WUNRN
West Africa - Actions
Against FGM
22
January 2010
Source:
Reuters
*
34 scholars sign fatwa in Mauritania
*
Mothers face sanctions in Niger
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Ethnic differences in rate of FGM
By
Laurent Prieur and Abdoulaye Massalatchi
NOUAKCHOTT/NIAMEY,
Jan 22 (Reuters) - Efforts to eradicate female genital circumcision in West
Africa have taken a step forward with a fatwa against the practice in
Mauritania and sanctions in Niger against mothers who subject their daughters
to it.
Known
also as female genital mutilation (FGM), the tradition involves removing
external parts of a girl's genitals and sometimes narrowing the vaginal
opening. Bleeding, disease and problems in urinating and childbirth can result
for millions of victims each year in Africa and the Middle East.
In
many parts of West Africa, cutting has been presented as a religious obligation
for Muslim women, leading many to believe that if they are not circumcised they
are unclean and that their prayers will not be heard.
"Are
there texts in the Koran that clearly require that thing? They do not
exist," the secretary general of the Forum of Islamic Thought in
Mauritania, Cheikh Ould Zein, told Reuters of the fatwa signed by 34 imams and
scholars.
"On
the contrary, Islam is clearly against any action that has negative effects on
health. Now that doctors in Mauritania unanimously say this practice threatens
health, it is therefore clear that Islam is against it," he added.
The
fatwa, or religious ruling, was signed on January 12 but became widely known
only this week in a country where some 72 percent of women are estimated to
have undergone FGM and where practitioners charge an average 25 euros a time.
"The
fact that the religious leaders in Mauritania are standing up and doing this is
quite amazing," said Molly Melching, executive director of Tostan, a Senegal-based
organisation working in Mauritania on FGM.
MOTHERS
FACE PUNISHMENT
The
fatwa in itself is not binding, and would not have an impact on those
communities practising FGM for centuries-old cultural reasons not linked to the
arrival of Islam in Africa.
Yet
it follows other tentative indications of a trend away from FGM in West Africa.
A
Save the Children-backed campaign has seen 40 villages in Mali abandon the
practice in a country where over 80 percent of the women have undergone FGM. In
Senegal, the practice has been widely stopped since a law against it was passed
in 1999.
In
a sign that authorities in Niger are implementing a 2003 ban, 45 mothers in the
southwestern town of Kollo received fines and suspended jail sentences of eight
months this week for complicity in allowing their daughters to be cut.
Welfare
specialist Moussa Hassane told Reuters that aside from the usual forms of
excision, practioners in Niger used the technique to facilitate sexual
relations with child brides.
Niger
has one of the highest rates of early marriage in the world, with nearly 60
percent of women married between 15-19.
UN
agency UNICEF statistics show a sharp fall in Niger in the incidence of FGM in
the past decade masking stark ethnic differences, with three percent of Arab
women circumcised but nearly two-thirds of some other tribal groups.
"A
law is not what will change a social norm. For it to be sustainable it has to
come from the people, a decision made by the people, because they really
believe in it," Melching said.
_____________________________________________________________________
Mauritania - Muslim Imams Initiate
Rare Ban on Female Circumcision
21 Jan
2010 17:04:00 GMT
By George
Fominyen
The centuries-old practice involves removing
part or all of a girl's clitoris and labia, and sometimes narrowing the vaginal
opening. About 72 percent of the women in
"Are there texts in the Koran that
clearly require that thing? They do not exist," the secretary general of
the Forum of Islamic Thought in
"On the contrary, Islam is clearly
against any action that has negative effects on health. Now that doctors in
In many parts of
Which makes the decision by 34 imams and
scholars -- supported by the government of
"The fact that the religious leaders in
MORE DECREES TO COME?
UNICEF estimates that 3 million girls and women are cut each year across communities in 28 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle-East.
So, what is the likelihood of seeing similar bans on female circumcision in other countries?
Well, it's hard to say.
A fatwa in itself is generally binding only to those who follow a particular imam, so communities could be subject to contradictory decrees.
Moreover, not all the communities in the other countries of sub-Saharan Africa where the practice continues are Muslim -- reflecting the fact that, as a longstanding cultural practice, FGM may be hard to end especially when campaigners use judgmental approaches.
"In the past, people have gone into communities and simply told them to stop this practice because it is bad and they display pictures of naked women and their reproductive organs in communities where this is shocking," Melching said.
Many organisations including Tostan and Save the Children believe this approach failed to stop the practice because it ignored the cultural context in which the targeted communities were living.
"I once asked a community: 'do you have
the right to cut somebody's hand?' They said no. 'Do you have the right to cut
somebody's head or foot?' They said no. So why do you cut somebody's sexual
organ?" said Ame Atsu David, a former regional programme coordinator for
HIV and harmful traditional practices of Save the Children (
"This got them thinking," she told AlertNet.
Many campaigners back an approach which involves human rights, education, community development, health care and leaves the decision to the communities themselves.
A Save the Children-backed campaign run by the Mali Centre Djoliba based on this approach has seen 40 villages abandon female circumcision and set up community groups to oversee the implementation of the decision in a country where over 80 percent of the women have experienced FGM.
In
"But a law is not what will change a social norm. For it to be sustainable it has to come from the people, a decision made by the people, because they really believe in it," Melching said.
"The key is empowering people to make
their own decisions but with good information," she told AlertNet.
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