, stressed that while some further glacier loss is unavoidable, the eventual scale of the decline is not predetermined.
“Some glacier loss is inevitable, but total loss of glaciers is not yet inevitable,” she said, pointing to emissions reductions as central to limiting future losses.
Preparing for moving baselines
The report does not attribute every observed change to climate change alone. WMO says pressure on water resources and natural variability also contribute.
Mr. Jenkinson said governments need to prepare for “moving baselines” as historical patterns become less reliable.
“The situation 30 years ago is not where we are today,” he said. Countries, he added, need to prepare “for those changes that have really already arrived”.
ends