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📍 DAR ES SALAAM

From the very beginning, the goal was clear: no leaving any girl or woman behind.

The fight against female genital mutilation (FGM) on the African continent took on the very spirit of a real war, where no man should be left behind. 

And to achieve that goal, everyone had — and still has — a role to play, including politicians.

When the African Union in February 2019 endorsed the Saleema Initiative to accelerate the elimination of FGM, political commitment took its place at the centre of the five-year continent-wide campaign.

Countries got down to work.

For instance, in East Africa, gender ministers from Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Somalia met on April 17, 2019 and adopted the Mombasa Declaration on ending cross-border FGM, which involves people moving countries so that girls undergo the procedure.

These five nations combined account for nearly a quarter (48.5 million) of the over 200 million girls and women alive today globally who have undergone FGM.

By definition, FGM is all procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for cultural and non-medical reasons.

Safe spaces

Two years after gathering in Mombasa, the regional gender ministers met again to bolster coordination and co-operation to eliminate the harmful practice.

Among other things, they recommitted to implementing the 2019-2024 costed regional action plan to end cross-border FGM, as well as to pushing their respective heads of state and governments to prioritize and commit adequate financial resources to anti-FGM efforts.

Another two years have passed and the ministers — some represented — are back together, this time as part of a larger group of delegates attending the second International Conference on FGM in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.

On Tuesday, the second and penultimate day of the conference, they shared insights on the interventions, challenges and recommendations in the regional effort to tackle cross-border FGM.

Gender minster Dorothy Gwajima (2nd-L) of Tanzania says safe spaces for rescued girls are important

On the most effective interventions that Tanzania has employed, host gender minster Dorothy Gwajima said collaborative meetings have resulted in the rescue of 245 girls that had been trafficked from Kenya into Tanzania for FGM.

"They are being sheltered somewhere in Mara Region," she told delegates.

That region in Tanzania's north is one of the strongholds of FGM practice.

Awareness campaigns using media channels and community groups is also helping.

On the prosecution front though, Gwajima raised concern that only nine out of so many cases have resulted in conviction in the last three years, mostly because some girls are compromised by their families.

Some even defend perpetrators. 

"We need to have a good number of safe houses (shelters) to keep these girls, otherwise we risk losing these cases," said the Tanzanian minister.

'Restrategize'

In Uganda, gender state minister Peace Mutuuzo said the gender-based violence law and other legal frameworks are supporting the anti-FGM legislation of 2010.

"In Uganda, we had moved. We had reduced FGM from 1.4% to 0.03%."

Political support from the very top, she added, is also bolstering their efforts.

"The head of state [Yoweri Museveni] has been able to go into those communities and pronounce against FGM in person, village by village - and that was one way of encouraging them to abandon FGM."

Uganda's gender state minister Peace Mutuuzo says mindset change remains a big challenge

Mutuuzo said they have strenghtened partnerships with civil society organisations, faith-based organisations as well as religious and traditional cultural institutions.

But in all this, challenges continue to stand in the way of regional interventions.

Mindset is one of them.

"We have to do a wake-up programme," said Mutuuzo. 

"We must strengthen partnerships with CSOs and faith-based organizations and restrategize on what else we can do to ensure that the old women can be allowed into cultural rituals."

Uganda is also looking at alternative rites of passage and, according to the Ugandan minister, "we have to develop the semantics together — with the cultural institutions and with the people themselves".

And they don't have to look very far for inspiration.

"I am told there is an area in Kenya where there are very big ceremonies and parents are invited to witness their children get initiated but not necessarily through circumcision. We want to do it in Uganda."

Farther afield, when Tanzania's Gwajima travelled to Mara, she was offered conditions for quitting FGM.

"They say: 'If you can rescue me, take me to another region, you empower and faciliate me to continue with my life and my famiy, then I will abandon'."

With this in mind, Tanzania is looking to adopt a grassroots-level approach in its strategy "to empower these cutters differently" by using local frontliners.

FGM is a harmful practice that the world is determined to eradicate

During the COVID-19 pandemic, another trend emerged amid movement restrictions.

Closed cattle markets during the lockdown in Uganda meant that the lives of Ugandan FGM-practising communities became more difficult.

Out of a desperate need to earn money, many turned to young girls, who were confined at home because schools, too, were closed. Cases of child marriage and FGM rose again during that time, eating into the already made gains.

According to minister Mutuuzo, male circumcision ceremonies also fueled the prevalence of FGM in especially women in their 40s.

Many offered themselves to be cut in order to be allowed to escort their husbands to their sons' circumcision rituals. This emerged after men had opted to hire other women to escort them, leaving their uncut wives behind.

Data and hotlines

Meanwhile, cross-border collaboration appears to be working in curbing FGM.

"We have WhatsApp groups of monitoring the situation in the Uganda border, where we share a Pokot community, and in Tanzania, where we share the Kuria community in Mara region," said Bernadette Loloju, the CEO of Anti-FGM Board Kenya.

"Our largest challenge has been the Ethiopian and Somalia borders."

Bernadette Loloju says collaborations are helping in the anti-FGM fight

There is a lot more to be done by the five East African countries.

According to Loloju, who represented Kenya's gender cabinet secretary Aisha Jumwa Katana in Dar es Salaam, having a data sharing mechanism is very important.

To tackle cross-border FGM, the countries must know how many girls are crossing, when they do so and how to monitor them, especially through mapping.

"We also need to standardize the definition of terminologies related to FGM to ensure that all participating countries are on the same page when discussing FGM and its various forms," Loloju weighed in further.

"We need to harmonize laws and penalties  — to ensure consistency in definition, penalties and enforcement procedures."

She outlined other ways of strengthening regional collaboration in eradicating FGM as including working with legal assistants, training and capacity building, awareness campaigns, healthcare cooperation, and research and evaluation.

Loloju said cross-border hotlines and reporting mechanisms are also important, as is seeking more support from international organizations and donors to facilitate the regional effort.

UNICEF-UNFPA Joint Programme, Spotlight Initiative and the European Union have been some of the key funders of the global anti-FGM movement.

Because FGM is also driven by poverty and lack of education, Kenya believes that empowering women, girls and men through collaborative economic and social development programmes in the region can also help eradicate the harmful practice.