Running to end female genital mutilation

5th October the END FGM team laced up our trainers and nervously stepped up to the starting line of the Bruxelloise race and the Brussels Marathon.

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) affects more than 125 million women and girls. Every year, three million girls undergo female genital mutilation. This is equivalent to the entire population of Lithuania, or Latvia and Cyprus combined. That’s seven girls per minute.

In Europe, 500 000 women and girls live with the painful consequences of female genital mutilation (FGM) and 180 000 girls are at risk every year. The majority of girls are cut before the age of 5. The physical, psychological and emotional trauma incurred by FGM stays with them throughout their lives.

The END FGM European Campaign works to put FGM high on the European agenda and echoes the voices of women and girls who have undergone or are at risk of FGM. We are working to put an end to this practice through a coordinated approach which advocates prevention through, for example, training healthcare professionals and teachers, as well as through research and data collection.

Please be a part of the solution and help us to raise money to end FGM once and for all by sponsoring the END FGM team for having run these two races. The money will go to support women and girls affected by this human rights violation.

Continuing the work started by the campaign is vital in order to ensure that FGM remains a priority issue and is tackled at local, national and international level. Ensuring that every girl reaches adulthood with full and in tact physical, emotional and psychological integrity is our priority; we want all European leaders and heads of state to prioritise this too.

Interested in running a race to support END FGM European Campaign? Simply sign up for the race and then let us know you'll be running for us. We will send you an information pack and a T-shirt.

Then let your friends, family and colleagues know that you're running the race for END FGM European Network and ask them to sponsor you for running for us.

Your sponsors can either transfer their donations directly to us (with reference END FGM team race), or they can be collected by you and transferred to us in one lump sum.

If you cannot or prefer not to run a race, please consider sponsoring the END FGM team.

Get in touch if you have any questions or if you would like to run as a team by emailing endfgm@amnesty.eu.

You can sponsor the team here.
You can run a race for us anywhere in the world! Details of races around Europe can be found here.