Cleary Gottlieb Collaborates on Legal Framework to Protect Women and Girls in Africa

Cleary Gottlieb lawyers have partnered with the charity 28 Too Many in collaboration with TrustLaw and other international law firms to create “FGM Model Law,” a new report providing guidance to those working on laws governing female genital mutilation (FGM).

The FGM Model Law is a resource launched on International Women’s Day to assist policy-makers, NGOs, and activists in the development of comprehensive legislative frameworks to protect women and girls in jurisdictions where FGM is still practiced. In addition to providing a benchmark for assessing current anti-FGM laws and a model for implementing new anti-FGM legal provisions, the report also addresses some of the very real challenges to ending FGM worldwide that are frequently overlooked by existing legal frameworks, including the practices of medicalized FGM and cross-border FGM.

This project builds on the success of the award-winning series of research reports on FGM practices and laws in 28 African countries, published by 28 Too Many in collaboration with Cleary and other international law firms in 2018.

The FGM Model Law can be downloaded here.