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fights FGM When Women's Global set up our Sisters to School Kenya program in 2007, we found that many girls in the Tharaka region quit school as soon as they underwent female genital mutilation (FGM),
which is still widely practiced in the Tharaka region and other parts
of Africa. The World Health Organization (WHO) defines
female genital mutilation as any
procedure
involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia, or
any injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. WHO
estimates that between 100 and 140 million girls and women worldwide
have been subjected to female genital mutilation, with the practice
being most prevalent in the western, eastern and north-eastern regions
of Africa, some countries in Asia and the Middle East, and certain
immigrant communities in North America and Europe. In
Africa, WHO estimates that 91.5 million women and girls above 9 years
old are currently living with the consequences of FGM, and that 32
percent of all women age 15-49 in Kenya have undergone the practice. In the Tharaka region of Kenya, the practice involves a ceremony to perform the cutting, followed by a month-long seclusion for the wounds to heal--during which the girls are often beaten--and then a big family and community celebration after the seclusion ends where abusive songs are often sung. Because of the harmful physical and psychological effects of the practice and because FGM prevents most girls who undergo it from finishing their education, Women's Global has joined our partner organization Ntanira Na Mugambo Tharaka Women’s Welfare Project (TWWP) in working to eradicate FGM in the Tharaka region. We believe that fighting FGM is necessary to ensure that girls in Tharaka are able to finish their education and that, in turn, education encourages girls and their families to stop practicing FGM and early marriage and gives them more options for the future. Harmful effects of FGM
Why does female genital mutilation persist? For communities who continue to practice FGM, the practice is deeply entrenched in the culture and represents values such as transitioning from childhood into adulthood, preparing for marriage, celebrating femininity, and promoting family and community bonding. These values help define a community's identity and thus make it hard to abandon FGM even for families who agree that FGM is harmful. Additionally, FGM is often seen to preserve a girl's virginity before her marriage, preserve her fidelity to her husband, increase his sexual pleasure, impart a sense of pride and belonging to the community as an adult member, make her spiritually pure, and enhance her beauty, cleanliness and cultural identity as a woman. Girls who do not undergo FGM can be seen as social outcasts, reducing their prospects of finding a husband. Circumcision with Words: An alternative rite of passage Women's
Global believes that in order to successfully combat the practice of
FGM, solutions must address the cultural and social underpinnings of
FGM on multiple levels. With our partner organization Ntanira Na Mugambo Tharaka Women’s Welfare Project (TWWP),
we have developed a community education program aimed at helping
communities in Tharaka eradicate this harmful practice by working through these cultural and social issues. Called Circumcision with Words,
our program also seeks to weave together the themes of girls' education,
empowerment and the eradication of FGM in our awareness efforts and to
offer families and communities alternate ways to celebrate a girl's
rite of passage into womanhood without genital cutting. Circumcision with Words offers:
FGM Overview / Harmful Effects / Why does FGM persist? / Circumcision with Words |
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