Ending female genital mutilation: it takes a village

Wednesday, 19 October 2011 09:34

Written by World and Media

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Girls or their families that refuse circumcision against the will of their villages may become social outcasts. But using a new community-based approach, two UN agencies hope that female genital mutilation can be eliminated within a generation. UNFPA and UNICEF are using a human rights-based approach to encourage communities to act collectively. This approach has led some 6,000 communities across Africa to abandon the practice, usually through a public declaration.

Female genital mutilation/cutting has devastating short- and long-term impacts on the lives of women and girls, say the UN. It can cause severe bleeding and problems urinating, psychological disorders and even death (WHO).

The impact even extends to the next generation. Death rates among babies during and immediately after birth are higher for those born to mothers who have undergone the practice, by an estimated one to two babies per 100 deliveries.

More than 90 million African women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation - 100-140 million worldwide - according to World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates. In Africa, about 3 million girls are at risk annually. It is mostly carried out on girls aged 0-15.

The New York Times reports this week (October 15) on how the movement to end genital cutting is spreading in Senegal. Over the past 15 years, most Senegalese villages where genital cutting was commonplace have committed to stop it, according to the Senegalese group, Tostan and the UN.

The approach that Tostan (meaning "breakthrough") is using combines tact – focusing on the consequences of the practice without labelling it as mutilation – and the technique of spreading the message using the connections made by intermarriages between villages.

According to the New York Times, "an improbable collection of characters shaped Tostan’s methods: Molly Melching, a friendly, irrepressible educator from Illinois; Demba Diawara, a revered imam from a Senegalese village; and Gerry Mackie, a political theorist and associate professor at the University of California, San Diego."

While Minister for Health in the previous Irish government, Mary Harney examined the possibility of introducing specific legislation to ban female genital mutilation (FGM) in Ireland. The director of the network of African women living in Ireland, Akina Dada wa Africa (AkiDwA), Salome Mbugua, said she would welcome such legislation but it “must include the principle of extraterritorially to reduce the risk to immigrant girls and women being taken abroad for the purpose of genital mutilation”.

She also said that asylum processes must "take account of FGM and gender-based violence as a form of persecution.”

Female circumcision was practised in Europe and America in the 19th century and some have compared the growth in growth in cosmetic plastic surgery of vaginoplasty and vaginal rejuvenation to FGM.