Hanging tradition to safeguard women: villagers join campaigns against female genital mutilation.

• Author: Ben-Ari, Nirit

Residents of ten Senegalese villages rallied in late October in Nemanding, near the Gambian border, to openly discuss the generations-old practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). Joined by local leaders, parliamentarians and United Nations (UN) officials, they shared experiences from a year--long programme in which they had learned about human rights and women's health, especially the risks and dangers of FGM. The participants indicated that they planned to abandon the practice. Villagers across Africa are now openly discussing and debating FCM, once a taboo topic. And, although still on a modest scale, they are increasingly giving up the practice.

Behind the ceremony in Nemanding was a Senegalese non-governmental organization (NGO) called Tostan, which means "breakthrough" in the Wolof language. Following similar education programmes by Tostan, 708 Senegalese villages have made public declarations abandoning FGM, representing 13 per cent of the total population in Senegal that had observed the practice.

"People are not instructed to stop the practice," notes Tostan Director Molly Melching, "but taught about human rights and the practice's health risks." Tostan calls this phase of the programme kobi, which in the Mandinka language means, "to turn over the soil in preparation for planting." Usually, participants then come to the decision to abandon the practice on their own.

Around the world, an estimated two million girls are subjected to genital cutting each year despite the serious health risks. In sub-Saharan Africa, the practice is prevalent in 28 countries. The women and girls who undergo it often experience bleeding, infection, infertility and difficulties during childbirth that contribute to maternal mortality. The practice diminishes women's sexual pleasure and may often cause pain during intercourse. It can cause psychological trauma, directly from the cutting and by seeing sisters, daughters and granddaughters undergo the same ordeal. It also symbolically reinforces women's traditionally subordinate roles in society. FGM has been banished by law in Burkina Faso, the Central African Republic, Chad, Cote d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Egypt, Ghana, Guinea, Senegal, Tanzania and Togo. In Nigeria it is prohibited under federal low and in Sudan only the most severe forms are banned. In Kenya, a presidential declaration has denounced the practice, and in one case a Kenyan father received an injunction to not have his daughters undergo FGM.

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