CSW70: Advancing justice for women and girls, insights from End FGM EU

For 10 days in March 2026, the UN Commission on the Status of Women convened in New York for its 70th session, the world's largest annual gathering on gender equality and women's rights. End FGM EU was there, with Director Marianne Nguena Kana and Co-President Rohma Ullah, representing our Network and the communities we serve across sessions, panels, and high-level meetings. The priority theme "Ensuring and strengthening access to justice for all women and girls" placed legal inequality at the heart of the global debate. Women globally hold only 64% of the legal rights of men. What follows is what we witnessed, what we said, and what it means for our movement.

Day 1 - Who is this movement actually for? From the first day, Marianne Nguena Kana and Rohma Ullah engaged with civil society leaders, UN agencies, government representatives, and donors. Three sessions set the tone for the entire week: Sahiyo examined how racism operates structurally within anti-FGM/C movements, centring Western voices over survivor leadership; the Nordic Council session revealed that anti-rights movement financing in Europe grew from USD 20 million (2009) to USD 270 million (2022) a twelve-fold increase; and the disinformation session confirmed that 75% of girls and young women aged 13–24 report experiencing online harm. The thread connecting all three: structural barriers exist not only in laws and policies but also in our movements, our narratives, and our digital spaces.

Day 2 - Facilitating our member at the highest level: End FGM EU facilitated the participation of Valérie Lolomari MBE, Director of member organisation Women of Grace UK, as a panellist at a major high-level side event co-hosted by the governments of Australia, Kenya, Spain, and the United Kingdom, alongside UN Women, UNFPA, and OHCHR. Two landmark tools were launched: a national framework to address non-consensual intimate images, and a UN guide to shape legislation on tech-facilitated violence against women. Valérie's presence brought the voice of a frontline survivor-support organisation directly into a governmental space at the UN. Tarana Burke, founder of #MeToo, set the tone for the session:

"Technology didn't create gender-based violence. It just brought existing inequalities into the open and made them even harder to ignore. Violence against women and girls isn't inevitable. The real challenge is making solutions work for everyone, everywhere."

Day 3 - Racism, democracy, and the EU: End FGM EU's President participated in The Girl Generation's session on dismantling racism within anti-FGM/C movements alongside the Global Platform to End FGM where the finding was direct: Black and Brown advocates are systematically sidelined, grassroots organisations are positioned as beneficiaries rather than leaders, and language is too often controlled by those furthest from harm.
Civil society meeting with EU Commissioner Hadja Lahbib — End FGM EU participated in a closed-format civil society meeting with EU Commissioner for Equality, Preparedness and Crisis Management Hadja Lahbib, convened by the EU Delegation to the United Nations in the margins of CSW70. The Commissioner's combined portfolio equality, preparedness, and crisis management signals that the EU has recognised gender equality and democratic security as inseparable.

Day 4 - From Silence to Justice - facilitating our member on the panel: End FGM EU facilitated the participation of Valérie Lolomari MBE of Women of Grace UK as a panellist at "From Silence to Justice", organised by the Taiwan Coalition Against Violence and co-sponsored by Soroptimist International. Valérie shared the story of a young FGM survivor who arrived at Women of Grace unable to look up, sat for twenty minutes in silence, who finally said she had believed she was the only one. Once she knew she wasn't alone, she rebuilt her confidence, found her voice, and today leads awareness sessions in her own community.

"When silence becomes normal, violence becomes invisible. And when violence becomes invisible, justice becomes impossible. Silence became voice, voice became confidence, and confidence became leadership.

Day 5 - Director Marianne Nguena Kana took the floor at "Breaking the Code: AI, Cultural Norms and Ending Cyber Violence Against Women", co-hosted by End FGM EU alongside Soroptimist International, the Commonwealth Businesswomen's Network, the Australian Government, and Hand Ova Hand, with the support of the Belgian Government. She delivered the only civil society intervention from the FGM movement on the panel. She described the experience of Women of Grace UK, whose public advocacy against FGM was met with a wave of racist and misogynistic attacks online - and named what governance frameworks still fail to address: the platform impunity that allows harmful content to reach thousands before any response, and the urgent need for legal accountability with real consequences.

"Women and girls belong online, not on the edge. Forcing women and girls offline to escape violence is not protection - it is exclusion." Marianne Nguena Kana

The same day, End FGM EU attended the flagship session on "FGM Laws and Access to Justice" — bringing together UNFPA, the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme, OHCHR, and The Girl Generation alongside governments from Burkina Faso, Italy, Eritrea, Indonesia, Nigeria, Sweden, Canada, and The Gambia. And a session on legal strategies with Femmes for Freedom and Vital Voices on what NGOs and legal actors can practically do: strategic litigation, policy advocacy, and survivor-centred legal approaches. Both sessions reached the same conclusion: a law that doesn't reach the girl it was written for isn't protection.

Day 6 - The evidence on health system integration: End FGM EU attended the session organised by the Population Council and partners of The Girl Generation programme, presenting five years of evidence. The key finding: embedding FGM prevention and survivor care within existing health services, antenatal care, sexual and reproductive health, paediatric care, and medical training is the most effective way to secure long-term protection beyond short-lived programmes. Programmes end. Health systems endure. This approach directly mirrors how End FGM EU and its members work across Europe, through the E-Campus training platform and coordinated action across health, education, and protection systems.

Day 7 - On the panel with the Africa Network: On the final day, Marianne Nguena Kana joined the panel of "Transforming Traditions: African Movements United to End FGM", convened by the Africa Network to End FGM/C and COVAW. Africa-led and survivor-centred movements are proactively reshaping justice systems, transforming accountability, leadership, and policy. Marianne emphasised three areas requiring urgent change: funding (a shift from short-term projects to long-term, flexible, direct financing for grassroots organisations); accountability (enforcement gaps persist justice must be survivor-centred and accessible to all); and power, resources, and partnership (a shift from consultation to co-governance, with stronger collaboration between African, European, and other regional networks, sharing expertise and decision-making power at the highest level).

• Laws exist - enforcement is the gap. In Kenya, 55% of those prosecuted under anti-FGM laws were survivors themselves; the cutter was prosecuted in only 6% of cases. A law that doesn't reach the girl it was written for isn't protection.

• Community-led approaches deliver results. Eritrea reduced FGM prevalence among girls under 15 from 33.2% (2010) to 2.3% (2020) through community mobilisation, religious leader engagement, survivor advocacy, and school integration.

• The anti-rights movement is organised, funded, and accelerating. Anti-gender financing in Europe: USD 20M (2009) to USD 270M (2022). It weaponises FGM discourse to silence advocates. Civil society pushed back in Latvia and won.

• Racism is structural within the movement. Grassroots and survivor-led organisations are systematically underfunded and sidelined. End FGM EU is committed to examining its own practices. This conversation concerns all of us.

• Health system integration is the path to sustainability. Embedding FGM prevention in routine health services ensures survivors and communities receive support long after specific project funding ends.

CSW70 confirmed what our network knows from frontline experience: the same forces attacking democracy are attacking gender equality. The same structural inequities we identify globally are present within our own movement. End FGM EU attend the CSW to speak, to facilitate, to challenge, and to carry the mandate of our moment back to our members and ambassadors. Violence against women and girls is not inevitable. It is solvable link with the annual campaign.