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  • Female Genital Mutilation / Cutting

Female Genital Mutilation / Cutting

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C refers to all procedures involving partial or total removal of external portions of or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. More than 200 million women and girls alive today have undergone FGM/C according to the World Health Organization. While reports suggest that the rate at which FGM/C is practiced is dropping in some areas, as many as 30 million girls under the age of 15 may still be at risk for the procedure. The practice is most common in the western, eastern, and north-eastern regions of Africa, in some countries in Asia and the Middle East, and among migrants from these areas to North America and Europe.

According to WHO, "FGM has no health benefits, and it harms girls and women in many ways. It involves removing and damaging healthy and normal female genital tissue, and interferes with the natural functions of girls' and women's bodies. Generally speaking, risks increase with increasing severity of the procedure."For those who live with FGM, raising awareness of its health consequences, and linking these women and girls to available health services, continues to be a priority.

Why is FGM/C performed?

The reasons why FGM/C is performed vary from one region to another as well as over time, and include a mix of sociocultural factors that play out in families and communities. Some of the most commonly cited reasons are rooted in the fact that FGM/C has become a social norm and therefore there is pressure to conform.

Specifically:

  • It is considered a necessary part of raising a girl 
  • It is often motivated by beliefs about what is considered acceptable sexual behaviour - i.e., lessening female sexual pleasure
  • It aims to ensure premarital virginity and marital fidelity
  • It is thought to increase marriageability
  • It is is associated with cultural ideals of femininity and modesty

Who performs it?

FGM/C is mostly carried out by traditional practitioners, who often play other central roles in communities, such as attending childbirths. However, health care providers now perform more than 18 percent of all FGM/C in countries where it is traditionally practiced, and the trend towards "medicalization" is increasing. Health care providers need support and training to abandon the practice, which can lead to a range of physical and mental health problems, regardless of who performs it.

How will it be eliminated?

To eliminate FGM/C, WHO and other leading international health organizations favor an approach which:

  • Enlightens individuals and families about the physical and mental health problems caused by FGM/C
  • Strengthens communities to eliminate FGM/C
  • Strengthens the health sector response
  • Builds evidence 
  • Increases advocacy
  • Works to change national policies

Social and behavior change communication (SBCC) has been critical in:

  • Changing social norms
  • Mobilizing community action
  • Advancing human rights and gender issues
  • Informing the public
  • Motivating health care workers
  • Educating community and religious leaders about the serious dangers caused by this practice
  • Raising awareness about the role of social norms and gender inequalities that underlie the practice
  • Reaching a variety of groups including leaders, men, women, and youth (girls and boys) in order to engage many audiences in the effort to change the social norm

 


Background Resources

  • FGM: The Scope of the Problem in Graphics and Numbers
  • Health Risks of FGM
  • Fact Sheet on FGM
  • FGM Infographics

Tools for Program Design

Changing Social Norms

  • Manual on Social Norms and Change
  • Behavior Change to End FGM
  • Female Genital Mutilation and Behaviour Change

Reaching Key Audiences

Health Professionals

  • Toolkit for Engaging Midwives in the Global Campaign to End FGM
  • Global Strategy to Stop Health-Care Providers from Performing Female Genital Mutilation
  • Responding to Female Genital Mutilation: A Guide for Key Professionals
  • WHO Guidelines on the Management of Health Complications from Female Genital Mutilation

Communities

  • The REPLACE Approach: Supporting Communities to End FGM

Adolescents

  • The Girl Generation: Do No Harm Guidance Note

Project Examples

National Strategies

  • National Plan of Action for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation in Kenya 1999–2019

Reaching Key Audiences

Communities

  • Saleema Communication Toolkit on FGM
  • Tostan Community Empowerment Program

Health Workers

  • FGM - Poster for Health Workers

Faith Communities

  • FGM and Islam

Youth

  • Female Genital Mutilation: Frequently Asked Questions: A Campaigner’s Guide for Young People
  • Say No to FGM
  • Cuttin' It Radio Drama on FGM
  • Radio Programs on FGM - Ethiopia

General Population

  • ForwardUK - Videos about FGM
  • Female Genital Mutilation of Young Girls is Child Abuse
  • Say No to FGM

Banner photo: Adolescent girls in Ghana participate in a livelihood training aimed at reducing adoption of Female Genital Cutting (FGC). © 2003 Melissa May, Courtesy of Photoshare


 

Resources

  • Tools
  • Examples

Behavior Change to End FGM

This document came out of a workshop for REPLACE2, a project of the European Commission which is aiming to find ways to replace FGM with other rituals in order to protect the health of young girls.

View Resource

The REPLACE Approach: Supporting Communities to End FGM

The REPLACE project in the EU recognizes that FGM is a social norm and that each community has different belief systems and enforcement mechanisms supporting its continuation.

View Resource

Manual on Social Norms and Change

This manual is meant for training program managers to promote the abandonment of female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). It has been designed under a joint program of the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Children’s Fund.

View Resource

Global Strategy to Stop Health-Care Providers from Performing Female Genital Mutilation

This global strategy against medicalization of female genital mutilation (FGM) has been developed in collaboration with key stakeholders, including UN organizations and health-care professional bodies, national governments and NGOs.

View Resource

Toolkit for Engaging Midwives in the Global Campaign to End FGM

Midwives play a key role not only in averting maternal and newborn deaths, but also in promoting good health in communities as a whole. FGM is a deeply entrenched cultural practice and many midwives face significant social pressure from the community to perform it.

View Resource

FGM: The Scope of the Problem in Graphics and Numbers

This fact sheet provides information and statistics about:

  • The prevalence of FGM
  • Different types of FGM
  • Statistics about efforts to stop FGM

 

View Resource

Health Risks of FGM

This fact sheet provides the basic information about the many health risks of FGM/C, including short term and long term health problems.

View Resource

WHO Guidelines on the Management of Health Complications from Female Genital Mutilation

These guidelines are intended primarily for health-care professionals involved in the care of girls and women who have been subjected to any form of female genital mutilation (FGM).

View Resource

Responding to Female Genital Mutilation: A Guide for Key Professionals

This brochure is directed to many kinds of professionals who deal with young women/girls who have undergone FGM, including police, teachers, and medical professionals. The brochure offers several situations and offers advice as to how to handle them.

 

View Resource

Female Genital Mutilation and Behaviour Change

This brief two pager summarizes several SBCC approaches regarding FGM.

Listed are ideas for behavior change through:

View Resource

Fact Sheet on FGM

This sheet provides basic information about the status of FGM/C worldwide.

It includes information on the various procedures used, possible health complications, the population at risk, cultural factors, international response, 

View Resource

FGM Infographics

These infographics are from a project called "The Girl Generation," a UK-based NGO dedicated to ending FGM, These country infographics highlight basic statistics on FGM in each of The Girl Generation's focal countries:

View Resource

The Girl Generation: Do No Harm Guidance Note

This guidance note was produced by The Girl Generation, a communication program which aims to galvanize a global movement to end FGM.

View Resource

Saleema Communication Toolkit on FGM

Sudan

The Saleema Initiative in Sudan provides positive communication tools that support the protection of girls from genital cutting, particularly in the context of efforts to promote collective abandonment of the practice at community level.

View Resource

Tostan Community Empowerment Program

Gambia
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Mali
Mauritania
Senegal

Tostan. an African-based organization working directly with rural communities leading their own development, utilizes the "Community Empowerment Program (CEP) " to effect change in these communities.

View Resource

FGM and Islam

This pamphlets explains that FGM is not an Islamic practice or requirement. It states that there is no reference to it in the Koran, nor is there any authentic reference in the Sunnah, the sayings or traditions of Mohammed. It goes on to list the many dangers of FGM, and also provides resources for more information and for support.

View Resource

FGM - Poster for Health Workers

An estimated 18% of FGM/C cases are being performed by professionally trained health workers.  This number has risen due to the widespread growth of knowledge about the possible health problems associated with FGM/C.

View Resource

ForwardUK - Videos about FGM

ForwardUK works in the UK, Europe and Africa to safeguard girls at risk of FGM and support women affected. They do this through direct community engagement, advocacy and strategic partnerships. These videos were produced as part of ForwardUK's projects:

View Resource

Female Genital Mutilation: Frequently Asked Questions: A Campaigner’s Guide for Young People

YPSO (Young People Speak Out) is a project within FORWARDUK’s Youth Program which trains young people from black and minority ethnic (BME) communities to become campaigners and peer-educators on violence against women and girls, including FGM.

View Resource

Female Genital Mutilation of Young Girls is Child Abuse

United Kingdom

This poster was designed to spread the word that FGM is illegal in the UK. The poster says that it is also an offence for UK nationals or permanent UK residents to carry out FGM abroad or to assist the carrying out of FGM abroad.

View Resource

Say No to FGM

United Kingdom

This pamphlet is available in several languages, and spells out the types of FGM, health problems associated with it, FGM and religion, and where to get help.

View Resource

National Plan of Action for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation in Kenya 1999–2019

Kenya

Published by the Ministry of Health, the National Plan of Action describes the sensitive and responsive interventions and strategies for achieving the goal of reducing the number of girls, women and families that will be affected by female genital mutilation over 20 years.

View Resource

Cuttin' It Radio Drama on FGM

United Kingdom

In this radio drama, two Somali teenagers, Muna and Iqra, go to the same school in South London. They are from the same place but they are strangers; strangers who share a secret embedded in their culture - both were victims of FGM.

View Resource

Radio Programs on FGM - Ethiopia

Ethiopia

A project by Population Media Center includes the production of radio programs in three languages (Amharic, Afar, and Somali):

View Resource

This website is made possible by the support of the American People through the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) under the Breakthrough-ACTION Project, supported by USAID’s Office of Population and Reproductive Health, Bureau for Global Health, under Cooperative Agreement #AID-OAA-A-17-00017 with the Johns Hopkins University.

Breakthrough-ACTION is based at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Center for Communication Programs (JHU∙CCP). The contents of this website are the sole responsibility of JHU∙CCP. The information provided on this website is not official U.S. Government information and does not necessarily represent the views or positions of USAID, the United States Government, or The Johns Hopkins University.

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