Eliminating female genital mutilation
Since the middle of the last century many international and national organizations and agencies, both governmental and nongovernmental, have set up programmes to halt or reduce the prevalence of FGM. Thanks largely to their efforts, clauses prohibiting
the practice have been incorporated into a large number of international legal instruments and into the legislation of a growing number of countries. Half of the 28 countries where the practice is “endemic” have introduced legislation
forbidding it. A further seven countries have incorporated anti-FGM legislation into their constitutions or criminal laws. Applying the law, however, is another matter: a study published in 2000 found that prosecutions had been brought in only four
of the 28 countries of Africa and the Middle East where FGM is practised. (1) Laws prohibiting FGM have also been introduced in several countries with immigrant communities continuing the practice: these countries include Australia, Canada, New Zealand,
USA and at least 13 countries in Western Europe. Again, the annual rate of prosecutions varies widely.
Armed with arguments based on its danger to health and on its violation of human rights, opponents of FGM have, over the past half-century or so, tried various strategies—ranging from public education campaigns to offering alternative sources of
income to FGM practitioners—aimed at stopping the practice. Some of the more successful strategies include:
- promotion of alternative “rites of passage” that preserve the ritual or symbolic component of FGM marking the admission of young girls into the community or into adulthood but without unduly harming their bodies;
- group discussions and media campaigns aimed at raising awareness among parliamentarians, religious and civic community leaders, traditional and modern health-care providers, and other decision-makers, as well as among the public, of the dangers to health and of the transgression of human rights that FGM involves;
- promotion, at all levels of society, of the abandonment of FGM as part of a “development package” that includes a reduction of poverty and of inequities and inequalities between the sexes, and an increase in access to education and health services.
A practice resistant to change
In countries where FGM is unknown, people often react with incredulity that in this day and age FGM is still practised despite its negative impact on health, its disregard of human rights and its illegality in many countries. Most surprisingly, the practice often persists even among families who agree that it should be abandoned. Social scientists say FGM persists for the following reasons.
- It endows a girl with cultural identity as a woman: in many ethnic groups the clitoris is associated with masculinity and is excised to maintain differentiation between males and females.
- It imparts on a girl a sense of pride, a coming of age and admission to the community: in many communities, girls are rewarded with gifts, celebrations and public recognition after the operation.
- Not undergoing the operation brands a girl as a social outcast and reduces her prospects of finding a husband.
- It is part of a mother’s duties in raising a girl "properly" and preparing her for adulthood and marriage.
- It is believed to preserve a girl’s virginity, widely regarded as a prerequisite for marriage, and helps to preserve her morality and fidelity: in some ethnic groups, virginity is associated with an infibulated vulva, not with an intact hymen.
- It is believed to enhance a husband’s pleasure during the sex act.
- It is believed to confer bodily cleanliness and beauty on a girl: in some communities, the female genitalia are considered unclean.
- It is believed to be prescribed by religion and thus to make a girl spiritually pure.