Senegal: Total End of Female Genital Cutting Now in Sight

If any of you have read Papillon's story, you will know she is of Senegalese descent and that this post means that in the furture there is every chance that no other will have to go through what she had to endure.

Last night I received the following email from Tostan, which I reproduce in full.

 Government of Senegal launches major national action plan to seize on momentum created by local communities and the NGO Tostan to end the practice by 2015

DAKAR, Senegal, 18 February 2010—Building on a massive grassroots movement for the abandonment of female genital cutting (FGC) which has seen thousands of communities in Senegal join its ranks in recent years, the Government of Senegal will announce tomorrow the launch of a comprehensive strategy for achieving its goal of nationwide abandonment of FGC by 2015.

The strategy, to be announced at an event attended by Senegalese Prime Minister Souleymane Ndéné Ndiaye, is largely based on the human rights approach developed by Tostan, an NGO working in Senegal since 1991. Through Tostan's respectful, cross-cutting model of engaging communities, over 4,200 communities in Senegal have publicly declared their abandonment of the practice since 1997. A recent UNICEF study confirmed the long-term abandonment of FGC in communities that participated in the Tostan program.

The National Action Plan for FGC Abandonment 2010-2015 will focus on three key components of the Tostan strategy: implementing empowering education programs in national languages, engaging extended social networks through an "organized diffusion" model of communication, and supporting public declarations for the abandonment of FGC.

The Action Plan also stresses the importance of working with populations in the regions where FGC is most commonly practiced, Saint Louis, Matam, Kaolack, Tambacounda, Ziguinchor, and Kolda─regions which are among the poorest of Senegal.  

The launch event will recognize the local community leaders who have led this movement from infancy to its current tipping point. Special recognition will be given to the first community to publicly declare abandonment of FGC in 1997, Malicounda Bambara. The Tostan organization and staff will also be recognized for their dedicated work on this and other development issues over the past 19 years. Khaldiou Sy, Director of Tostan Senegal, will speak at the event. 

The launch event comes just days before a massive public declaration of all 256 communities of the Kedougou Region of Senegal, where, on Sunday, February 21, participating communities will declare an end to the practices of FGC and child/forced marriage on a regional level, marking one of the largest such events to-date. The event will be attended by the Minister of Women and the Country Representative of UNICEF in Senegal.

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About Tostan: Tostan, a US 501c3 organization that was founded in 1991, currently has over 1,000 full-time staff and community facilitators, and is working in over 800 communities in eight countries in Africa. Over 99% of Tostan’s staff is African. The organization’s US office is based in Washington, D.C.  Tostan has been the recipient of several awards including the 2007 Conrad N. Hilton Humanitarian Prize, the UNESCO King Sejong Prize for Literacy, and Sweden’s 2005 Anna Lindh Award for Human Rights. For more information, please visit www.tostan.org.

 

Dr Madzou in Angers

As outlined in an earlier post, Dr Foldès is now far from being the only surgeon to practice reconstructive surgery to repair female genital mutilation.  One of the surgeons he has trained is Dr Madzou in Angers who says the technique used is straightforward for a surgeon to learn and uses no specialist equipment.  He has trained 20 surgeons in Burkina Fasoas well as operating there himself.

To answer an enquiry I've just received, the contact details for Dr Sébastien Madzou are as follows.

Tel. Rdv consultations : +33 (0)2 41 35 44 59
Fax : +33 (0)2 41 35 42 54
Email : SeMadzou {at} chu-angers {dot} fr

The Cut

The cut - a traditional rite of passage into womanhood: genital cutting.  Or an issue that should concern us all.
 
Some of my longer-standing readers will remember Papillon's story which I translated from her French blog. It was all about her quest to have reconstructive surgery for the genital cutting she had suffered at the age four.  If you haven't read it, please at least consider reading the first two or three posts which tell of how it happened.  "When I was 4 my mother had me circumcised. It ruined my life". 

It was over two years ago when I found the blog and asked her if she would allow me to translate it so that young English speaking women could benefit from her experiences.  Since then, I've had numerous enquiries from people asking if the surgery is available in the UK (no), and how to go about contacting Dr Foldès, the surgeon who developed the procedure.

Recently I've heard that a Spanish surgeon, Pere Barri of the Instituto Dexeus, has spent some time in Paris with Dr Foldès, and now operates two or three times a month.  Not only that, he is hoping to share the knowledge and skills with other clinics in Spain so that more women "can leave their ghosts behind".

The practice of FGM used to be more or less confined to sub-Saharan Africa and a few parts of the Middle East and Asia but nowadays, with migration and population movement, the incidence in Europe and elsewhere has been increasing.  It is illegal to carry out the practice in Europe but it is so very hard to counteract traditional beliefs.

There are various initiatives in progress.  One in the UK is a survey which is funded by the Health Department to increase knowledge and understanding about FGM and to try to find out how much training might be required by health practitioners.  France had an informative and educational campaign in April.  There are initiatives in a number of African countries: Ethiopia, Burkina Faso, and several others.

Now from Norway there is a project to educate and raise awareness which has produced a documentary film called "The Cut".  This, the first episode, shows two girls from different villages in Kenya where FGM is still practised in spite of its being illegal.  One girl has rejected the practice and is actively working to help educate people, the other is about to undergo this traditional but harmful rite of passage. It goes some way to explaining the tradition, incidentally showing unequivocally that it isn't specifically an Islamic practice, and suggests a way it can be eradicated.

If you wish, you can download the film, less than 15 minutes in length, from the project website.  It doesn't make the most pleasant viewing, but nor does it go out of its way to shock.