Reason to be optimistic?
“It only exists in rural areas….its a thing of the past,”
says Amal, an unmarried middle-aged teacher, and passionate advocate of female
education and empowerment in Sudan. Amal is not alone in embracing this
optimistic narrative of progress in the struggle to save future generations of
young girls from the scourge of female genital mutilation (FGM).
Ask Sudanese people about the practice and the same,
reassuringly familiar message reigns: Sudan stands on the brink of eliminating
FGM. It is not hard to accept this logic. Recent UNICEF reports (2008 + 2013) have
highlighted a concerted campaign of local and national initiatives aimed at
eradicating FGM in Sudan.
A 2008 UNICEF report, for instance, outlines how community
level projects have shifted FGM from being a ‘taboo topic’, to one which can be
openly discussed. In government, the state authorities of South Kordofan and
Gedaref have successfully passed legislation banning FGM, setting a strong
precedent for renewed federal initiatives to outlaw the practice.
Most noteworthy is
the saleema campaign, a coordinated effort by government, religious
leaders, artists and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) to eliminate FGM by reframing
how people view the ‘uncut’ girl. Through the use of national television and
community radio, the term saleema aims to delink the ‘uncut’ girl from
abusive slurs such as qulfa, which arouse negative images of
prostitution, low status and immorality, and instead create a more positive
alternative based on a ‘whole, happy and healthy girl who is uncut, as God made
her’. Centred on the expression ‘Every girl is born saleema. Let her
grow saleema’, the campaign looks to revise preconceptions about what
constitutes a natural, normal and Muslim girl.
Complex dynamics of change.
However, despite
tangible advancements in advocacy work and widespread assertions of progress,
the dynamics of change surrounding the practice of FGM are more complex than it
may at first appear. Indeed, as a new
report published by UNICEF ( Female genital mutilation/cutting: a statistical overview and exploration of the dynamics of change. Available from http://www.unicef.org/media/files/FGCM_Lo_res.pdf) highlights, there is a startling discrepancy (comparable in size only with
Ethiopia) between the number of Sudanese women who have undergone FGM , and
those who think it should continue.
While 88% of Sudanese
women aged between 15 and 49 have undergone some form of FGM, only 42% of women
think the practice should continue (versus 53% who think it should end).
Despite apparent attitudinal changes and augmented abandonment efforts, the
prevalence of FGM in Sudan has remained static for the best part of a decade.
In contrast, over the last two decades support for FGM has steadily decreased
from 79% (UNICEF 1990) to 42% today.
Drawing on a
comprehensive compilation of data from the 29 countries where the practice is
most common, UNICEF’s report emphasizes the disparity that exists between
attitudes and behaviour towards FGM, especially in ‘high prevalence’ countries
such as Sudan. In many ways this discrepancy raises more questions than answers
as to how future generations of Sudanese girls may become unbound from this
tortuous practice perpetrated by those who love them.
Sudan is perhaps the most pertinent example of how concerted
efforts by government and NGOs to make individuals appreciative of the physical
and social costs of FGM, are futile in the face of a practice that has, over
time, become so deeply entrenched in the social fabric of communities. It is
identifying and combating the social dynamics that perpetuate this brutish
behaviour, in spite of individual preferences to stop it, that holds the key to
narrowing the gap between the prevalence of FGM and the attitudes, as well as
misguided perceptions, surrounding it.
The nature of FGM in Sudan
As girls enter their
early years of puberty, FGM looms as a ‘rite of torture’ that families put
their daughters through in the name of honour, chastity, purity and morality.
In Sudan type III, the most severe form of FGM, is most prevalent. Some surveys
suggest that as many as 80-90% (PATH) of ‘circumcised’ Sudanese women have
undergone this type of procedure.
Type III FGM, also
known as Pharonic circumcision or infibulation, involves the total removal of
all external sex organs, including the clitoris and labia, while what is left
of the vagina is sewn up, leaving a small opening to permit urination and the
passing of menstrual blood.
FGM leaves its indelible mark on each stage of
a girls passage to womanhood; a daughters evolution to motherhood. It controls
a women’s sexuality. It confines women to lesser partners in their own
marriage. It conceives femininity as synonymous with docility and obedience,
laying the social fabric of communities for generations to come.
Most girls in Sudan
undergo FGM between the ages of 5 and 11. The procedure is usually carried out
by a ‘traditional practitioner’, that is an older women from the community, or
by untrained midwives. Equipped with
unsterilized kitchen knives, razor blades, scissors and pieces of sharpened glass,
these practitioners ply their trade in the habitual surroundings of a girl’s
home.
Female members of the family and neighbours
play a supporting role holding the girl down, leaving her destined for the
inescapable agony, the gruesome disfigurement about to be inflicted upon her by
the midwives razor blade. After the procedure the girl’s legs will be tied
together, leaving her immobile for ten days until the flesh fuses
together. Here starts a recurrent cycle
of anguish and agony that will afflict every stage of her development.
Adolescence will be
remembered for the excruciating pain that follows each period, as menstrual
blood is unable to escape at the rate required.
The consummation of
marriage makes unavoidable the indescribable, bloody pain, experienced as the
small vaginal opening is gradually- over a matter of days and weeks- probed
open, and a girl’s virginity shed. Far from being a setting for intimacy and
tenderness, the honeymoon would surely border on sadistic if it were not for
the reality that more men oppose infibulation than women (65% of men favour
stopping the practice versus 53% of women).
Type III FGM
increases the likelihood of infertility by 25%. Childbirth holds innumerable,
unnecessary dangers for child and mother. Infibulation risks tearing, bleeding
and obstructed labor. ‘Deinfibulation’, in childbirth, is followed by a process
of ‘reinfibulation’ , reasserting a women’s obedience to husband and society.
In deference to the
risks, the agony, the anguish and the inequality enshrined in this practice,
FGM remains persistent in Sudan. Despite
widespread advocacy and abolition campaigns the deep-seated social ties that
bind people to FGM are yet to be cut. Why do they remain so potent and
persuasive?
The social ties that bind
FGM is so pervasive and persistent in Sudan
because decisions to engage in it go beyond mere cost-benefit calculations that
acknowledge its harmful consequences. Within each social category, a sizeable
number of individuals hold beliefs- or claim to hold beliefs- that contradict
their behaviour.
In Sudan 31% of daughters between the age of 0-14 have a
mother who opposes FGM, yet has still surrendered their daughter to the
procedure. Almost 65% of Sudanese men
(significantly more than women) want to see FGM end, yet the most offensive
insult young men can throw at each other is ‘your mother is an uncut [whore]’.
Support for FGM among the richest, most educated ‘quintile’ is only 21% (as opposed to 68% in the poorest
‘quintile’), yet the prevalence of FGM
for girls between the age of 0-14 is exactly the same between the richest and poorest quintile.
FGM is seen as a
social obligation that transcends individual preferences. Chastity, and consequently virginity, are seen
as moral imperatives for prospective brides. FGM, specifically type III
infibulation, is seen as an assurance of this. Female circumcision is a
statement of purity, or ‘tahur’; the clitoris an illicit symbol of
sexual desire, manliness and uncleanliness. It is the dictate of ‘bride price’; the embodiment
of a family’s reputation for moral integrity. FGM is a rite of passage to social
acceptance.
Interdependent decision-making
Using social norms
theory the recent UNICEF report on FGM highlights the flaw of assuming a direct
link between information, intention and behaviour change. Indeed, while Sudanese
people have been exposed to a concerted campaign of community level initiatives,
mass media advocacy and government attempts to outlaw the practice, their
behaviour (the prevalence of FGM) has remained largely unchanged for over a
decade. In this vein the decision of an individual regarding FGM can be seen as
dependent on the decision of others.
There is a social
stigma attached to the uncut girl. Rightly or wrongly, individuals who
disapprove of FGM, perceive that they are an exception, an anomaly in society.
In reality, the statistics collected on individual attitudes suggest that there
is a majority of people in Sudan who disapprove of FGM. Individuals incorrectly
perceive the attitudes of other individuals.
This leads to a
phenomenon social norm theorists call ‘pluralistic ignorance’. In its most extreme form, pluralistic
ignorance may create a situation where every individual in a community
disapproves of FGM, yet behaviour remains the same as these same individuals
believe themselves to be social anomalies. There consequently exists a tendency
to overestimate the support a practice, such as FGM, receives from others.
In Sudan this situation may be put down to a
lack of public scrutiny. There has been a failure to establish an effective,
all-inclusive and comprehensive strategy to eradicate the practice of FGM. While there have been numerous campaigns in
Sudan to eliminate FGM, these have neither effectively targeted nor mobilized
the key norm-makers. For instance while health professionals frequently visit
girls secondary schools and women’s social groups to raise awareness surrounding
the dangers of FGM, no such visits are made to boys secondary schools and men’s
social groups. Similarly mass media
campaigns are more likely to be seen by women, who spend more time confined to
the house, watching television and listening to radio, then men.
While regretful, the
reality is that in Sudanese society men, particularly fathers, hold greater
sway over decision-making and norm-entrepreneurship. There needs to be a more concerted, targeted
effort to engage these multiple decision-makers (which, significantly, includes
those pernicious little grandmothers), so that the significant individual
opposition to FGM can be mobilized to prompt wholesale social change.
There is, as alluded
to at the beginning of this article, a visible, but as yet unfounded optimism,
regarding the scale of FGM in Sudan. This false optimism (at least in relation to
FGM prevalence) offers some interesting conclusions. The cynic may say that positive
assessments of FGM prevalence characterize Sudanese flexibility, or rather the
tendency to tell each individual what they want to hear.
A more rational
observer, however, may connect this optimism to more fundamental change. The
practice of FGM is less visible than it was 10 or 20 years ago. It is less
ritualistic; less celebratory. Instead it is conducted with an air of secrecy. Perhaps perceptions of social stigma are
slowly shifting. It is in this manner that people see change occurring. While
we are not there yet, there is reason to
be optimistic that progress in the struggle to eliminate FGM is not far off…
