- Establishment of regional and departmental committees in wilayas of high prevalence. Implementation of SOPs for an enhanced response and a comprehensive management of GBF survivors. Paragraph 2: Harmful practices affecting women including female genital mutilation (Article 5) Excision is generally practised on young girls. Force-feeding is a practice in which female children and adolescents are forced to eat excessively so that they will gain weight and become obese. Child marriages are consummated before the age of majority. This contributes to the low level of education, and besides early pregnancies aggravate difficulties during delivery. Though the practice of force-feeding is on the decline, the following key strategies were implemented to eradicate this practice harmful to the health of the child: - The establishment of an agency in charge of the civil register helped to increase birth registration rates and put in place an appropriate legal framework for a reliable civil register system; - The Personal Status Code (CSP) protects the family. This Code incorporates several provisions of the Protocol; - The 2001 law on compulsory primary education from 6 to 14 years; - Legislation on the judicial protection of minors criminalizing excision; - National plan of action for the voluntary abandoning of FGM practices; - Legislation on trafficking in persons, including protective and repressive provisions against perpetrators of violence; - National strategy on abandoning excision/female genital mutilation. The fight against gender-based violence was marked by: - Celebration of FGM Zero Tolerance Day; - Development of materials (booklets, brochures, films, module on FGM); - Drafting of a law punishing FGM; - Development of a strategy for ending FGM and a five-year implementation plan; - Implementation of a project on abandoning FGM practices; - Organization of awareness-raising campaigns on other harmful practices including FGM (child marriage); - Involvement of health professionals through the issuing of a statement; - Pronouncement of a national Fatwa by Ulemas prohibiting FGM; - Conduct of an anthropological and sociological study; - Development of harmonized training modules on FGM including a cultural line of argument; 58

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