SENEGAL: How to end female cutting

In Senegal, a Movement to Reject Female Circumcision

The practice of "female circumcision" is widespread, affecting an estimated 140 million women worldwide. ...

La pratica della "circoncisione femminile" è molto diffusa, colpisce circa 140 milioni di donne in tutto il mondo.



Attempts have been made from time to time to stamp out the practice: by missionaries in colonial times, U.N. proclamations, even laws to ban it, all to little effect. From all this history, Molly Melching, founder of an organization in Senegal called Tostan, derived a lesson.

"Tostan found that using approaches that shame or blame people really was just the opposite of what would work in changing social norms," Melching said.

In the two decades since Tostan -- which means "breakthrough" in the local Wolof language -- began using a human rights education approach, almost 5,000 villages in Senegal have abandoned the practice of female genital cutting, she said.

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Tostan's staff and volunteers ... rely on an expansive education program of seminars conducted in the villages on human rights, including the right to good health. In time, people learn about germ transmission and how complications suffered by so many women during childbirth can be traced back to the cutting that occurred during their childhood, Melching explains. All this leads to community discussions that examine the origins of the practice,

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Melching says religious leaders,... are especially appreciative of being consulted first.

Tostan's message to the communities is respectful, non-judgmental and simple: we know you want to do what's best for your daughters' future. It is sensitive to the fact that from the community's perspective, girls who are not cut are likely to be ostracized and unable to find marriage partners. That makes it critical that large numbers of communities - the marriage pool - abandon the practice collectively. Tostan helps coordinate, organize and raise the funds for such declarations -- gala events attended by thousands of people from hundreds of villages:

"One part of bringing about a change like this is to get everyone to change at once, what we call coordinated abandonment. Everyone has to see that everyone else sees that everyone is changing," says University of California, San Diego, professor Gerry Mackie, who has closely studied Tostan.

There are instances in history for this kind of massive shift in social norms. Women's feet were once bound in China, but the practice was abandoned in barely a generation. And there's a more recent example Melching notices when she returns to America: cigarette smoking was common and widespread when she left in the 1970s, but with increasing awareness of the health consequences, it has become widely unacceptable today.
(http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2011/0...rcumcision.html)