Norms that hurt: communities abandoning FGM

This post is written by Charlotte Highmore, a junior policy analyst for the OECD and the Secretariat of the DAC Network on Gender Equality (GENDERNET). It discusses female genital mutilation (FGM) and the progress made thus far, in honor of the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation. This blog is a part of the Wikichild series on FGM/C.
 

Worldwide there are 140 million women and girls currently living with the irreversible physical and emotional trauma affects caused by female genital mutilation (FGM). Each year, a further three million girls endure the practice.

According to the World Health Organization, FGM involves the full or partial removal of the female genitalia, performed most frequently by untrained traditional practitioners. In approximately 15 per cent of all global cases this involves fully sewing the female genitalia closed. There are no health benefits for women and girls. When “cutters” without medical training perform FGM the procedure is often carried out without anaesthetic or sterilisation. Unsurprisingly, many girls die through shock from the pain, trauma or excessive bleeding.

A Deep Rooted Social Norm

This begs the question - why do it? FGM is a deeply rooted social norm enforced by community expectations around women and girls. As with the type of mutilation practised, the reasons why FGM is done depends on the context. For some it is linked with the idea of cleanliness. For others, it is about enhancing beauty or upholding religion. It is worth noting though that FGM is not prescribed by any of the major religions or supported by any religious texts. Most frequently, FGM is about controlling women’s sexuality – for example, preserving a girl’s virginity or stopping “promiscuous” behaviour.

What is apparent through all the different rationalisations is that FGM is considered a necessary part of raising a woman and girl properly. To opt out is to risk girls being rejected from the community or never being able to find a husband, which for many outweighs any health risks – including the possibility of death.

Progress is Being Made

The reality that FGM violates women’s and girls’ rights and perpetuates gender inequality is gaining momentum and progress is being achieved. In 2003, the 6th February was announced as the International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation. This was followed in 2012 with a UN General Assembly resolution that condemned harmful practices to women and girls, in particular FGM. Currently 24 African nations where FGM is practiced have prohibited the practice by law or constitutional decree.

However – while important – legislative change, UN resolutions, or one individual acting alone cannot shift entrenched social norms. What is needed is for the entire community to work together to decide to abandon the practice.

NGOs such as Tostan and the UNFPA-UNICEF joint programme “Accelerating Change” have proven just how effective this approach can be. These organisations focus on working directly with local communities, including traditional and religious leaders, to enable them to reflect critically on the practice and make a collective choice to publically abandon FGM. Merely condemning the practice can risk creating hostility and driving it underground.

The results speak for themselves. Tostan and UNFPA-UNICEF’s work combined has reached over 18,000 communities in 15 countries; representing over 8 million people that have renounced FGM.

What Next?

By engaging with communities and enabling them to lead their own movements for change, entrenched social norms can and are starting to shift. We need to build on this momentum and ensure that resources reach organisations that are connected to communities and are able and willing to engage over the long-term to bring about the deeper, more systemic change needed. We can also learn from these best practices and apply them to other demanding gender equality issues such as early marriage, violence against women, and women’s inheritance and land rights. Positive social transformation is possible but it needs to come “from the ground up”.

- Charlotte Highmore

See also

FGM: the Dynamics of Change
International Day Against Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting 2013
Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting
Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A statistical overview and exploration of the dynamics of change

FGM: the Dynamics of Change

This blog, by Wikichild Co-ordinator Melinda Deleuze, is part of the Wikiprogress Series on the Wikiprogress Africa Network. This post provides a summary of the UNICEF report entitled “Female genital mutilation/cutting: a statistical overview and exploration of the dynamics of change.” 

When I first heard of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C), I was mortified. Upon reading this UNICEF report, I realized that my previous impressions - that this practice it only occurs in small African villages and affects very few women -  were misconceptions. Only now is reliable data on FGM/C available, giving us a clearer picture about the practice, at least for all 29 countries where the practice is concentrated. The report addresses key questions: How many girls and women have undergone FGM/C? Where is the practice most prevalent? How does this concentration vary within countries and across population groups? 

This WHO report defines FGM/C as “all procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons,” and the Organization categorizes the procedure into 4 types. In 2012, the UN General Assembly unanimously passed a resolution that banned FGM/C. Twenty-six countries in Africa and the Middle East have prohibited FGM/C by law; however, the legislation has proven ineffective. The practice remains widespread in 24 countries where FGM/C is illegal. 

There is a social obligation to perform the procedure and the belief that if one does not, then the consequences could include exclusion, criticism, ridicule, stigma or inability to find suitable marriage partners. Relatively few women reported concern over marriage prospects as justification for FGM/C, except in Eritrea and Sierra Leone. The primary benefit cited among men and women was social acceptance and preserving virginity.

In the 29 countries assessed, more than 125 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM/C, and in the next decade, another 30 million are at risk. There is a large variation in percentages of cut females across the countries. The countries are divided into 5 categories based on their prevalence levels of FGM/C. One in five cut girls live in one country: Egypt.

 

Variation among regions within a country can be striking, as seen in this map of Senegal (right).

The age at which the procedure is carried out varies across countries. In Somalia, Egypt, Chad and the Central African Republic, at least 80% of cut girls were between 5 and 14 years old. In Nigeria, Mali, Eritrea, Ghana and Mauritania, at least 80% of cut girls were younger than 5. Half of cut girls in Kenya were older than 9 when they had the procedure performed.

Initially, opposition towards the practice focused on health risks, which may have unintentionally encouraged medical professionals to carry out the practice. Traditional practitioners and, more specifically, traditional circumcisers usually perform FGM/C. Though, in countries such as Egypt, Sudan and Kenya, many medical personnel now complete the procedure. In Egypt, for example, 77% of procedures were carried out mostly by doctors, and around half of those procedures were performed at the girl’s home.

Ethnicity still plays a strong role in some countries, as it may be a proxy for shared norms and values. Also, the practice remains to be a physical marker of insider/outsider status. This graph below shows the degree of variability in FGM/C prevalence among ethnic lines by contrasting ethnic groups with the highest and lowest prevalence in countries.

Regarding religion, the practice is most prevalent among Muslim girls and women; however, it is also found among Catholic and other Christian communities. In Niger, for example, 55% of Christian girls and women have undergone FGM/C, compared to 2% of Muslim girls and women.

There is also a rural-urban divide, an income divide, and an education divide. In Kenya, for example, the percentage of girls in rural areas was four times that of those in urban areas. In most instances, daughters of wealthier families were less likely to be cut. In terms of education, the prevalence of FGM/C was highest among daughters of women with no education, and tends to diminish considerably as the mother’s educational level rises. The reason given for these trends is due to the fact that those in urban areas, in wealthier households, or with a higher educational level are more likely to interact with individuals and groups that do not practice FGM/C, shifting normative expectations around FGM/C as a result.

Support for the continuation of FGM/C varies across countries. In most countries (19 out of 29), a majority of girls and women think the practice should end (see graph below). Nevertheless, more than half the female population in Mali, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Gambia and Egypt think FGM/C should continue. More men than women favored stopping the practice, especially in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Chad. When fathers were included in the decision-making, their daughters were less likely to be cut. 

FGM/C remains a complicated issue, and this report does not give the whole picture; FGM/C is being performed outside these 29 countries, including  in Europe and North America. The fight against FGM/C has just begun. Stronger efforts will be essential in order to transform the cultural traditions and expectations ingrained in these societies. 

Fortunately, this report gives us a better understanding of FGM/C and, more importantly, an evidence base to begin measuring progress in this area. We know there have already been steps forward in terms of awareness, decreased health risks and legislative bans, but now we can track progress inside countries regarding specific population groups, procedures and attitudes. Hopefully, this evidence base will help us be more effective in promptly eliminating the practice.

- Melinda Deleuze

*This week's Wikiprogress spotlight is on the e-Frame Net (European Network on Measuring Progress).  

Invisible Women: Making Women Count

As part of the Wikiprogress on Gender Equality series, this progblog article is bought to you by Angela Hariche and Karen Barnes Robinson. 

They graduated together five years ago, and took a job in the same firm in the same city. Three years later, he can afford a down payment on a house and she cannot.

Her day starts with fetching water and firewood and cleaning the compound. Once she has taken care of the needs of the men and children, she leaves for the marketplace to sell vegetables.

She has three young children. Finding it difficult to make ends meet, she is caring for her elderly neighbour on an hourly basis, while working a part-time job as a maid in a local hotel. Neither job comes with healthcare benefits.

These women are not victims. They are agents of change who bring resources, knowledge and capacity to their households, communities and societies. Without these women, the world would be worse off. Yet, they are still not being recognised, paid or valued for the work they do, and society as a whole suffers. Why is it this way? For much of the past two decades, the global economy has experienced a period of significant growth and overall rates of poverty have declined. However, inequalities between men and women, between rich and poor and between urban and rural communities remain rife. Why are women, in particular, not benefiting from global progress?

First, women are not being recognised. They are undervalued. In 2009, the European Commission launched a campaign to address the fact that on average, women earn 17.4% less than men. In the US, research has shown that one year after college, women earn only 80% of what their male colleagues earn. Why aren’t enough women being represented on boards or in politics? Can any of our current measures for economic performance address this issue? There are indicators that measure the percentage of women in senior positions over time but  if a country’s success was based on it, you can bet leaders would work a little harder to appoint women in top positions. If this indicator was important and recognised, imagine what might change.

Second, women are not being counted. They are invisible. Women are 50 percent of the population yet up until now, a lot of the work they do isn’t being considered in current measures of economic resources. What would it mean if all of the work that women do around the world was actually counted and measured over time? Recent research from the UN Research Institute for Social Development argues that if unpaid care work, mostly done by women, was assigned a monetary value, it would amount to between 10 to 39 per cent of GDP. Clearly there is a powerful economic argument for beginning to value women’s work. Unless this work is acknowledged in economic data, then policies will fail to target and support women and their contributions to the global economy will remain invisible. Once we are able to see the work they are doing, we can start counting it. What if there was an indicator called the household work indicator and it too was just as recognized as GDP?

Third, women are not able to access the same opportunities as men. They are marginalised. Globalisation and development processes have transformed men and women’s roles and relations, but this has not necessarily translated into more access to resources and greater empowerment for women or more gender equality. More women end up in the informal sector in ‘bad jobs’, and as recent research by the OECD Development Centre has shown, there is a ‘feminisation of bad jobs’, where discrimination against women leads to them being stuck in jobs with poor working conditions and low or no pay. This has major implications for the health and welfare of their households and their own economic and physical security. Little or no income means that women are also not saving or driving consumption and economic growth. What if there was an indicator called the well-being indicator and it was a measure of economic health of a society and it was fully recognised and supported like the mighty GDP?

We are now in 2013. The world has changed since 1930s when GDP was created. While we recgonise that GDP is a good measure of production, we call for equally powerful indicators that incorporate a broader range of factors including informal work. If these existed, we might see a difference in the world. Can we have sustainable economic growth and global progress when not only are there more women in worse jobs, but they are also consistently paid less for the work that they do or not paid at all? It is a question of supporting women’s rights and gender equality, but it is also a question of supporting smart economics by making sure that measures for progress in societies take women into account. There is considerable work being done on this at the OECD and around the world. However, unleashing the economic and social potential of women and making them visible in government policy is a major global challenge, one that would reap significant economic benefits if  really and truly supported. This would be revolutionary. In the end, it comes down to the fact that what doesn’t count isn’t counted, and we only count what we can see. We have to start seeing women and the work they do.

By Angela Costrini Hariche and Karen Barnes Robinson

See the Wikiprogress Focus on Gender Equality article for further reading. 

Social Media for Girls: The Potential is Explosive

As part of the Wikiprogress on Gender Equality series, this progblog article by Girl Effect focuses on the power of social media to empower girls in Africa and around the world.

Image courtesy of Girl Effect

Social media is a powerful tool in today's world - it connects people across continents and has affected massive social and cultural change. I believe that for girls in particular, the potential it holds is explosive.

Working as a female entrepreneur in Nigeria, I've been able to see first-hand how using it smartly is one of the best ways to overcome communication barriers.  This week, I'll be at Social Media Week Lagos, discussing how social media has the power to change the lives of adolescent girls. As part of the ' Mobilize! Social Media For Social Change' event hosted by Girl Effect, I'll be debating how tools like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have given Nigerian girls the opportunity to use social media to take part in the global development dialogue.

The importance of social media is clear to me. I'm always using platforms like LinkedIn, Google+ and Facebook to make contacts, create links and develop relationships with others. Tools like these expand the communication and engagement I have with those around me, giving me the chance to join the right groups, meet the right people and get my voice out there.

Networking with others on LinkedIn is absolutely crucial in my professional life - it gives me the chance to reach out to new projects and opportunities, as well as share my experiences with influential professionals. On a more personal level, using Facebook means that I can connect to old classmates, friends and family, plus keep them up to date with what's going on in my life on a regular basis.

The same benefits apply to girls, as there are huge opportunities available to them as a result of using social media.

Social media should not just be seen as social networking and having fun. It is fun, but there's also an art to getting it right, and I think it's important that girls discover how they can make their communication with the wider world successful. When used effectively, social media gives them a voice, helps create noise around a cause and brings both local and global attention to issues that matter to them.

An example of how this can be done is the youth social media advocacy campaign I am championing, which uses social media to educate, inform and empower young girls. With programmes like these, girls can learn how to use social media to their advantage; be it to further their career, meet influential business people or simply have their voice heard - learning these skills is vital to them.

Social media is also cheaper - a lot cheaper - than the alternatives. You can reach 1,000 people through the power of social media for a fraction of the cost that you can through television or print. It's also interactive and this two-way relationship is key to the power of social media, and therefore key to the argument for girls using it more.

Through conversations that they can now have with high-level decision makers, NGOs and policy-makers, girls can affect the global agenda for change.

Girls have the potential to be an incredible force in the social media world. By using the technology in the best way possible, they will be able to change their lives and the lives of generations of girls to come.

Find out more about equipping girls to change the world

Follow Girl Effect's session at Social Media Week Lagos using the hash tag #SMWMobilize

Find out more about Girl Effect's session at Social Media Week Lagos

To read more articles on Gender Well-being check out our Wikiprogress on Gender Equality Page and we look forward to bringing you more similarly themed articles for the rest of this week.

The Wikiprogress Team 

@Wikprogress @Wikigender @Wiki_child

The voices of young women. Do you hear them?

As a part of the Wikiprogress on Gender Equality series, this progblog on empowering girls and young women is brought to you by Robbie Lawrence, Wikichild Coordinator. 

City Dump in Siem Reap - Courtesy of 10x10 

If you read our Spotlight! Gender Equality and Well-being posted last Friday you would have watched the trailer for ‘Girl Rising’, the feature film made by social action campaigners 10x10 which tells the story of nine girls from nine different walks of life, all seeking self empowerment through education.  The 10x10 team has set out to create a new form of social-issue moviemaking by combining production and advocacy right from the outset of the project’s fruition. The campaign, which brings together the intimacy and emotional thrust of its film with photos, videos, blogs and tweets is an exemplar of the dynamic methods in which organisations today seek to engage their audience. It also represents a ripple in a rapidly growing wave of protests around the world against the social, economic and political inequalities suffered by girls and young women. A wave that is likely to crash down on the impending Post 2015 agenda.

It was, perhaps, the attempt of a heavily male dominated institution to silence the voice of a young Pakistani girl that brought the issue of girl’s rights to the forefront of the Post 2015 discussion. When Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by Taliban gunmen as she returned home from school she immediately became an icon for voiceless and oppressed girls globally. By expressing her right to an education, Malala almost lost her life, but her attacker’s brutal actions only served to amplify her demands for equity in a transcendently male controlled world.  

Following the attempt on her life, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown launched a UN petition in Malala’s name demanding that children from every continent be in school by 2016 and last week hundreds of thousands of people mobilized to strike and dance for the One Billion Rising campaign in a bid to make her dream become a reality. When the Commission on the Status of Women convenes in New York next month, the weight of the ‘I am Malala’ campaign will undoubtedly weight heavily on the shoulders of the committee.

As the months leading up to the 2015 slip away, activists in favor of empowering girls and young women will hope that the fires ignited by the likes of ‘Girl Rising’ and ‘Malala’s Dream’ will not have cooled. In her recent article, ‘Young People and Inequalities: Recommendations for the post-2015 Development Agenda’, Sara Gold emphasizes the importance of forums like the UN’s ‘Global Online Conversation’, as it provides a platform for people to share their vision of a gender equal world.

We at Wikigender and Wikichild also plan on adding our voice to the global conversation on empowering young women, or should we say, your voice. In line with past online discussions, including this month’s ‘Transforming social norms to prevent violence against women and girls’, Wikigender and Wikichild will collaborate to host a forum on adolescent girls and social norms, which will include featured topics such as early marriage, missing women and female genital mutilation. By implementing a recognized location where information can be freely exchanged on topics like gender equality, it is our hope that over time, policy makers will use the reports formed from these discussions as points of reference. As Estelle pointed out in yesterday’s blog Rising against sexual violence! Wikigender will present the findings from their latest discussion at the 57^th CSW on the 4^th of March. 

Join us for our next online discussion in May on adolescent girls and the social norms getting in the way of their progress. We value your views and will keep you posted.

Robbie Lawrence 

Wikichild Coordinator

@Wiki_child, @Wikiprogress, @Wikigender