Uganda Bans Female Genital Mutilation: Will the Cutting Stop?

Last week, the Ugandan parliament took a welcome break from gay-bashing in order to outlaw female genital mutilation (also known as FGM, female genital cutting, or female circumcision). Practitioners will now receive a ten year prison term for performing the operation, or a life sentence if someone dies as a result of it.

FGM has been categorized into four types, which range from excising part or all of the clitoris to removing the entire external genitalia. Those who practice it (sometimes on girls as young as four) cite various religious and cultural reasons, including that it’s mandated by Islam (which is false), that it makes a woman clean, that it’s a rite of passage, and that it keeps women from being promiscuous.

I've been told on several occasions that Westerners should reserve judgment about FGM because it's a matter of cultural relativism. But the severe health risks often posed by the procedure make it more than a cultural or feminist issue -- FGM is a human rights concern.

The operation is often performed under unsanitary conditions and without anesthesia. It can result in infection; profuse bleeding and shock; scarring; infertility; painful urination, menstruation, sex, and childbirth; and severe risks to both the mother and child during labor. In other words, lifelong suffering, and sometimes death.

So, Uganda’s FGM ban is a victory for women’s human rights -– in theory. In practice, the law might not change much.

In many countries were FGM is outlawed, the government fails to enforce the measure, either because it doesn’t have the capacity to do so or because it chooses to turn a blind eye. Changing the law without changing people’s mindsets won’t magically cause FGM to disappear. It is deeply entrenched in communities where it has sometimes been practiced for hundreds of years. In a village where girls who have not been cut are ostracized as unmarriageable and unclean, how can parents be expected to resist the practice? Outlawing FGM could simply drive it underground and make it even more unsafe (think back-alley abortions before Roe v. Wade).

That’s why the United Nations and many NGOs consider it best for change to come from within communities that practice FGM, as opposed to having it forced upon them. They stress the need for Uganda to back up its law with community-based awareness and education campaigns.

Tostan is an NGO working in West Africa that uses the community-based approach. The organization facilitates educational programs that promote dialogue about health, hygiene, and human rights and that often culminate in a community decision to abandon female genital cutting, as Tostan prefers to call it. Using this methodology, Tostan has convinced over 4,500 communities to pledge to discontinue the practice, often in public declarations or ceremonies. These collective commitments have allowed individual community members to abandon FGM without fear of social stigma.

For this new law to work, Uganda needs to put energy into not only enforcement, but also into educating communities about why this change is good for their daughters.

Photo Credit: Sweggs’ Photostream