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More than 125 million women and girls in 29 countries in Africa and the Middle East have experienced Female Genital Mutilation or Cutting (FGM/C). UNICEF released a report on FGM/C last year that revealed some thought-provoking attitudes about the practice. Here are five things about FGM/C that might surprise you. Click on the numbers and links for visualizations of the data. 1. Boys and men state strong support for stopping the practice. Its
often presumed that men condone FGM/C and that it is one of the ways that they keep women subservient. This appears not to be the case. In fact, in countries such as Guinea, Sierra Leone and Chad, substantially more men than women want to see FGM/C end.
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2. Girls and women consistently underestimate the proportion of boys and men who want FGM/C to end. In many countries, a large percentages of both women and men are unaware of what the opposite sex thinks about FGM/C. 3. The majority of girls and women want FGM/C to end. Girls and womens attitudes about whether or not FGM/C should continue vary widely across the 29 countries where it is concentrated. However, in most of these countries, the majority thinks that FGM/C should end. 4. The need to gain social acceptance is the most frequently stated reason for supporting the continuation of FGM/C. Social acceptance trumps other reasons like better marriage prospects, preserving virginity, more sexual pleasure for the man, religious necessity and cleanliness/hygiene. 5. Many girls who are cut have mothers who are against the practice. Though a daughters likelihood of being cut is much higher when her mother thinks the practice should continue, many cut girls have mothers who actually oppose FGM/C. Some mothers may thus have their daughters cut despite their personal feelings about the practice. So what can we learn from these five points? First, more dialogue and communication is essential. Ways have to be found to make bring to the fore the hidden voices that oppose FGM/C. Girls and women need to be empowered to speak out. Since substantial numbers of men and boys want the FGM/C to end, they can potentially be important agents of change and should be engaged in the conversation. There is clearly also a need for more open dialogue between men and women, and between boys and girls so that prevailing social expectations around FGM/C can be challenged.
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A lot of progress had already been made in eliminating FGM/C. With continued effort and commitment many more girls can be spared the fate of their mothers and grandmothers. UNICEFs report on FGM/C was produced at UNICEF headquarters by the Statistics and Monitoring Section, Division of Policy and Strategy with contributions from the Child Protection Section. Claudia Cappa, Francesca Moneti, Nicole Petrowski and Cody Donahue contributed to this blog post.
Notes: This map is stylized and not to scale. It does not reflect a position by UNICEF on the legal status of any country or territory or the delimitation of any frontiers. In Liberia, girls and women who have heard of the Sande society were asked whether they were members; this provides indirect information on FGM/C since it is performed during initiation into the society, as explained in Box 4.2. Data for Yemen refer to evermarried girls and women. The final boundary between the Republic of the Sudan and the Republic of South Sudan has not yet been determined. Sources: DHS, MICS and SHHS, 1997-2012.
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Somaliland dispatch: 'Im a cutter and Ill take a razor to my daughter in the holidays'
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No mercy: Cutter Khadija Geedi with her daughter at their home in the village of Baki in Somaliland
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The Somali cutter sat with her 10-year-old daughter beside her and explained calmly why she will take a razor blade to her this summer. I am a circumciser, she declared. This young one I havent circumcised yet, but my other daughters are circumcised. I will circumcise her in the school holidays in June or July. I believe that she will not get married if I dont circumcise her. At the same time, it is important for me because Im a circumciser and people will not trust me if I dont do it with my own daughter. It would be shameful. They would say, you are doing it to our daughters, but you are not doing it to your own. I will also do it for cultural reasons because people will talk otherwise and say she has not been circumcised. The logic of Khadija Geedi, a 50-year-old cutter in Somaliland, appeared flawless but her seeming indifference to the pain she will inflict on her daughter Fihiima was unsettling, as the pair sat together on the floor of their home in the rural village of Baki. As Ms Geedi explained, however, the bloody procedure that she will carry out on Fihiima this summer is a routine task to which she has become inured after a career as a traditional birth attendant lasting three decades. I started doing this when I was 20 and I cant calculate how many I have done, she says, adding that her price for cutting is $15 a time. On average now I do 10-15 a month, but sometimes
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it can be 30 or 35. In towns I do it mainly during the school holidays. In the rural places it depends when they have enough girls ready to be circumcised. I use a blade, some material to stop the bleeding and some local anaesthetic. I go to the local health centre to get them. Before I used to remove all the clitoris and all the labia, major and minor, and sew them. Now I only remove the clitoris. I changed about 10 years ago. Ms Geedi says her decision to switch to the less extensive type of mutilation, known as sunna in Somaliland, followed a move by clerics to revise their religious guidance and declare the alternative pharaonic form as contrary to Islam. When I heard the sheikhs say that it is forbidden to do the pharaonic type I stopped, but I still do the sunna one. In Islam, that is okay it says that we can do that, she said. By contrast, efforts by the Somaliland government, local campaigners and aid organisations such as the charity World Vision to emphasise the damaging health consequences of mutilation have had no impact. Neither does she worry about inflicting pain on her clients daughters, insisting that her need to earn a living must prevail. The health workers gave us health advice about FGM, she said, but I dont feel any trouble doing it because it is my profession. Although I know the girl is feeling pain, it is my profession and I am doing what the mother wants. I dont have any choice. I have no other way of earning a living. I need the money to live and pay for my family. So how can I feel for the girl? Ms Geedi says the cutting should take about half an hour but admits that resistance frequently means it can last longer. Typically, the girls are aged 10 or 11. The youngest I have done was six years old, she said. It usually takes about 30 minutes if the girl doesnt struggle. If she does then we call lots of people
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Somaliland dispatch: 'Im a cutter and Ill take a razor to my daughter in the holidays'
if the girl doesnt struggle. If she does then we call lots of people to help the mother and relatives try to force her to be still. Mostly the girls are not accepting this so they start to move around. Her determination to continue in her job is clear and with the law in Somaliland still allowing cutting, the main hope of campaigners against mutilation lies with the countrys clerics. They began reassessing five years ago what Islam says about FGM. Opinion now, while united in opposition to extensive cutting and sewing, is divided between those who advocate supposedly minor touching with a blade and a minority who support leaving girls entirely unharmed. Sheikh Elmi Ismail Mohamed, who preaches in the Somaliland town of Borama, said he believed girls should have only a small cut to the clitoris, which he claimed would not amount to FGM, and added he was determined to prevent more severe mutilation. FGM was traditional and people used to practise a very bad kind, the pharaonic type, which involves lots of cutting and destroying, he said. Now Islamic scholars are talking about another kind, sunna circumcision, which we cant call FGM because it involves only a very small cut to the edge of the clitoris. It is very little, it is not mutilation, it is not destroying. He added: It is not painful, it is not harming and it is better
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He added: It is not painful, it is not harming and it is better religiously. That is what is written in our religious books. Any cutting or destroying is very bad religiously, but this is not doing that. I preach in the mosque. People think it is shameful to talk about these things, but sometimes I talk about it and give them this message. Sheikh Elmi added that some parents, particularly in rural areas, believed that extensive pharaonic mutilation was necessary to protect their daughters from being sexually active. He said he told them instead that such cutting was wrong and harmful. The small sunna cut to the clitoris advocated by Sheikh Elmi would still amount to a crime under British law, however, and is regarded as FGM by campaigners in Somaliland and elsewhere. But another cleric, Sheikh Farah Jama, said that while sunna cutting was optional, he favoured leaving girls untouched. He added: We are starting to reduce the number of FGM cases. We discovered that both in sharia law and culturally it is against what it means to leave a person as Allah created her. I tell parents that as Allah created the woman, every organ is important. If someone has lost an organ it is important. Sheikh Farah said he would not allow any mutilation of his daughter, aged three, and that he and other clerics took part in community meetings at which they used both religious and health arguments to persuade parents and cutters against FGM. He added: Im not refusing sunna, it is optional, but I tell people not to go too far. For my girl I am not doing even sunna. In the cutters house, though, a mobile phone ring shows how much remains to be done. Ms Geedi laughs after answering, before revealing: It was someone wanting to hire me. She adds that her next job is tomorrow. Meanwhile, her own daughters genitals will meet the blade soon.
Anyone wishing to help improve childrens lives in Somaliland and other overseas countries can find out more by contacting World Vision UK on 01908 84 10 10 or at www.worldvision.org.uk .
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