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FGM underestimated – new report

  • Recent underaged FGM initiates in the southern region of Sierra Leone

By Kemo Cham

A new report on Female Genital Mutilation or Cutting (FGM/C) has revealed that the extent of the practice has been underestimated.

The report which was published last week revealed that FGM, which is also called Female Genital Cutting (FGC), is occurring in over 90 countries and is far more widespread than it’s generally thought. Importantly, it reveals that the number of women and girls who are affected is woefully underestimated.

Themed 'Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A Call for a Global Response', the report is the result of a study jointly conducted by the End FGM European Network,  US Network to End FGM/C, and  Equality Now, an international human rights campaign group. It brings to light for the first time wide-ranging information on the phenomenon in countries not previously included in official global data.

FGM/C involves the partial or complete removal of the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. Campaigners against the practice argue that it has no health benefits and can cause serious lifelong physical and psychological harm.

In countries like Sierra Leone, it contributes to poverty.

Figures from the UN children's agency, UNICEF, show that at least 200 million women and girls have undergone FGM/C in 31 countries worldwide. This number only includes states where there is available data from large-scale representative surveys, with majority of them in Africa, together with Iraq, Yemen, the Maldives, and Indonesia.

This latest research identified 60 other countries where the practice of FGM/C was ongoing even though they had been documented through small-scale studies, anecdotal evidence, indirect estimates, and media reports.

While the UNICEF figures indicate that FGM/C is mostly concentrated in Africa, with 27 countries, this research cites "growing body of evidence" revealing that the practice is taking place in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, Latin America, and North America.

Crucially, no country in Asia or Latin America outlaws FGM/C, while in the Middle East it is only illegal in Oman and the Kurdistan region of Iraq, alongside Egypt and Sudan in North Africa.

FGM/C occurs across cultural, religious, and socio-economic groups. It is typically carried out on girls between infancy and age 18. But women are also occasionally subjected. While the procedure is often done without anaesthetic, it is increasingly happening in medical settings with healthcare professionals, say experts.

The End FGM/C U.S. Network is a collaborative group of survivors, civil society organizations, foundations, activists, policymakers, researchers and healthcare providers committed to promoting the abandonment of FGM/C in the U.S. and around the world. It seeks to eliminate the practice by connecting, supporting, elevating and advocating on behalf of and with diverse U.S. stakeholders engaged in prevention, education, and care.

The End FGM European Network (End FGM EU), on the other hand, is an umbrella of 27 organizations in 14 European countries working to ensure sustainable European action to end Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). The network, which connects grassroots communities and European decision-makers, seeks to facilitate cooperation between all relevant actors in the field of FGM both in Europe and globally.

Equality Now, a human rights NGO, works to protect and promote the rights of all women and girls around the world. Its campaigns are centered on four program areas: Legal Equality, End Sexual Violence, End Harmful Practices, and End Sex Trafficking, with a cross-cutting focus on the unique needs of adolescent girls.

Equality Now combines grassroots activism with international, regional and national legal advocacy to achieve legal and systemic change to benefit all women and girls, and it works to ensure that governments enact and enforce laws and policies that uphold their rights.

In Sierra Leone, Equality Now works with a network of partners including civil society organizations and NGOs, one of which is the Women Against Violence in Society (WAVES).

WAVES Executive Director, Hannah Yambasu, said this latest report captures the reality of the situation around FGM/C in Sierra Leone. She told Politico that a lack of political will to acknowledge the dangers associated with FGM/C had helped perpetuate the practice in the country.

Of the at least 92 countries where the practice is prevalent, only 51, representing 55%, have specific legislation against the practice, leaving millions without adequate legal protection, according to this report. One of these countries is Sierra Leone, where successive governments have not only refused to acknowledge the dangers associated with it, but have also openly supported the practice.

As a result, said Ms Yambasu, not only is underage initiation rampant, there has been no deliberate effort to regulate the practice despite the gross human rights violations that continue to characterize it.

Yambasu said many children were constantly deprived of attending school due to prolonged stay in the ‘Bondo’ bush.

In Sierra Leone, FGM is called ‘Bondo,’ which is a term for the rite of passage that include the cutting. The whole debate around the issue has centered on the cultural aspect, making it difficult to change perceptions.

“When they initiate children they miss classes. Some children don’t go to school for three weeks,” said Yambasu, in a telephone interview from the southern district of Bo.

“I am talking about children 5 years and 6 years. It’s so heartrending,” she lamented.

“FGM has a social problem. It deprives the children from school, especially in the [southern region]. There people prioritise the practice now over education,” she stressed.

WAVES is part of a coalition of anti-FGN campaign groups called the Forum Against Harmful Traditional Practices (FAHTP) which has been working with the government through the Ministry of Social Welfare to enact a law regulating the practice.

Between 2011 and 2012, the anti-FGM campaigners, with the support of local chiefs, stroke a deal with ‘Sowies’ (women who practice Bondo) that discouraged underage initiation. It also required women subjected to Bondo to give their consent.

But Yambasu said that that agreement has never worked.

In 2015, a minister in the administration of ex-President Ernest Bai Koroma stated that Bondo would never be disbanded as it was part of the culture of the country.

When the current administration of President Julius Maada Bio assumed office in 2018, there were hopes that it could take a more conciliatory posture on the issue, given candidate Bio’s promise to tackle injustice, until First Lady Fatima Bio publicly endorsed FGM.

Ms Ymabasu said all those incidences were indicative of the role politics played in FGM.

“The politicians are using this because of the illiteracy. When a society has a lot of illiterates, politicians use them. They don’t know what they are doing,” she said.

She added: “Politicians say it will not die because that’s where they get cheap labour, cheap votes,” she added.

The authors of this new report say a dearth of accurate data is enabling governments to ignore the issue, noting that better statistical information can help put pressure on authorities to act and give a baseline from which the scale and effectiveness of interventions can be measured.

It also notes that accurate data assists grassroots organizations and researchers to attract funding as a lack of financial backing is a major problem hampering the work of women's rights activists.

“Governments need to strengthen investment for evidence-based research and enact and enforce comprehensive laws and policies. There is also an urgent need to improve support services for survivors, which requires increased investment from the international community,” it partly reads.

Dr. Ghada Khan, Network Coordinator of US End FGM/C Network, said the global relevance of the practice, as highlighted in the findings of the report, called for the collection and dissemination of reliable data its prevalence across all regions, countries, and contexts in order to support prevention efforts, and provide care and services to all women and girls who have undergone the practice.

"Everyone everywhere is called to substantially increase efforts towards the abandonment of FGM. We need increased political will, stronger laws and policies, increased community engagement, and increased investment to truly end this practice," noted Fiona Coyle, Director at the End FGM European Network.

"The stories shared by brave survivors and activists demonstrate how women across the world are uniting in their commitment to end this harmful practice, irrespective of the type of FGM involved or where it occurs. We owe it to survivors and those at risk to ensure that political commitments made by governments to end FGM are finally fulfilled," said Flavia Mwangovya, Global Lead at Equality Now.

Copyright © 2020 Politico Online

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