Female genital mutilation is still prevalent in some Arab countries, but new research in Sudan shows that educational interventions at the secondary school level are successful in convincing teenage girls that the practise has serious health consequences. It is too late for many of those girls to protect themselves from the procedure, but the researchers hope they may grow up to not perpetuate it on their own children.
Others working to end female genital mutilation, or FGM, hope that such school-based health education efforts will be part of the fight against the practice.
The World Health Organization defines female genital mutilation—also known as female circumcision—as a violation of human rights in which parts of the female genitalia are intentionally altered or removed for no medical reason. This can involve the amputation of the clitoris, labia majora and or labia minora. Sometimes the procedure also includes the repositioning of these organs through cutting and stitching.
The consequences vary person to person and depend on the severity of the procedure. In the short term, bleeding and shock due to pain are not uncommon and if the mutilation is done without sterilized blades, an infection is likely. In the longer term, childbirth can be difficult and risky to both mother and child. Sexual intercourse can also be painful and, depending on the age at which a girl is cut, she may also suffer mental-health problems as a result of the trauma if she can remember the event.
Those who are trying to reduce the practice say it’s an uphill battle because there has been little achievement in replicating successful interventions from one country to another.
“We don’t have a sense of what is a good intervention against FGM. What works in one country or region doesn’t necessarily work in another,” says Sarah Hayford, a professor of sociology at Ohio State University. “It’s hard to know where to invest resources, which is why it’s important to do these small localized studies to know what works.”
Hayford was not involved with the Sudanese research, but her work in the past has focused on the prevalence of female genital mutilation in Egypt.
Reaching Girls in Sudan
In the new study, published in the World Health Organization’s Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, public health experts conducted an educational intervention in two secondary schools in Sudan, targeting 154 girls between the ages of 14 and 17 who had consented to be part of the research. Close to one-third of those girls had already been subjected to female genital mutilation.
What about Female genital mutilation, FGM, in Indonesia and in Malaysia, for example?
Even the least invasive form of girls’ circumcision has to be overcome, worldwide. Khatna resp. Khitan al-inath (Islamic FGM) has to be overcome, worldwide.
One day the Prophet met the Muqaṭṭiʿatu l-buẓūr (cutter of clitorises), der Umm ʿAṭiyya – Umm Atiyya. The Prophet told her:
HADITH:
أشمِّي ولا تنهَكي
ašimmī wa-lā tanhakī
[Cut] slightly and do not overdo it
… or Mohammed said:
اختفضن ولا تنهكن
iḫtafiḍna wa-lā tanhikna
Cut [slightly] without exaggeration