The United Nations

The UN has been one of the key actors in reducing the prevalence of FGM in areas such as Africa and the Middle East through a series of initiatives and programs. The United Nations has worked to combat FGM under their Sustainable Development Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls under which it states that they seek to “eliminate all harmful practices, such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation.” In 2012, the UN General Assembly designated February 6th as the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, with the aim to amplify and direct the efforts on the elimination of this practice.

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and UNICEF have partnered up to lead the largest global program to accelerate the elimination of female genital mutilation (FGM) since 2008. They currently work in 17 countries and have managed to help establish policies that ban FGM in 14 of those countries. FGM has long been declared a human rights issue and these two agencies have worked with political figures and organizations to provide backing to anti-FGM efforts. Further, twelve of these seventeen countries established a national budget line funding services and programs to specifically address FGM. Their annual report stated through the support of the joint program, more than 5.5 million girls and women received prevention, protection, and care services related to FGM and that 361,808 girls were prevented from undergoing the practice thanks to established community-based surveillance mechanisms 

“This practice is not only a violation of every girl child’s rights, it is harmful and has serious consequences for a girl’s physical and mental health” –Abdullah Fadil, UNICEF Representative in Sudan..

UNICEF

Along with the joint programme with UNFPA, UNICEF has a special initiative specific to Sudan called the Saleema Initiative.  This initiative was launched by the National Council of Child Welfare (NCCW) and UNICEF Sudan to support the protection of girls from FGM, by changing perceptions through promoting new positive terminology to describe the natural bodies of girls and women. 

 ‘Saleema’ means whole, healthy in body and mind, unharmed, intact, and untouched

The initiative began in 2009 and this idea of “Saleema” has spread throughout Sudan and neighboring countries. This positive terminology behind the Saleema model is Sudan’s gift to building the best future for girls and women everywhere. 

Although FGM/C has not been banned nationally, six states have issued legislation to prohibit the practice.
These are South Kordofan, Gedaref, South Darfur, Northern State, Blue Nile, and North Kordofan. 

The Desert Flower Foundation

The Desert Flower Foundation was established in 2002 by a world-famous model Waris Dirie and her friends, with the goal to forever eradicate female genital mutilation. The goal of the Foundation is to educate and inform people to support and save girls from FGM. In 2002, the foundation carried out research on FGM across Europe and Africa and published a 4,000 pages report on this practice containing hard facts. This led many governments and the European Union to put FGM on their issues agenda, as well as implement laws and initiate campaigns against this practice.

Today, the Foundation is active in raising awareness against this practice worldwide as well as supporting little girls in Africa by directly saving them from FGM. So far, the Foundation has saved thousands of girls in Africa by signing contracts with their parents promising they will not perform FGM on their daughters. The Foundation also supports victims of FGM with health care and reconstructive surgery, as well as with holistic hospital treatment. It also educates and trains women in Africa and enables them to provide their own income.

In 2009, the Desert Flower Foundation presented the film “Desert Flower”, which showcased Waris Dirie’s life in Somalia. The film has been shown since 2009 in 40 countries in cinemas and regularly on TV. Many conferences, organizations such as UNHCR, UNICEF and embassies show “Desert Flower” as the strongest statement ever published in the fight against FGM.

Equality Now

Equality Now uses a combination of legal advocacy, regional partnership-building, and community mobilization to realize a vision of a more just and equal world for women and girls. They use the power of the law to challenge governments to end systematic discrimination and achieve their goal of gender equality everywhere. They acknowledge that “while the existence of anti-FGM laws is commendable, most countries do not implement them effectively leaving many women and girls at risk of this harmful practice.” For example, many countries in East and West Africa have found ways to bypass the law, with the medicalization of FGM and cross-border FGM. 

Equality Now uses the context of FGM as a rite of passage into womanhood and an immediate precursor to marriage. With this, they work on ending child marriage by advocating for governments to set the minimum age of marriage at 18 years with no exceptions. They hold governments accountable for their obligations to protect women and girls through engaging regional and international human rights mechanisms. 

In 2017, a petition was filed in the High Court in Kenya by a Kenyan public health professional challenging the constitutionality of Sections 5, 19, 20, and 21 of the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act. Equality Now, as the first interested party to the case, collaborated with the state actors and other CSOs and coordinated the legal strategy to defend the anti-FGM Act. In March 2021, the High Court of Kenya upheld and validated the constitutionality of the Act.

In April 2021, Equality Now together with Institute for Human Rights and Development in Africa (IHRDA), Association Malienne pour le Suivi et l’Orientation des Pratiques Traditionnelles, and Association pour le Progrès et la Défense des Droits des Femmes, filed a case at the ECOWAS Court of Justice seeking to hold the Government of Mali to account on its failure to enact an anti-FGM law to protect Malian girls and women from this harmful practice.

Critiques of Conflict Resolution

There is a dominant Western discourse on “female genital mutilation” (FGM) but it is also crucial for us to consider and be knowledgeable of the social, ethical, and legal ramifications of its continued practice. By putting the practice in a powerful social context, we can explain the difficulties that have been met in decreasing and abolishing FGC, and considerations that physicians must make in their counseling and advocacy. Responses from physician professionals and international health organizations have generally been that of condemnation, based on the premise that all female genital cutting is a violation of the human rights of women and has potentially serious health consequences. This is due to a clear view that our Western culture will not participate in or condone this practice (Berg and Denison). Although the response of Western physicians should be clearly and strongly opposing this procedure as medically harmful, it is still important to consider the potential ramifications of our approach to the education of individual patients, and what types of campaigns we offer support to eradicate the practice.

As Western governments have become more aware of FGM among some immigrant communities, legislation has been implemented as the main intervention tool but we need to prioritize prevention strategies, including awareness-raising and empowerment of women in order to initiate a movement to change the social/gender structural inequalities of these communities. Educational efforts have aimed at providing these humanitarian organizations a greater understanding of the practice and training healthcare providers and policymakers to educate and empower girls in Sudan to make their own decisions. Describing their cutting as “mutilation” or a violation of their rights potentially disregards the decision-making they can exercise and their inherited culture, potentially perpetuating the victimization of these women. Using appropriate language when counseling and giving possible therapeutic options to patients with FGM is imperative. This is in contradiction to Kenneth Waltz’s beliefs that the language of conflict resolution is irrelevant at the system level in a Realist approach to conflict resolution. This Non-Western/Non-Northern critique of FGM resolution once again perpetuates the theme of western dominance over other cultural viewpoints. This is incredibly problematic but the first step is to understand how Sudanese culture approaches the FGM practice.

Future Approaches to FGM Resolution

To achieve success in preventing the continuation of FGM, it is necessary to understand the forces underpinning the practice, such that information, messages, and activities can be tailored to their audiences accordingly. Programs can aim to modify or remove factors perpetuating the practice and use or build upon existing factors that are seen to hinder the continuation of the practice in order to initiate social change. Studies have shown that the actions and decisions for FGM are highly meaningful and preserve the valued lifeways of people in the community, so we must see FGM as a belief set, in which its value as a cultural tradition takes precedence.

It is performed out of cultural conformity and, over time, the practice has developed social significance, signaling people’s sense of identity and respectability as an ideal member of the community (Berg and Denison)

While laws in themselves are not enough, they signal expectations by a government regarding the practice and they can work in a complementary fashion with prevention strategies, such as awareness, and educational intervention approaches by creating enabling environments for change. UNICEF and the UN have declared that comprehensive social support mechanisms and awareness-raising campaigns are key to their goal of ending FGM by 2030. Strategies of this kind may foster greater public discussion and reflection, such that previously non-discussed costs of FGM may emerge as people share their experiences. 

A few religious figures have started taking a stand against FGM as they try and shift FGM away from Islam because the violence associated with the practice does not fall in line with Islamic values. We need to stop the spread of false links between FGM and religion by spreading a religious consciousness confirming the illegitimacy of FGM. We can do this by strengthening the role of religious community leaders in order to mobilize communities and change behavior (COPFGMORG).

Future approaches need to tailor information, messages, and activities to their audiences. Specifically, the results show that programs can also build upon existing beliefs about the detrimental consequences of FGM and that the practice is not a religious obligation such as believed in Sudan. This can be mitigated through establishing an alliance with religious leaders, who often function as community authorities. Health professionals can also aim to correct women’s misperceptions regarding male sexual pleasure and inform community members of the greater likelihood of health problems with FGM. 

 

Sources

Berg, Rigmor C, and Eva Denison. “A Tradition in Transition: Factors Perpetuating and Hindering the Continuance of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) Summarized in a Systematic Review.” Health Care for Women International, Taylor & Francis, Oct. 2013, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3783896/.

“Female Genital Mutilation.” United Nations Population Fund, https://www.unfpa.org/female-genital-mutilation.

“Home – Desert Flower Foundation.” Save a Little Desert Flower, https://www.desertflowerfoundation.org/en/home.html.

“How Can Youth End FGM?” Equality Now, 18 Dec. 2021, https://www.equalitynow.org/news_and_insights/youth_end_fgm/.

“International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation.” United Nations, United Nations, https://www.un.org/en/observances/female-genital-mutilation-day.

PlanetaustriaTV. “Interview Mit Der Wunderbaren ‘Wüstenblume.’” YouTube, YouTube, 12 Dec. 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpmti5y-26g&t=69s%C2%A0.

“Religion as a Strategy to Tackle FGM.” Copfgmorg, https://copfgm.org/2020/09/religion-as-a-strategy-to-tackle-fgm.

“Saleema Initiative.” UNICEF Sudan, https://www.unicef.org/sudan/saleema-initiative.

“Sudan Bans Female Genital Mutilation, UNICEF Vows to Help Support New Law | | UN News.” United Nations, United Nations, https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/05/1063122.

unitednations. “#Endfgm by 2030, for the Sake of Our ‘Common Future.’” YouTube, YouTube, 3 Feb. 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Dhg2j_p5cM&t=37s.