As part of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, all countries - including Sierra Leone - are duty-bound to measure the extent to which FGM occurs amongst their population. It is vital that information is gathered and made publically available. Such data is invaluable in efforts to end FGM because it makes clear the need for action, and provides a baseline from which the scale up and effectiveness of interventions to end it can be measured. Importantly, by criminalizing FGM, Sierra Leone’s government would be meeting their committments to the African Union’s Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa (the Maputo Protocol) and to the UN Convention on the Elimination Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). We, the undersigned, call on the Government of Sierra Leone to honor its national, regional, and international human rights obligations and finally fulfill its duty of care in protecting girls and women from FGM. SIGNED BY: 1. A Girl At A Time Sierra Leone 2. A Well Informed Adolescent (AWA) Initiative (Nigeria) 3. Aberdeen Women’s Centre (Scotland) 4. African Women Rights Advocates (regional) 5. Amazonian Initiative Movement (AIM) (Sierra Leone) 6. AMFE (Association pour le Maintien des Filles à l'École) (Senegal) 7. Arab Women Organization of Jordan (AWO) 8. Association Beogo-Neere (Burkina Faso) 9. Association de Developpement Durable et Equitable ADDE (Tunisia) 10. Association des Blogueurs du Bénin (AB-Bénin) 11. Association des Femmes Juristes de Côte D'Ivoire (AFJCI) 12. Association of the Egyptian Female Lawyers (AEFL) 13. Association Mairie des Jeunes du Bénin 14. Association pour l'Education et la Santé de la Femme et de l'Enfant (AESFE) (Mauritania) 15. Better Lives Foundation (Sierra Leone/ UK) 16. Bai Bureh Heritage Foundation (Sierra Leone) 17. Centre for Democracy and Human Rights (CDHR) 18. Centre de Formation en Mécanismes de Protection des Droits Humains (Bénin) 19. Coalition des Volontaires pour la Paix et le Développement (Democratic Republic of the Congo) 20. Commission Indépendante des Droits de l'Homme en Afrique du Nord (CIDH) (Morocco) 21. Conseil National du Dialogue Social (Tunisia) 22. Construisons Ensemble le Monde (ONG CEM) (Democratic Republic of the Congo) 23. Cotton Tree Foundation SL (Sierra Leone) 24. DAPTAR (Russia) 25. David Sylvister Gindeh Memorial Counselling Foundation SL (Sierra Leone) 26. Droits Pour Tous (Côte d'Ivoire) 27. EducAid (Sierra Leone) 28. Education for Development (UK) 29. End FGC Singapore 30. End FGM Canada

...The disability rates for males and females are 4.2 percent and 3.0 percent respectively. Of all persons with some kind of disability, 29.2 percent are physically disabled, 22.3 percent have visual related disability, 23.4 percent hearing related disability, 2.4 percent vision/hearing related disability, 8.6 percent speech related disability, 6.8 percent mentally retarded and 7.3 percent have multiple disability (Living Standard Survey, 2011). However, about two percent (1.93%) that is 513,321 in total populations) is reported to have some kind of disability. Among this, physical disability constitutes 36.3 percent of the population with disability followed by Blindness/low Vision (18.5%), Deaf/hard to hearing (15.4%), Speech problem (11.5%), Multiple Disability (7.5%), Mental Disability (6%), Intellectual Disability (2.9%) and Deaf-Blind (1.8%).