Italy - Italian Association for Women in Development (AIDOS)

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AIDOS is an NGO that, since 1981, has been working for the rights, dignity and freedom of choice of women, especially of those living in developing countries.

AIDOS has been engaged in programs/projects for the abandonment of female genital mutilation (FGM) for the last 25 years, in several African countries, giving financial, technical and organisational support to local NGOs working on this issue. AIDOS programs aim to build a social environment in which the individual choice could be possible, addressing gender relations and particularly the power imbalances that influence the sexual and reproductive rights of women.

While still implementing research, training and communication projects in Somalia, Djibouti, Tanzania, Kenya, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, Gambia, Sudan and Egypt, in the late nineties AIDOS started working with immigrant communities in Italy and in Europe and was a founding member of the network Euronet-FGM.

The prevention of FGM is also one of the main activities of the Centre for women’s wellbeing, built in Burkina Faso by AIDOS in partnership with the local organization Voix des femmes in 2007, and of STREAM, a network of communication officers from African countries who feed the web portal www.stopfgmc.org, managed by AIDOS, and conduct a whole range of communication activities in their countries.