Ending FGC in Africa: A Look at Four Approaches

1. Ending FGC in Africa:A Look at Four Approaches November 6, 2000

2. Best source on this subject • 1999 World Health Organization report: “Anti-FGM Programmes in Africa: What Works and What Doesn’t” • http://www.who.int/frh-whd/PDFfiles/Programmes

3. The approaches • Criminalization • Education • Substitutive ritual • Intra-marrying pledge associations • Medicalization (On Wednesday)

4. Criminalization • In 1990s, growth in international pressure • modest growth in number of African governments banning FGC • of 24 countries with FGC, 8 have national bans

5. “Success” of criminalization • Criminalization supported by some anti-FGC groups as creating “supportive context” • PR offices and media highlight anecdotal “successes”: example of Burkina Faso’s National Committee on Excision

6. General governmental lack of will and means • 6 of 8 countries with national bans have no budget or special office to investigate cases • Burkina Faso and Ghana have budget and personnel, but few witnesses • Burkina Faso: since 1990, only 36 cases have gone to trial, only 10 are in jail • Ghana: since 1994, only 2 trials, both acquitted

7. “Reactance” • Clandestinity • Drives FGC underground: night-time rituals, in forest instead of village; lookouts • Rashes • Kenya in 1992; Sudan in 1995; Gambia early 1990s • fears of new laws or enforcement lead to rashes • overall average decline in age of cutting (by 4-5 years) • decline in ritual (fear of discovery, disconnection from age)

8. Criminalization makes education more difficult • Hard to undertake thorough education in context of fear of jail • “How do you discuss something that isn’t supposed to be happening? The girls are afraid we will turn them in to the authorities.”

9. Educational programs • 70% of all anti-FGM work on NGOs is devoted to raising awareness of medical consequences • women’s health workshops • literature dissemination • media

10. The impact of such programs: a mixed bag • Education an essential precondition for behavioral change • But where the main activity is simply education, change is spotty and slow • Mali: in one study, only 2% of women exposed to workshops said they were convinced excision causes severe health problems • Burkina Faso: after 6 years of educational campaigns, only 19% of exposed women convinced of dangers of FGC

11. Information often irrelevant or inaccurate • Anti-FGC campaigns emerged out of heat of 1980s: used El-Dareer data • “This isn’t what we do here!” (Gambia) • “Bolokoli cannot obstruct menstruation!” (Mali) • “But no excisor forces herself on parents!” (Burkina Faso)

12. Information often abstract and time-consuming • “What do I care about all these numbers?” • “For this I gave up a morning in the market?”

13. Information often offensive • “Excisors do what they do from love and caring. Not to ‘butcher’ anyone!” (Egypt) • TV info-mercial showing old man informing on co-villagers (Burkina Faso)

14. But… educational programs can work • In some villages in Eritrea, up to 50% of girls now disapprove of FGC • In many villages and towns with high-quality programs, attitudes are changing: in Gambia, growth of anti-FGC sentiment in targeted villages, up to 60% (Association for the Promotion of Gambian Women’s Health -- AGPWA)

15. Features of effective educational programs • Up-to-date, accurate, realistic information • Hands-on projects for improvement of women’s lives • “Working” seminars • Work through pre-existing women’s groups • Based in learner-generated materials: proverbs, plays, etc. • Non-directive, non-preachy

16. But…attitudinal change is not the same as behavioral change • In Eritrea, good educational campaigns since late 1980s • 50% of girls and young mothers disapprove/have serious doubts about FGC • 95% of girls continue to be cut

17. Substitute rites of passage • About 20% of all anti-FGM programs are experimenting with these • Most successful: some villages in Kenya and Gambia

18. “Cutting with words” in Gambia • Format of traditional ritual • girls sit for 12 hrs/day • eat low to ground • elder women discipline and teach • girls dance, drum, feast, sing, make a pledge

19. Why it seems to be working • Framed as a “revival” of sacred traditions • Framed as a way to “discipline” youth • Anti-FGC message surrounded by lots of “secret” knowledge about women’s health • Excisers treated with great respect

20. Criticism of the new rituals • In Gambia: “What we need is not a new ritual that once again teaches girls obedience and their proper role. We need to teach girls to be themselves and to be free, not to be subordinate. . . I am against FGC not just because of the cutting, but because of what it represents: the same old patriarchal values!”

21. Intra-marrying pledge associations • Just starting in Senegal: perhaps the most promising initiative of all • July 31, 1997: village of Malicounda made a public declaration to abandon FGC • Today: 30 villages throughout Senegal have done this

22. How can they have done this? • Proximity to Wolof • Deep education program • village income-generating projects • broad health project (anti-diarrhea) • “Ritual” justifications increasingly seen as hypocritical • school at odds with seclusion • growing awareness that it is un-Islamic • declining age of girls cut: inconsistent with initiation