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 ENDING FGM 

When one young man in Tanzania found out that his wife had undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), he divorced her hardly a week into their marriage.

He had long vowed to marry an uncut woman, yet his partner was not aware she had been mutilated when she was a baby.

The divorce plunged the young woman into depression. She also became bitter with her mother, believing she subjected her to the dreaded experience during infancy.

Esther Muhagachi from the Christian Council of Tanzania shared this real life experience during one of the breakout sessions of the second International Conference on Female Genital Mutilation earlier in October in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

This specific session discussed the role of men and boys in ending FGM, a harmful practice that comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.

The World Health Organization (WHO) makes it very clear that FGM has no health benefits. Instead, it comes with a smorgasbord of lasting physical and psychological complications, including severe bleeding and infections, on top of difficulties in childbirth.

After gripping a roomful of delegates with the young couple’s story, Muhagachi, the wife of Bishop Amos Muhagachi of Dodoma, then posed a question to the youthful panel of passionate anti-FGM activists.

"What can we do to help girls who are already mutilated, now that boys are getting empowered that FGM is bad and they want to marry an unmutilated girl?"

▪️  Focus turns to action after 2nd FGM conference in Tanzania

Esther Muhagachi from the Christian Council of Tanzania

A form of gender-based violence, FGM is a violation of human rights that negatively impacts women and girls’ bodily autonomy by taking away their right to choose.

And according to Kenyan anti-FGM activist Leshan Kereto, all this is part of the social injustice that such girls and women face.

Sitting on the panel and donning Maasai traditional attire, worn by members of the community he comes from, he rolled the discussion back to the disadvantaged position in which a girl child arrives on earth.

From the time a girl is born in especially FGM-practising communities such as Kereto’s native Maasai and Samburu of Kenya, she has already been considered a liability.

“The girl grows up knowing that her ultimate goal in life is to get married,” said the youthful campaigner, who chairs the UNFPA Youth Advisory Panel and sits on the African Union Youth Reference Committee.

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Kenyan anti-FGM campaigner Leshan Kereto

But such age-old perceptions can be changed.

For instance, empower people to know that bodies cannot be owned by other people because of what they want.

“I think that way, we might be able to have a conversation where women are able to choose what they want and as they grow up, they can realize that marriageability is not the ultimate goal in life. There are other factors such as habits and values,” said Kereto, a recipient of a presidential award for his outstanding efforts towards ending FGM in Kenya.

For the sort of conversations he talked about to produce the desired effect, there is a general appreciation among campaigners that men and boys should be involved in the global quest to end FGM for good.

More than four million girls around the world were projected to be at risk of undergoing FGM this year (2023), according to the World Health Organization.

▪️  Hotlines and data: More work needed to end cross-border FGM

International Day against FGM in Madrid on February 6, 2016

Drawing men and boys into anti-FGM efforts could be the game changer, according to some observers.

But it is even more important to get the approaches of engaging them right, according to Peter Kemei, a founding member of Men End FGM, a Kenyan organization that rallies men and boys to unite against harmful practices such as FGM and child marriage.

Weighing in further on the discussion, he said in Kenyan communities such as the Pokot, Samburu and Kuria, girls don't believe that a boy can marry them if they are not cut.

Kemei and his team are working to change such perceptions — but carefully, so as not to worsen matters.

"The idea of engaging boys to accept to marry girls who have not been cut is not to discriminate against those who have been cut,” he said. 

Instead, they are telling the young men not to choose a marriage partner based on whether they have undergone FGM or not.

On the African continent, positive stories involving males are emboldening activists to continue working to see FGM out of the door.

For instance, one day, a call came through at the office of Onelife Initiative, a youth-serving non-profit organization in Nigeria working to improve the well-being of young people through community mobilization, sensitization, dialogues, etc.

The male caller had got into an argument with his wife, who wanted to have their daughter cut. He was against the move, himself having been enlightened by media on the devastating impacts of FGM.

So he called in to have his wife sensitized on the matter and hopefully change her mind, according to ‘Sola Fagorusi, the executive director of Onelife Initiative.

"We can't just leave the conversation about ending FGM to women alone. We also need to get men on the table and let them also be part and central to that conversation,” he said, speaking as a panelist in Dar es Salaam.

▪️  'Law enforcement, collaborations key in ending crossborder FGM'

‘Sola Fagorusi, the executive director of Onelife Initiative

Fagorusi’s early encounters with FGM inspired him to work within his power to ensure that no girl child faces the blade.

He was barely a teenager the first time he witnessed the procedure. A man drove a woman and her daughter to the location where the FGM was to be done. The male circumciser then examined the girl, before taking her into a room to cut her.

Years later, in retrospect, Fagorusi realized just how “powerful” men are in especially very traditional African settings.

“It is very dangerous if you have men who believe that FGM should continue. It is also very dangerous to have men who are indifferent because they don't really care whether you cut the girl or not,” he said.

Just like in Fagorusi’s Nigeria, thousands of miles away in Kenya’s Samburu community, men wield similar power, invariably limiting the space for women to make decisions.

“Here, every decision is made by a man,” said Frank Leseketeti, a young anti-FGM champion and UNFPA Youth Advisory Panel member representing Samburu county.

But in this very male dominance lies an opportunity for anti-FGM efforts.

"If the man of the house decides that my daughter will not be cut, absolutely she will not be cut, whether the society wants it or not,” added Leseketeti, who has been working closely with the Samburu county government gender department as a youth mentor in the peer-to-peer anti-FGM campaign.

The role of men and boys is needed now more than ever because of the evolvement of FGM into a cross-border activity due to anti-FGM laws. Young girls move into neighbouring countries to engage in the procedure, which hampers efforts to eliminate the harmful practice.

Within the Pokot community, involving Kenyans and Ugandans, girls who have undergone FGM are deemed ready for marriage, and as a result, drop out of the school to start new lives as child parents, which is also a human rights violation.

▪️  Ending FGM 'needs all hands on deck'

An ex-FGM cutter of the Pokot tribe Chepureto Lobul (2-R) reacts during a meeting with journalists in Katabok village, northeast Uganda, on January 30, 2018

In 2022, Pokot elders  — custodians of culture and tradition — from Kenya and Uganda met in Kenya and committed to engaging all stakeholders in initiatives towards the fight against FGM amongst the Pokot community.

They agreed that banishing the cultural practice will benefit their community and as such, the group of 60 elders vowed to support efforts by the government to help end FGM.

For campaigners, bringing men and boys on board means plenty of work lies ahead.

From Kereto’s engagements with men in Voi in Kenya’s Taita-Taveta county, he believes many of them justify the continuation of FGM out of ignorance. But the message on the scarring effects of the procedure only hits home whenever he shows them videos of suffering victims, or when it happens to a family member.

“Activists need to help men choose a side on ending FGM, else their attitudes might continue into the next generation,” he cautioned.

Accordingly, engagement approaches must be both curative (for mostly adult men) and preventive (for mostly young males) in nature.

The thinking is that there is an opportunity to transform young men by putting them at the helm of anti-FGM conversations, because, according to Kereto, “they are the people who are going to change the generation and sustain what we are trying to do”.

"Engage men at design level, in resource mobilizing, in stakeholder mapping, and in contextualization and development of programmes that target their communities so that they don't only come at the receiving end."

Delegates attending plenary at the 2nd International Conference on FGM in Dar es Salaam

In efforts to eradicate FGM, wooing traditional leaders to your side cannot be underestimated, considering they have previously backed the procedure.

At a conference of traditional leaders one time, Cameroonian researcher and anti-FGM activist Mbeh Francisca Nkeng asked one of the chiefs what their role is in eliminating FGM.

His response: ‘We are not involved because we don't do the cutting’.

She found it absurd that despite him being a leader in his community, the chief — seemingly irritated by Nkeng’s persistent probing — appeared nonchalant about the existence of the practice.

"If men say they are the leaders in communities and the rulers of our families, we want them to play that role in stopping FGM,” she said in Dar es Salaam, also as a panelist of a session moderated by Nigerian Rotimi Olawale, the executive director of YouthHubAfrica, a non-profit organization working with young people involved in social change.

Cameroonian researcher and anti-FGM activist Mbeh Francisca Nkeng (R)

"Rule in a community where we can stop FGM,” emphasized Nkeng.

“Rule in a community where you will back us up in all the cases that we will bring to you [about FGM]."

Within the mix of sociocultural factors within families and communities fueling FGM lie several myths and misconceptions about the procedure.

One such myth is that FGM would be safer if carried out by a medical practitioner.

"There is no medical justification for FGM, and medical practitioners carrying out FGM on girls and women are causing only harm," says WHO.

Fagorusi’s Onelife Initiative in Nigeria is working to counter such misbeliefs by establishing a museum on FGM.

Once ready, the facility will display relevant information about the practice, including the tools used as well as historical contexts.

The organization is also using peer-to-peer mechanism to address the harmful practice.

While out in one community recently, Fagorusi and his colleagues observed something. Their host interacted with them with his legs up on the table, as a perceived show of authority.

"He wouldn't do that if he was talking to his peers. So, one of the things we have learnt from that field tour is that when we go in for advocacy and we interact with men, we find out what their biases are. We read their body language. We find out who they would like to listen to,” said Fagorusi.

"For instance, if a clergy would like to listen to a clergy, then we find a clergy who believes that FGM should end and bring him into the room to talk to his fellow clergy.”

During community engagements, the team also encourages residents to take the anti-FGM message as seriously as they do globally-targeted messages on malaria, Ebola, COVID-19, etc.

FGM is a violation of human rights

"You can't cherry pick what recommendations you take when it comes to health,” said the Nigerian communications expert.

‘They are fine and safe’

Meanwhile, during the breakout session in Tanzania, one delegate from Somalia voiced his dilemma. He is a father of two daughters who are uncut. He said he is facing a lot of pressure from his family to have them undergo FGM.

As he pondered what to do, he learnt of a new trend of pretending to cut to give the impression that the procedure has happened whereas actually not. Should he consider this?

Responding to him, Kereto placed the desires of the man’s daughters at the fore. Yes, there is a lot of pressure from the family, but what do the girls themselves want? “We should respect young girls because they are under your custody and you have the opportunity to guide them in the right direction.”

Also weighing in, Fagorusi said pretend cutting is only a temporary solution. “The long-term solution is for men, as role models, to say that ‘You don't need to cut my girls. They are fine and safe’.”

In Burkina Faso, where an anti-FGM law has existed since 1996, there are groups encouraging clubs in schools to take the lead in fighting FGM in their communities.

There are also community technicians who sensitize parents on especially the far-reaching consequences of FGM, mostly at the village level.

Chiefs also make declarations, signed in full view of community members, on interventions towards eliminating FGM. Teams of four members featuring a man, woman, boy and girl then work to ensure the interventions are implemented in the communities.

In 2021, more than 3.4 million people, including community leaders, across 4,475 communities around the world made public declarations to commit to eliminating FGM, which was a 48% increase from 2020, according to UNFPA.

UNFPA and UNICEF have jointly led the largest global programme to accelerate the elimination of FGM since 2008.

These two Spotlight Initiative recipient United Nations agencies were key in the successful staging of the second International Conference on FGM in Tanzania — organized by the African Union — following the inaugural edition in Burkina Faso in 2018.

Themed 'Change in a Generation', the 2023 edition looked to the future, with a view of unlocking the full potential of girls and women and how men and boys can be involved as allies and advocates.

‘Common language’

Back in Samburu, the enduring ingredient of that community that is moranism remains a high hurdle to negotiate.

Here, young Morans, after being circumcised, are considered the protectors of the community, a source of individual pride. But the concern is that after their initiation, these fearless youth warriors impregnate teenage girls.

The Kenya Demographic and Health Survey of 2022 indicates that teenage pregnancy rates dropped by 3% to 15% in the previous eight years, but the highest rate was recorded in Samburu at 50% in 2022.

Leseketeti, who was once a Moran himself, said they are using peer-to-peer dialogue as part of the strategy to tackle moranism.

"These young people listen to us more than they listen to their fathers,” he said.

“We speak in a common language. I know what pressing issues young people face, whether they are in school or out. The moment we sit together, it is a conversation: young people talking together and we are getting a lot of responses from these engagements.”

On top of such conversations, education is crucial, especially in shifting behavioural attitudes.

“The moment you empower these girls and boys by giving them an education, I am very sure you will be empowering a community that will be resilient, economically stable and ready to face the realities in the future,” said Leseketeti.

Francisca from Cameroon can relate.

Back in the day, her parents told her stories of their siblings being cut, but that as adults, they did not subject their own children to FGM, based on the education they had attained.

Male champions

In trying to draw in men and boys, the dynamic of sustainability also comes into question.

To Kenyan Kereto, sustainability will thrive with more boys in the conversation and women and girls enabled to make personal choices.

“Engaging men and boys will present an opportunity to tap into the resources they have. Men have a say in society, they have resources, they have the time and I am sure they also have an opportunity to act with their own values in a way that respects girls and women.”

From left, session moderator Rotimi Olawale, and panelists Leshan Kereto and Frank Leseketeti

Equally important is recruiting male community champions who are conversant with the conversations on their communities.

“Male champions give you an opportunity to sustain the programme because they live in the community,” added Kereto.

Anti-FGM campaigners, he said, should ensure they develop content that is community-specific by way of translations and breaking down big reports into information that can be easily understood.

On other interventions, Fagorusi pointed to activism through sports, music and door-to-door sensitization at the grassroots level.

“The idea is to get that information to their doorstep, listen to why they believe that FGM should continue and then go back to your armory, weaponize some of the information and return to them with feedback,” he said.

“Before going out to the community, we listen to various content on radio from that community. We take note of their language, words and diction they use and respond to them using their language.

“During naming ceremonies for newborn girls, we find out the clergy that will preside over the function. We then urge him to make a clear pronouncement to all the family members that ‘You don't cut the girl. She is born perfect and is okay’.”

Edutainment is very popular in Nigeria.

Fagorusi’s compatriot Olawale and his team have worked with Nollywood producers to produce short videos and short movies on FGM. One such movie is titled Sandra's Cross, which Olawale said has "helped to educate a lot of young men about the dangers of FGM".

At the conclusion of a vibrant panel discussion in Tanzania’s port city, Olawale’s parting shot was clear as the messages from all the panelists.

“People are forced to do certain things because they don't want to be stigmatized in their community. The fear of stigma and culture is very strong. But we must try to break it slowly, and with the collective work that we all do, we will be able to eradicate the harmful cultural practices in our communities.”