Working for Women Worldwide - Embassy of the United States

Some of the immediate health consequences of
this practice include hemorrhage or shock, which can
result in death, severe pain, injury to the urethra, acute
urine retention, infections, and failure to heal. Longterm
complications include recurrent urinary tract
infections, pelvic infection, infertility, scarring, and
obstructed childbirth.
There are many reasons the world has found it
difficult to eradicate this violent practice. For one
thing, many practicing communities fail to understand
the relationship between FGC and its serious health
and psychological consequences. In addition, some
practicing societies see it as a way to ensure fidelity or
make a girl more marriageable, and thereby attract a
better dowry. Many say it is an act of love for their
daughters, who typically undergo FGC between the
ages of two and 11. Some believe it is mandated by their
religion or that it will promote good health. In some
societies, uncircumcised women may not hold elective
office.
Since the 1980s, USAID has provided assistance
to eliminate female genital cutting. Yet, the practice
has proved tenacious. In Egypt, for example, prevalence
remained at 97 percent from 1994 to 2003; in
Mali, it declined a mere 2 percent, from 94 percent to
92 percent, over that period. Sadly, the age of mutilation
is going down—in Egypt from age 10 to age three,
and in Mali from age three to one. Minority groups in
some Asian countries, including India and Indonesia,
still practice it.
The practice has spread through immigration to
Europe and North America. It is now an issue in
major U.S. cities like Los Angeles, San Diego,
Houston, New York, and Boston. Consequently, the
U.S. government has accelerated its domestic efforts.
In 1996, Congress passed a law making performance of
female genital cutting on a girl under the age of 18 a
federal crime. On February 6, 2004—Zero Tolerance
Day for FGC—a symposium was held at the
National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to focus on
the challenges and best practices in getting local communities
to abandon female genital cutting. Speakers
ranged from a village worker in Senegal to a Boston
physician who dealt with the problem.
The U.S. government funds educational and
information programs about the harmful effects of
FGC in numerous countries, increasing funding from
zero to $500,000 in 2002, and again in 2004 to $2.2
million. In Burkina Faso, Chad, Djibouti, Egypt,
Eritrea, Ethiopia, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea,
Kenya, Mali, Senegal, Somalia, Togo, and Yemen,
U.S. funds have helped train health care providers
about FGC’s long-term consequences, supported
research on the prevalence of the practice, and helped
countries develop and test strategies to end it.
Substantial results are evident already. In
Senegal, where studies estimate that 20 percent of
women have undergone FGC, USAID funding
allowed Tostan—an NGO based in that country—to
develop a village empowerment project to address
women’s health issues such as FGC in a holistic manner.
The project strives to educate men as well as
women about the consequences. After just two years,
women participants demonstrated the most knowledge
about the practice and experienced the greatest shift in
attitudes. Surprisingly, 105 villages in the region (with
some 80,000 inhabitants) held a public ceremony at
which they issued a declaration ending the practice.
It is too soon to judge the long-term success of
these efforts. But Dr. Abdelhadi Eltahir, USAID’s
senior technical advisor on female genital cutting,
points to surveys that show a decline in the practice.
He is encouraged by an increase in public declarations
against the practice in villages where it used to be
acceptable. Bougouni, Mali, is such a village.
According to Eltahir, its chief has declared a 10-year
moratorium on girls’ circumcision. The village chief
believes setting a specific time frame for ending it is
easier to impose than a decision to stop the practice
immediately. And he believes that 10 years will be sufficient
time for the community to abandon the practice
permanently.
For more information on the U.S. government’s
anti-trafficking initiatives, please visit http://www.
state.gov/g/tip/ and http://www.usdoj.gov/trafficking.htm.
For information on USAID and U.S. State
Department assistance to end the practice of female
genital cutting, see: http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/
global_health/pop/techareas/fgc/ and http://www.
state.gov/g/wi/rls/rep/crfgm/.
Z
Facing page, top, women rescued from brothels line up to identify
an alleged trafficker at the Maiti Nepal shelter in Kathmandu.
Center left, in Moldova, a woman returns to the bar where a woman
approached her with offers of good jobs in the West. Actually, she
was being enticed into prostitution. Center right, in Kosovo, the
U.N. Mission questions dancers from local nightclubs in an effort
to determine whether they have been trafficked and forced to become
prostitutes. Bottom, prostitution is big business along the Czech
Republic borders with Germany and Austria.
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