From Performing FGM/C To Leading The Abandonment Movement In Gambia

Gambia: Cultural Protagonist Supports Eradication of FGM in CRR

BY AJI FATOU FAAL, 21 MAY 2012

The power of information using the local languages to change perceptions and attitudes continues to give prominence to the work of the Gamcotrap in the Central River Region. Under the auspices and support of the UNFPA joint programme, 25 community-based facilitators from the Central River Region north benefited from a three-day capacity building workshop to engage in community sensitization and mobilization to protect girls from Female Genital Mutilation.

Accompanied by two other females from the council of elders from Janjanbureh at the opening ceremony, held at the Regional Education Office, cultural protagonist, Aja Babung Sidibeh acknowledged the importance of knowledge in changing people's perceptions and practices.She noted that dialogue raises consciousness to overcome many difficulties.

Aja Babung said "the bangle in your hand should not break your head", and called on all to spread the information to protect children and women."We were blind but today we can raise consciousness to save women and children.Both the young and old face the difficulties," she stated.

Having been exposed to effects of FGM during the capacity building of the community-based facilitators, the longstanding and well known cultural protagonist changed her perception after witnessing the serious effects FGM has on women and girls. She noted that even though she had heard about the campaign, she was never exposed to the harm FGM causes to women.

Hailed from the Sidibeh family in Janjangbureh that is the custodian of both male circumcision and female genital mutilation, Aja Babung Sidibeh has led, organized and maintained the practice that is conducted every five years.

She explains: "When one is ignorant, you cannot act otherwise. I feel touched by the effects.I am the 'Ngansingba' and custodian of the female circumcision chamber here. Our culture is celebrated every five years; we have FGM in this community and even our children in the diaspora know when it is time for the cultural practice. They will come and spend time at 'Tinyang sita'.

Throughout my life, I have sympathy for women and children so from today, I will consult with my council of elders to stop the difficulty women and children face with this practice. My daughter is a nurse and she helps women to deliver. One day she told me 'Aja, the practice of FGM and the sealing causes difficulty for us (nurses) because women suffer when giving birth. Even though I heard what she said it is only having seen these pictures today that I am totally convinced. I am really touched."

The Supreme Islamic Council representative in Janjanbureh, Oustass Momodou Lamin Jobarteh led the gathering into prayer and took the opportunity to call on Gamcotrap toaccommodate the criticisms and to be steadfast to achieve its goal, because it is not easy to impart knowledge on to others. He cited a verse from the Holy Quran that says 'Those who are knowledgeable are different from those who are not.'He also called on the participants to make the best out.

Oustass Jobarteh re-echoed that health is an important aspect of life and there is the need to seek knowledge about it.He prayed that Allah blesses the occasion and fulfil the objective of the gathering.

Commenting on the law to protect women and children at the gathering,the National Assembly member for Upper Saloum, Honourable Sainey Mbye expressed optimismthatthe advocacy for aspecific bill against FGM has advanced and will eventually be presented to the National Assembly for legislation to stop the practice in the country.

He noted that the delay is to give people the opportunity to be aware of the impact of the practice so that the law will not come as a force on people but for people to be aware and for it to be voluntarily stopped.He cautioned that some elders hold onto the tradition but the knowledge is for the young ones and mothers to benefit from.

The Women's Bureau Field coordinator in CRR, Amadou Cham, acknowledged the positive role Gamcotrap played in supplementing the role of the Bureau to raise consciousness. He noted that the impact of Gamcotrap's work was captured in the evaluation of its work; which led to the organization being identified as implementing partner for the UNFPA Country Programme 2012.

He congratulated the organization and noted that despite the challenges in changing attitudes, change is taking place. He finally urged the participants to make the best out of the training and look forward to a fruitful outcome.

Declaring the training open, Governor Ganyie Touray of CRR, said he is delighted to associate with the training, because according to him the country's leadership supports women. He noted that the conducive political environment has made it possible for Gamcotrap to continue to succeed in its work and noted that people are responding positively.He was impressed with the support from local influential leaders in the region in the protection of girls and women from the practice of FGM.

Local traditional communicator, Lamin Keita, alias Takka Titi and his group of women in Janjanbureh welcomed Gamcotrap amidst singing and dancing. Amongst them was a mother of a child who recently suffered the effects of FGM and now joins the advocacy to protect girls from FGM.

The executive director of Gamcotrap, on evaluating the first leg of sensitization under the UNFPA Country Programme, described it as a success. She commended the community-based facilitators for taking leadership in their communities and a successful outreach programme; and urged her staffto redouble their effortsin ensuring that communities reach consensus to stop FGM.

She is optimistic that working with the circumcisers and their communities and with the continued support of the community and religious leaders, it is likely that Central River Region north will be the next region to drop the knife.

Dr. Touray noted that despite the challenges, more people are responding to the campaign to stop FGM in The Gambia. She thanked the UNFPA for recognising the role of her organisation and upgrading its role from sub-contractee under the Women's Bureau to an Implementing Partner (IP).

Scholars' activities

Meanwhile, Gamcotrap Religious adviser, Imam Baba Leigh has led a series of sensitisation programmes with rich discussions that reached out to 150 participants in Sami Kunting, Bakadajie Mandinka in Niani and Buduk in Nianija, the CRR north.

The outcome confirmed that FGM is not mentioned in the Holy Quran nor is it a Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH). It was acknowledged as a longstanding traditional practice and it was recommended that the awareness raising programmes should continue.

One religious leader from Kunting, Alhajie Kawsu Jaiteh called on the people to work within the limits of their knowledge.He made this remark in the presence of representatives from 11 villages from the area.

Similarly, religious leaders and imams from 14 villages within the Bakadagie Mandinka cluster in Niani also echoed that FGM is not a religious obligation.It was noted that if FGM causes harm, then it should stop.

In addition to that, more Islamic scholars and religious leaders in CRR are giving support to protect girls from FGM.In an interview with another Supreme Islamic Council representative in Buduk in Nianija District, Oustass Dawda York said: "Most people rely on religion and I can testify that enough research has been done to confirm that the practice should stop because it is not in line with Sunnah or Farda.

Let us return to the truth, because we can stop cultural practices that do not benefit our livelihood.We do not have circumcisers in the area but they were hosted by families.We shall reach out to those families for the practice to stop completely in the area."

In a similar development at Kuloro in the West Coast Region, the celebration took a form of a march past starting from Kuloromarket to Kuloro Lower Basic School, in which 150 volunteers of West Coast Region Red Cross members and members of The Gambia Scout Band participated.

Addressing the gathering, Lamin Fatty, the branch officer of WCR, expressed gratitude and delight to the participants for their meaningful participation during the celebration, while thanking the community ofKuloro Village for their contribution.

Fatty acknowledged that the day is veryparamount, noting that there is a great vitality to celebrate it. "The day will equally create an opportunity for members to meet and share their experiences at both national and regional levels," he said.

For his part, Patrick Schwaerzler, the head of theInternational Committee of Red Cross urged the people to use the day as a chance to look to the future. "In the face of civil unrest in Northern Africa and Middle East, open conflict in Afghanistan, food insecurity in the Sahel severe flooding in South America, our well-established network of more than 13 million volunteers people and humanitarian workers continues to play a vital role in meeting the need to the world's most vulnerable people," he disclosed.

According to him, in the face ofmajor challenges such as climate change, conflicts and violence, migration and urbanisation, young people everywhere show that they want to be part of the solution, noting that they helped communities to prepare for disaster, safe access to health care, accept responsibility as agents of behavioral change and building a culture.

"Youth around the work to explore humanitarian law enabling them as tomorrow's leaders to take decisions, preventing unnecessary suffering in times of armed conflict and other situations of violence," he added.

Schwaerzler pointed out that young people already make a profound difference in the lives ofmany vulnerable people and have true capacity to become community champions andprovide needed expertise in an increasingly digital world. Young people, he said, should aim to take positions ofleadership within their humanitarian network and they should be afforded real opportunities to inform their strategic decision making.

Deputising for the governor ofWCR, Sering Modou Joof, the National Disaster Management coordinator for WCR commended the volunteers for their meaningful participation towards nation building and encouraged them to keep up the good work. He advisedthem to be fast and focus during their work so that it can be done effectively and access the road to achieve their ultimate goals in the process.

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FGM/C Legislation In South Africa

Female Genital Mutilation In South Africa

Posted: 7 June, 2012 Author: AfricLaw 

Author: Barbara Kitui
LLM (Human Rights & Democartisation in Africa)  student, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is one of the cultural practises embedded amongst the Venda community of north-east of South Africa. Eight weeks or less after childbirth, Venda women undergo a traditional ceremony calledmuthuso. Muthuso is a process of cutting the vaginal flesh of the mother by a traditional healer. The flesh is mixed with black powder and oil and applied on the child’s head to prevent goni. Goni has been described as a swelling on the back of a child’s head. The Venda people believe that goni can only be cured using the vaginal flesh of the child’s mother. Women who experienced FGM stated that they bleed excessively after the ceremony. Moreover, the women stated that there is no postnatal care in Venda. Consequently, the women use traditional medicine and sometimes this leads to death because of substandard treatment.

Vendas also practises FGM as initiation for girls into womanhood. The girls reside in a ‘nonyana’ hut for 24 hours until an appointed day when an old woman performs the clitoris cutting by the river banks.  The girls are branded with a mark on their thighs as evidence of having attended initiation.

Migrants in South Africa including Sudanese and other African communities continue practising FGM. The families invite women into their homes who clandestinely circumcise often despite pleas from the girls. Herbs are applied to the cut places to quicken the healing. The girls are often traumatised following the practise.

The World Health Organisation does not list South Africa as a country where FGM is practised. In 2005 during the deliberation of the Children Bill, the South African Girl Child Alliance (SAGCA) presented a report highlighting the non-existence of FGM to South African parliamentarians on the Social Service Select Committee. The SAGCA report indicated that during the initiation ceremonies for women, there was no FGM being practised.

Article 5(a) of the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women obligates state parties to ensure that all cultural practises that violate the rights of women are eliminated.

Regionally, the Protocol to the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child on the Rights of Women in Africa imposes a duty on state parties under articles 8(f) and 2 to institute measures that prohibit all forms of harmful practises. Article 5 obliges governments to engage in public awareness against FGM, to enact legislation prohibiting FGM and to provide victim support for women affected by the effects of FGM.

Sections 30 and 31 of the 1996 South African Constitution provide for the right to culture which must be done in compliance with the Bill of Rights. Section 211 of the Constitution recognises the existence of cultural institutions which must comply with the Constitution.

South Africa enacted subsidiary legislation to address FGM. The Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (Equality Act) outlaws discrimination of any person on grounds of gender and culture, including FGM. Under section 12(2) (a), the Children’s Act explicitly prohibits genital mutilation or circumcision of female children as opposed section 8(b) Equality Act which only prohibits discrimination based on FGM.

The South African government has engaged in initiatives to curb FGM, for example national research and sensitization workshops where FGM is prevalent in liaison with government departments of health, culture and education. There is no acknowledgment by the government that FGM exists in South Africa. Most information obtained on FGM in South Africa is based on research by individuals or international organisations.

Culture is an aspect of African traditions that cannot be easily dispensed with. Despite the fact that international treatises deem FGM as an immense violation of human rights to females, those who practise FGM perceive it as a rite of passage and an avenue for children to receive protection from their mothers while eight weeks after birth.

In order to curb FGM, there is need for government to continue partnering with civil societies to sensitize communities and encourage them to reflect on the implication of FGM and make a conscious decision to end the practise.

About the Author:
Kitui Barbara is currently a postgraduate student pursuing the LLM in Human Rights and Democratisation in Africa at the University of Pretoria. As part of the LLM, Kitui undertook a field research in Venda, South Africa, under the topic ‘Hindrances to the fulfillment of the right to maternal healthcare in Venda.’ Other sources used for this research can be found here. Kitui worked as a Legal Officer with the Foundation for Human Rights Initiative in Uganda before joining the LLM programme.

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Tostan and National Organization of Women organize FGC abandonment in Somaliland

NGO Tostan Organized A Social Mobilization Event For FGC Abandonment



June 7, 2012 by Shiine

HARGEISA (Dalmar Media) – The practice of Female Genital Cutting has been termed as denial of rights.

This was said by the minister of Religion & endowments Hon Sheikh Khalil Abdilahi on Saturday June 2nd, 2012 during an FGC awareness raising event organized by the NGO Tostan in partnership with the National Organization of Women (NOW) where the minister stressed on the importance of separating religious and traditional tenets.

The religion & endowments minister said that the practice of FGC is causing much suffering among women on whom it is perpetrated. He urged parents to ensure that future generations of girls and women are protected from all forms of female genital cutting. He also thanked Tostan and NOW and encouraged them to continue to work together for community development and abandonment of practices that are harmful to women’s health.

The event was entertained with songs and a role play performed by the Tostan participants of Kilirka. This was followed by the screening of the Tostan film entitled ‘‘my child dry your tears’’ where Tostan communities of different age groups voice their opinions about FGC, especially how it has affected women health and contributed to the failure of many couples in Somaliland. In the same line, two Sheikhs members of Tostan social mobilization teams made a power point presentation with quotes from the Quran and the Hadiths bearing out that the practice of FGC is a mere tradition. They further explained their work in Tostan consisting in reaching out to indirect communities in order to increase the critical mass for FGC abandonment.

In his speech, the National coordinator of Tostan, Mr. Birima Fall informed that Tostan is working in 21 direct communities ofSomalilandto empower especially women to lead their own development and to mobilize communities belonging to their social networks including the diaspora to abandon harmful practices like FGC. Mr FALL expressed his thankfulness to the leaders of NOW, the Minister of religion, the vice Minister of health, and Amina, the representative of the First Lady for their remarks which pave the way for FGC abandonment in Somaliland. There was a diversified leadership attendance including ministers, members of parliament, political authorities, religious leaders and over 100 participating women representing NOW regional branches and Tostan communities.

The coordinator of the community management committee (CMC) of Goradher, Fatuma spoke in the name of Tostan communities and retraced the impressing headway made with Tostan in terms of empowerment, diffusion of useful information for positive social transformation. She informed the public about the public declaration of FGC abandonment that Tostan communities are intending to organize in the coming weeks as a result of Tostan human rights non formal education and outreach activities.

According to the vice health minister Hon Nimo Hussein Qawdan, women can only take their proper place in the decision making process once they are in good health and once the practice of FGC is completely stopped. Mrs. Nimo revealed that the administration of President Silanyo plans to support various anti-FGM/C awareness raising campaigns nationwide especially in rural areas where the practice is still rampant.

The vice health minister who together with the minister of Education Mrs. Zamzam Abdi Aden are the only women in the cabinet of ministers urged parents to protect their daughters from FGC and to give them equal education opportunities with their sons.

While thanking Tostan international for its support to community led development and promotion of abandonment of FGC, the chairwoman of NOW and deputy chairwoman expressed their readiness to accompany Tostan onto their challenging yet passionate journey of community empowerment, and abandonment of FGC.

Mrs Anisa Nuur Cigale explained that NOW is present in all the regions and districts ofSomalilandand is welcoming Tostan and any other organization contributing to community development.

Shiine Cilmi Kaahin

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Female Genital Mutilation FGM common in Iraq's Kirkuk: Study shows

April 10, 2012
Pana and Wadi
Ekurd.net

For the first time, an empirical study proved that female genital mutilation is also prevalent in parts of Iraq beyond the borders of the Kurdish Region.

April 10, 2012
KIRKUK, Iraq's border with Kurdistan region, —  WADI and the local women’s rights organization PANA have conducted an in-depth research about the existence and background of female genital mutilation (FGM) in Kirkuk. They interviewed 1212 women above the age of 14 and asked each of them 61 questions.

Two years ago, WADI did a similar research in Kurdish Northern Iraq which revealed an alarmingly high prevalence rate of more than 72%. Around the same time, Human Rights Watch published a qualitative study which backs and complements WADI’s results. Meanwhile, after extensive protests and lobby efforts from activists and women’s rights groups (see notably the campaign STOP FGM in Kurdistan), the Regional Government has adopted a legal ban of FGM and other forms of violence against women and children.

Not so in Southern and Central Iraq, which also comprises the multi-ethnic, oil-rich city of Kirkuk. The public authorities assume that FGM is non-existent outside the Kurdish Region.

The new Kirkuk study proves this assumption to be utterly false. According to its findings, 38.2% of Kirkuki women live with the consequences of FGM.

With 65.4%, Kurdish women are the most affected ethnic group. Arab women hold 25.7% and Turkmen women 12.3%.

Focusing on the religious affiliations, 40.9% of the Sunnis, 23.4% of the Shi’ites and 42.9% of the Kaka’is are genitally mutilated. No Christians were found to be affected.

The FGM prevalence rate among girls under the age of 20 is a “mere” 15% which may indicate that the practice is about to decrease gradually. Among women aged 60-70, it is up to 80%.

When it comes to the reasons for the practice, the answers are evenly divided between “tradition” and “religion”, i.e. Islam.

In most cases, FGM means the amputation of the clitoris. Some women however – in the Arab-dominated countryside it is 21% – experienced more severe types,www.ekurd.net including the cutting of the inner and/or outer labia.

The Kirkuk findings prove that FGM is a common practice also among non-Kurds – Sunnis and Shi’ites alike. This data constitutes strong evidence for the assumption that FGM is prevalent throughout Iraq. Millions of women and girls are likely to be affected by these grave human rights violations.

Therefore, we call on the Baghdad parliament to address the issue as soon as possible, support public awareness and discuss further ways to counter female genital mutilation in Iraq.

The complete study will be published in June 2012.

For more information please contact us through the phone or email listed below:

Wadi e.V. - Association for Crisis Assistance
and Development Co-operation
Herborner Str. 62
D-60439 Frankfurt am Main / Germany
Phone:             +49-69-57002440      
Email: info@wadinet.de
Web: www.wadi-online.de
Wadi Office Sulaimaniyah/Northern Iraq Phone:             +964-7701588173      
Pana Kirkuk Phone:             +964-7701512007      

Stop FGM Kurdistan
www.stopfgmkurdistan.org

Published with cooperation with ekurd.net


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Steps towards ending female genital mutilation in Mauritania is in progress

April 9, 2012

Newstime Africa

NOUAKCHOTT, Mohamed Abderrahmane (IPS) – A multi-pronged strategy to end female genital mutilation in Mauritania is making gradual progress, though campaigners acknowledge much remains to be done in a country where more than two-thirds of girls suffer excision. A 2007 Demographic Health Survey found that 71 percent of women and girls in Mauritania have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), carried out by traditional birth attendants on girls before they reach the age of five. The survey reported the reasons given in support of the practice were religion, aesthetics and the promotion of modesty. It also found that the practice was less common among better educated families.

Khatto Mint Jiddou, who heads the campaign against gender-based violence at Mauritania’s Ministry for Social Affairs, Childhood and the Family, told IPS that the initiative involves a wide range of people, including civil society activists, doctors and religious leaders. The national programme, supported by several development partners, includes lobbying for the adoption of a law criminalising excision, raising awareness of a fatwa (a religious notice) forbidding excision, and the setting up of regional offices to monitor the practice. In March, 35 excisors – including many from the central Tagant region, where an estimated 97 percent of girls suffer excision – publicly announced that they were voluntarily abandoning the procedure. Jiddou said the women had been convinced of the dangers of the practice by the explanations put forward by doctors and theologians.

Djeinaba Ba, a gynaecologist in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, told IPS that FGM causes pain and trauma, and often results in serious infections. Massive haemorrhaging, which can lead to death, also occurs frequently. Aziza Mint Meslem, a midwife and civil society activist working against FGM, said that girls who survive the harmful procedure only have more difficulties ahead. “Some infections create dysfunction in the external mucus membranes of the uterus, which prevents the passage of sperm to the uterus, thereby creating sterility,” she said. She added that the practice also provokes obstetric fistulas and haemorrhaging during childbirth. Religious leaders have also lent their voices to the campaign. Hademine Ould Saleck, the imam of the old mosque in Nouakchott, said that he and his colleagues issued a religious notice, or fatwa, forbidding FGM in 2010, based on the risks identified by doctors and taking into account the emphasis Islam places on the dignity of human beings. “We consider this practice, in its usual form, to be forbidden because of the damage it causes, and call on civil and criminal authorities to act against perpetrators,” he told IPS.

Saleck said that the fatwa issued by the Mauritanian religious community in 2011 received support from colleagues in eight West African countries: Burkina Faso, Gambia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Chad. There are additional incentives for birth attendants to renounce FGM: although those who give up the practice do not receive any compensation, they will be prioritised in the allocation of loans for income- generating activities and given preferential access to literacy classes. But Meslem, who works with an NGO called the Mauritanian Association for the Health and Development of Women, says her experience in the field underlines the need for the adoption of laws specifically targeting FGM. She told IPS that twice in the past two years, she has come across cases of young girls who have died due to haemorrhaging after FGM. In each case, it was her NGO rather than the girls’ parents who alerted police; both times, the woman responsible was arrested, held for questioning for several days, but then released with no further action taken.

The midwife lamented the lack of legal sanctions against excisors in the Mauritanian penal code. “It’s a flagrant violation of the rights of girls, because international human rights law stipulates that every person has the right to the integrity of her body,” said Meslem. Gynaecologist Ba told IPS she has seen shifting attitudes recognising the harmful effects of FGM, early marriage and closely-spaced pregnancies. She observed, however, that the shift is noticeable among better-educated women living in cities and towns, and not among those who practice a nomadic lifestyle. Meslem too sees reasons for guarded optimism. “We are seeing a positive trend, even if this phenomenon, rooted in socio-cultural considerations, is far from being brought under control.”

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Female Circumcision Temporarily Stopped in Liberia

March 29, 2012
PRI's The World
Bonnie Allen

Traditional female leaders who operate a powerful secret society in Liberia have agreed to shut down their bush schools and stop female genital cutting, also known as female circumcision, for several years, while still rejecting any criticism of the cultural practice.

Mama Tormah, head zoe for the Sande Society and one of the most powerful traditional leaders in Liberia, has confirmed that she transferred traditional land over to the Poro Society for men this past November so that it can use the bush for its ceremonies and training. The women have been monopolizing the land since 2005 for their bush schools and the initiation ceremony of female genital cutting.

“We have given [the traditional land] to the men – it is their time now,“ Tormah told PRI, while sitting on her porch, dressed in a blue and yellow ‘lappa’ gown. The gray-haired grandmother never had the chance to learn to read or write, and said this suspension of activities will allow young girls to stay in school rather than being forced into the bush.

“When the time comes for the women [to resume operations], by that time, our children will be big big and willing to go.”

Tormah refused to discuss female genital cutting (FGC), but the land transfer effectively shuts down Sande bush schools and FGC – often called mutilation – for four years. The Government of Liberia, which has never taken a public position on the issue, is now seizing the opportunity to work with traditional leaders to phase out the cultural practice altogether.

“Government is saying this needs to stop,” declared Liberia’s newly-appointed Gender Minister, Julia Duncan Cassell, during a sit-down interview in her office. “The process is on in making sure that it’s stopped.”

In Liberia, two out of three teenage girls – sometimes younger – are pulled out of school and taken into the bush for several weeks or months for traditional training called “Sande bush”. The girls learn proper hygiene, hair braiding, basket weaving, and how to take care of their future husbands. As part of their initiation, part or all of a girl’s clitoris is cut off.

It happened to Kulah Borbor when she was 16.

“They will lay you down and sit here,” Borbor said, pointing to your chest. “[They] will tie your hands like this (over your head) and tie your face so that you will not see the instrument they will use.”

Borbor said her clitoris was cut off using a razor or knife, she’s not sure, while a group of women held her down. “It was a lot of pain. I can’t measure that pain with any other pain.”

Last year, a 17-year-old girl, Lotopoe Yeamah, allegedly died from severe hemorrhage after undergoing the practice in a small village in north central Liberia.

The 2007 Liberia Demographic and Health Survey, the most recent statistics, showed the prevalence of circumcision among Liberian women ages 15 to 49 is about 58 percent. The procedure is usually practiced by 10 of Liberia’s 16 tribes, and is reportedly intended to reduce sexual pleasure and, consequently, the likelihood that a woman will be promiscuous.

The Sande and Poro societies in Liberia forbid anyone from revealing their secrets. When a Liberian reporter, Mae Azango, recently published an expose on female cutting, she received threats and had to go into hiding. The societies are so powerful that membership is necessary for social, economic, or political influence in villages across two thirds of the country.

Likewise, despite international pressure, and a female President, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Liberian government hasn’t taken a public position against female genital circumcision. But with the moratorium on Sande bush, the Liberian government is now, for the first time ever, taking action at the national level.

“There has been a statement put out by the Ministry [of Internal Affairs] asking all of our mothers, our aunts, our sisters, to start to desist from such practices,” said Gender Minister Cassell, indicating that the Government of Liberia wants to abide by its obligations under international human rights laws.

She revealed that the government has been talking privately to traditional leaders for some time, and it has concluded that an outright ban would cause a backlash.

“You can’t just stop something that years and years ago your ancestors started. You have to be able to work along with [traditional leaders].”

Liberia is one of nine African nations with no laws banning the procedure. The recently passed Children’s Act states that Liberian children should not be subjected to “any unnecessary or uncultured practice” that inflicts physical pain, but the phrase “uncultured” is vague and undefined.

The Ministry of Internal Affairs, the government department that normally sanctions traditional practices, has been refusing permits to any Sande Society as of January 2012 according to Joseph Janga, assistant minister of culture. He wrote a letter to the traditional chiefs and zoes in December that diplomatically “requests” they stop Sande bush activities, but when interviewed by PRI, said he will dispatch inspectors in April to report any zoes who violate the “order”.

In August 2009, the United Nations committee overseeing the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) criticized Liberia’s Ministry of Internal Affairs for issuing permits to practitioners of “female genital mutilation” and said it was “an explicit form of support for the practice and thereby undermine[s] any efforts to eliminate it.”

Liberia’s Gender Minister said the next step will be to empower traditional zoes economically. Already, eighty “cutters” from two counties were trained in small business management in September 2011.

“If we don’t do something then these people will go back to where they came from. So we are going to go from county to county now and ask them, ‘Look, if we want them to do this, what are we going to give them in place of that?’ Because for some of them it’s their livelihood.”

As Mama Tormah sits on her porch, watching school girls in yellow uniforms cram into a nearby school alongside boys, she is both diplomatic and defiant.

“We know the country has changed. We are in modern days. So, we are changing the system small small until we reach to the end,” said Tormah. “But it can’t be the way they want it to happen, as quickly as they want it to happen. We’re not ready for people to say, ‘No more Sande’. We can’t do that. You will damage the country.”

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"This Needs to Stop": Tempers Flare over the Practice of Female Circumcision in Liberia

March 30, 2012
ThinkAfricaPress
Travis Lupick

When Kulah Borbor’s daughter was 13 years old, she asked her mother if she could join Liberia’s secret Sande Society. Most Liberian women are members of the Sande, so her daughter’s request was nothing unusual. But Borbor, a gender-based violence officer with the West Point Women for Health and Development Organisation, immediately discouraged her daughter’s interest in the Sande.

“I told her, ‘What? You want to go join?’” Borbor recounted. “I took her in a room and I showed her.”

What Borbor shared with her daughter was one of the Sande’s open, but almost never spoken, secrets – that the society’s initiation includes female circumcision, otherwise known as female genital cutting (FGC), or female genital mutilation (FGM).

“I said, ‘That’s where they cut mine,” Borbor continued. “From that time, she hasn’t talked about it.”

Borbor went on to deliver a candid account of the day she was cut by the Sande. She was made to feel at ease, dressed in nice clothes and carried on a hammock into the forest. There, a group of older women lay her down, gently tied her hands and covered her eyes, and told her that she should prepare to sail over water.

“They tell you, ‘Do not be afraid, there is no reason for you to fret.’”

Borbor paused, and used a deep breath to skip over the details of the actual circumcision. Her expression turned grim: “There is no means for you to leave from there,” she said. “There is a group of women surrounding you, holding you. Only god can free you from there.”

Taking a stance

There are no thorough statistics on FGC in Liberia, but it is estimated that as many as two-thirds of the country’s women are circumcised, with most undergoing the World Health Organisation’s type II classification – the cutting of the clitoris and labia minora.

UNICEF has long maintained that FGC “violates girls’ and women’s basic human rights, denying them of their physical and mental integrity, their right to freedom from violence and discrimination, and in the most extreme case, their life”. Such international pressure has, in recent years, resulted in a number of African states passing legislation banning FGC. But it was not until this past week that the Liberian government took a position on the issue.

Following a storm of controversy spurred by local media coverage of the Sande and FGC, journalists were threatened, a public debate ensued, and the government finally took a position on the practice.

On March 26, 2012, Minister of Gender and Development Julia Duncan-Cassell went on the radio and stated that government is asking traditional leaders to “resist from FGM”. In an interview the following day, she reiterated that her office is “in the process” of ending FGC in Liberia.

“Government is saying, ‘This needs to stop,’” emphasised Duncan-Cassell. However, she conceded that cultural attitudes will not change overnight.

Sensitive topic

In Liberia, FGC is deeply rooted in the Sande Society, which, along with its male counterpart, the Poro, plays a significant role in the upbringing of much of the country’s youth, as well as Liberian culture as whole.

In his seminal work on religion in Liberia, The Mask of Anarchy: The destruction of Liberia and the religious dimensions of an African civil war, Stephen Ellis describes the Sande and the Poro as “corporations, controlled in each town by local councils of elders whose identity and whose rituals may not be divulged to outsiders”.

The societies exercise less influence now than they once did, but it is still to the Sande “bush” schools that many young Liberian women go to for instructions on proper traditions of respect, to learn how to run a household, and to prepare for marriage.

There is, of course, more to the Sande than the controversy surrounding FGC. There is also community and commemoration, for example. On a recent visit to Grand Bassa County, women were seen returning from the bush schools in a sort of graduation ceremony, racing through the streets on motorcycles, flailing their arms and legs in celebration while crowds danced and cheered their return. But it’s the Sande’s ritualistic circumcision ceremonies that have slowly caught the nation’s attention, and not to everybody’s satisfaction.

On March 8 – International Women’s Day – the Liberian daily ‘Front Page Africa’ published afeature on the Sande Society and FGC. The article’s author, Mae Azango, subsequently received a number of threats and, three weeks later, remains in hiding. The same week, activist Phyllis Nyuma-Kimba was speaking on FGC in the United States when her home in Monrovia was set on fire, allegedly in retaliation to her opposition to FGC. On March 26, journalist Tetee Gebro was confronted by a group of men outside the nation’s capitol building and threatened for sympathising with Azango and her work on female genital cutting.

Despite letters of protest by Amnesty International and the Committee to Protect Journalists, government and traditional officials’ responses to those acts of intimidation have been largely unsupportive. Blamo Nelson, Minister of Internal Affairs – which oversees Sande and Poro conduct – questioned whether Azango had actually received any threats, despite the fact that her editor and publisher have supported her claims. And Mama Tormah, head of all female zoes (traditional spiritual leaders), called those questioning the practice of FGC “prostitutes.”

The fight continues

In response, Azango, Nyuma-Kimba, and Gebro, have all insisted that they intend to continue their work against FGC.

“Children have been violated,” Azango emphasised. “I’m talking about babies being violated. They say that a girl should be 18 so that she can make the decision on her own. But they take children – five, six, seven, ten-year-old children – to the Sande bush and have them cut. Those children did not make their decisions on their own. So their rights have been violated.”

Gebro argued that in addition to FGC being a matter of human rights, the threats she and her colleagues have encountered have made the debate on cutting in Liberia an issue of free speech and freedom of the press.

“I understand the risks, but I think we’re doing the right thing,” she said. “We need to talk about the issue in this country. If a doctor tells us that it [FGC] is harmful, we have to speak about it because we are journalists, and we have the right to speak about it if it is harmful to people.”

Openly apprehensive about how the debate on FGC is moving forward in Liberia, the Minister of Internal Affairs nevertheless said that advocacy on this issue should continue.

“You’re talking about educating a nation to abandon its cherished heritage,” he explained. “Take time to be holy. Otherwise, you’ll destroy yourself before you even achieve your objective.”

To read the full article on the ThinkPressAfrica website, click here