More than 230 million women and girls worldwide have undergone female genital cutting, according to a new UNICEF analysis, an increase of 30 million since the organization’s last estimate in 2016.
Although the data shows that in some countries a new generation of parents has chosen to abandon the practice, in other countries laws and campaigns against it have had no effect. In Burkina Faso, the share of girls aged 15 to 19 years who have undergone FGM has dropped to 39 percent from 82 percent over the past three decades. But in Somalia, where an estimated 99 percent of women have their clitoris removed, the level of amputation has not changed.
Because the countries where the practice is most prevalent are those with the highest rates of population growth, the total number of girls subjected to cutting grows every year.
“The total number of girls and women is 15 percent higher than the last estimate,” said Claudia Cappa, an expert on global trends in female genital mutilation at UNICEF. “The progress made is too slow compared to the growth of the population of girls born every day in the countries most affected.”
The United Nations has set a goal of eliminating female genital mutilation by 2030, but change needs to happen 27 times faster than the current rate to meet that goal, he said.
Some countries that have seen reductions in the prevalence of amputation now see that development is threatened, as conflicts and displacement from climate emergencies make people more vulnerable and more dependent. in traditional community structures, such as religious groups, that still endorse the practice.
The new data also highlights the level at which the practice of cutting is worldwide. Although it is most common in sub-Saharan African countries, the practice remains widespread in parts of the Middle East and Asia and continues to be a secret practice in some immigrant communities in North America and Europe.
An estimated 144 million women and girls have been cut in Africa (the largest numbers are in Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan), 80 million in Asia, and 6 million in the Middle East (more than half of them in Yemen), according to a new report . In Asia, the largest share of cases is in Indonesia, where 55 percent of girls underwent a genital mutilation procedure, government figures show.
UNICEF made its calculations using responses from routine national household surveys in 31 countries where the practice is more common. Those surveys ask women if they have been cut, and if their daughters have been cut, and ask women and men in households where a woman has been cut if they think it should continue. the training.
In Burkina Faso, the country that saw the sharpest decline, criminalization of the method and strong support from top political figures helped push for change, said Mariam Lamizana, president of an anticutting organization called Voix de Femmes. in Ouagadougou, the capital.
“We worked with religious and traditional leaders, and we said, ‘What you’re doing in the name of culture, here are the consequences for women, the consequences for little girls’,” said Ms. Lamizana, who headed the first national commission established by the president to fight the cut. “We’ve found that it’s good to engage with young religious leaders because they’re more educated, and they’re more open.”
Nankali Maksud, who is leading UNICEF’s work to end the practice, said most countries that have seen a decline have banned cutting. But other strategies that seem to drive change in some countries don’t seem to work in others, he said.
In Sierra Leone, the share of girls aged 15 to 19 years who have undergone FGM has dropped to 61 percent from 95 percent over the past three decades. The change is being driven in part by educational campaigns, mounted by both local and international organizations, about the physical and psychological harm caused by amputation.
But in Somalia, the practice has proven fiercely resistant to change efforts.
“It’s repetitive, it’s consistent,” said Dr. Mariam Dahir, who is a rare public opponent of the cut in Somaliland, a breakaway region in the north of the country.
said Dr. There has even been a campaign by some international anticutting groups to have religious leaders endorse a less extreme version of the practice, involving the removal of some or all of the clitoral tissue, over the traditional practice of full stitching closed. of the labia. The latter increases the likelihood that women will experience health complications from sexual activity or childbirth. The less extreme option appealed to some parents and was endorsed in 2018 by a fatwa, telling parents to have a health worker rather than a traditional circumciser perform the procedure, he said.
However, he and some other campaigners could not accept this idea of modest improvement, he said. “How can we say for decades that there is no need to mutilate a woman’s body, there is no religious justification for this practice and then turn around and say this?” he asked.
He posts Facebook videos calling for a total ban on cutting, which attract widespread criticism. “Then at least I know people are hearing the idea,” he said. And that, at least, is a change from the past, when it was completely taboo for people to discuss the practice at all.
The new data shows that a significant change has occurred in some countries, such as Kenya, where the practice was widespread 30 years ago and is now limited to areas of the country where most people are of Somali origin. ethnic community. A clear trend, said Ms. Cappa, the UNICEF adviser, that changing norms around cutting is easier in countries like Kenya, where the practice is not universal but rather a tradition of certain religious or ethnic groups.
“In countries where there is diversity, progress can be faster because the communities that practice it face those that do not, and they see that alternatives to their beliefs and their values are possible and can be culturally acceptable,” he says.
Sadia Hussein transferred her experience as a cutting survivor to an anti-cutting organization, the Brighter Society Initiative. Working in his home region of northwest Kenya, he says that encouraging people to speak publicly about the practice has been key to reducing the prevalence of the practice to 9 percent of girls aged 15 to 19 years, up from 23 percent three decades ago.
“Men say, ‘Women never told us this was bad, not even our wives,'” she says. “So I have to build the confidence of survivors to share their own pain because our society actually conditions women in such a way that they endure pain in silence. So I tell them, whatever we went through should not happen to our daughters.”
The areas where the prevalence of amputation remains highest are also some of the most fragile countries, those suffering from conflicts or climate disasters or both. Such circumstances make it difficult to address the needs of girls who have been cut and to implement prevention policies.
said Ms. Hussein said climate change has complicated anticutting efforts in his region. Families have lost livestock in weather disasters and need money to rebuild their herds, and they may demand dowries for girls as a source of funds.
“A lot of girls are cut so they can get married at a young age,” she said. “When there are floods and droughts, we see more girls being cut.”
National surveys found that two-thirds of men and women in households where a woman is cut, in Africa and the Middle East, said they thought the practice should end. In countries such as Djibouti and Sierra Leone, where it is still common, more men than women said they were opposed.
Ms. warned Cappa notes that what people say privately in a survey may not match the view they express publicly. Even parents who want to see the practice end may still cut their daughters for fear of social repercussions, such as the inability to marry, if they don’t comply, he said.
“There is doom and gloom in these numbers, but you still have girls and women – and even men – who feel that this practice must stop. That’s something positive,” said Ms. Maksud to UNICEF.
