Picture this: a community deeply set in its traditions and has continued to carry out harmful cultural practices does an about turn on one of its signature practices and turns it on its head. That harmful cultural practice is female genital mutilation (FGM) otherwise known as female circumcision, which is practiced in many parts of the global south, Kenya not exempted.
The act is performed sometimes as purely as a cultural rite of passage or in some communities, as a religious rite. It is a painful and brutal procedure which in many cases results in permanent health hazard to young girls and women who are subjected to it. To achieve the communal change from FGM is not a mean fete, it is a total sea-change.
The Crux of FGM
But first, a quick run through on what FGM is and how it affects women and girls. It is estimated that over 200 million women and girls worldwide have been subjected to FGM. The term has become so commonplace that it is easy to forget that this is an insidious form of violence against women and girls.
FGM, also called female genital cutting or circumcision, as the name suggests is a practice that involves the removal of part of the female genitals performed on children and young girls in some communities mostly in the global south. It varies from community to community in how it is carried out.
In some communities, the process is very invasive, as not only is it performed in unhygienic conditions, but the unhygienic dismal aftercare or the lack of it thereof leaves the victims in precarious conditions where they either get lifelong infections and injuries bleed to death. Some of the survivors have told horror stories of having their labia stitched up with thorns to preserve their virginity. This happens in a type of FGM known as infibulation which entails the narrowing of the vaginal opening through the creation of a covering seal. The seal is formed by cutting and repositioning the labia minora, or labia majora, sometimes through stitching, with or without removal of the clitoral prepuce/clitoral hood and glans.
For some, crude tools like a horn may be inserted as a way of attempting to heal the wound which further aggravates it instead and later affects their sexual lives not being able to meet their partners’ expectation and could end up in domestic violence. Women in their forties and fifties still have to deal with the aftereffects of FGM decades after the procedure was done.
Depending on how the act is performed, countless numbers of women and girls have ended up with physical impairments such as fistula, childbirth complications and sometimes death. FGM and particularly infibulation is a primary cause of fistula among survivors of FGM.
And those are just some of the physical harmful effects of FGM. The impact on women and girls can be far reaching with lifelong psychological trauma and economic disempowerment not to mention the lack of human dignity that plague the survivors. For instance, the stigma that comes with untreated fistula, as is usually the case, diminished economic empowerment due to lack of education as FGM at puberty often leads to marriage, and the power imbalance in marriages to men much older than them rob young girls and women of the power to chart their own futures, leaving them vulnerable in cycles of poverty and sometimes gender based violence.
In a nutshell, regardless of the extent of the cut or the type of FGM performed, the act is dangerous and an act of violence against women and girls. There are no redeeming qualities of the practice whatsoever.
FGM persists despite stringent laws
Despite many campaigns against the practice and the practice being outlawed, it persists. But why?
FGM persists not so much because it is a cultural practice or even out of ignorance, but because there are underlying systems that buttress the practice. It is a layered social tradition with intricate interrelated customs that is not easy to dismantle, just like many other deeply rooted cultural norms.
In some communities, young girls are subjected to the act because it is still a rite of passage used to graduate girls into women then they are married off. Thus, the practice not only causes physical harm to the young girls, but it destroys their futures. Many of them are no longer able to continue their education as they get married off, often to men old enough to be their fathers or even grandfathers, as the fourth, fifth or whatever nth number of wife in polygamous homes. Parents do this as way to get dowry in the form of cattle in order to sell and educate their sons or to gain wealth amongst pastoralist communities. Some men squander the money they make from sale of cattle in drinking. Still, in some communities the cutters are also merchants who are in it for economic gain as they get paid for their work. The war on violence against women and girls cannot be won if this practice is allowed to thrive.
Tides of Change
However, it is not all doom and gloom. Many NGOs have invested a lot in community programs including education and social cultural behaviour change programs aimed at ending the practice. This kind of work spans a multipronged approach and multi-agency from advocacy to economic empowerment. It is a painstaking mission that takes years of dedicated work. Every now and then a good story comes out these gloomy circumstances. The change may happen secretly as an initiative of a child, a mother’s protective action for her daughters, a church or NGO intervention or a family decision.
Sometimes the change is huge. A complete sea - change. One of the strategies NGOs and churches have employed to combat FGM is to find alternative rites of passage (ARP) which is a much more overt process that targets cohorts of agemates. The cohorts would normally be the natural age groups who would have undergone FGM process together.
Back in the precolonial days, as a rite of passage, FGM was tied to the socialization, or education if you like, process that culminated with a ceremony in which the cut was performed. ARP is designed to take the young girls through a more or less similar socialization process that prepares them for womanhood, however, a community graduation ceremony full of pomp and colour replaces the cut. The aim is to protect women and girls from the barbaric violation that FGM is and keep girls in school till they have graduated higher education all the while respecting the need to keep some cultural values including the rites of passage.
This is not a mean fete.
A tremendous amount of investment is required for such an achievement. We’re talking community social change programs such as trainings to help shape knowledge and attitudes which eventually influence behavior and practices. In some cases, child protection services including law enforcement maybe employed if necessary. Further intervention includes building boarding schools that also act as safe houses for vulnerable girls. Community training in social behavior change program through which participants are able to identify harmful practices related social and economic life and discuss local solutions goes a long way to achieve the desired change.
However, as with habit, for one to get rid of a bad one, it is necessary to have replacement habit.
Beating FGM
Since FGM is a form of wealth generation economic activity, communities should be empowered to seek gainful and legitimate sources of income. The young boys and men who eventually end up marrying the women also need to be re-educated to adopt healthy and safe beliefs about what makes a woman marriageable. Further, parents, especially fathers, also need to be educated to understand the dangers of FGM, the benefits of giving their daughters a chance to get formal education and to protect them from opportunistic FGM practitioners who are paid to do the cut.
In some cases, women and girls find themselves in vulnerable position and are unable to protect themselves because they are too young, even as young as five years old, while in others it is because they lack agency to stand up for themselves. In some of the rural communities where the rite persists, some of the women and girls give in to peer pressure from those who have undergone it or pressure from their husbands to save their marriages because men do not want uncircumcised women. Some parents too give in to pressure for fear of being ostracized for not allowing their daughters to 'get circumcised'. Sadly, peer pressure is not only a driving factor in the villages. It is very disheartening to see social media posts people who embrace FGM as a good practice in the name of preserving culture.
Positive cultural ambassadors can help change these perceptions, attitudes and patterns of behavior and reinforce safe values in society. The strides that have been made so far to eradicate FGM could not have been achieved without advocates championing the course ranging from youth groups, community leaders, athletes, teachers, high ranking politicians, celebrities, social media influencers, survivors to global leaders and anyone who cares.
A popular Swahili proverb says ‘he who abandons his culture is a slave’. While it is admirable to preserve and to be proud of one’s culture, when a particular belief system or cultural practice is harmful from the onset or even has a negative outcome later in life, it is prudent to leave that practice behind in the ages gone by where it belongs.
It is not enough just to pass laws against FGM, governments need to redouble their efforts by providing adequate support systems such as education and economic empower to enable communities change.
It is time to end all forms of violence against women and girls, FGM included.
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