Listening to African Voices - FPZ

3.5.1. Follow-up project for girls at risk of beingsubjected to the practiceIn the second and third week of the quantitative survey,several researchers reported cases that demanded a closerinvestigation. These were:• Participants whose daughters had been subjected to thepractice in Africa;• Participants who made their intentions known to subjecttheir daughters to the practice.• Women participants who affirmed that their daughtersmight be subjected to the practice by the husband’s familyduring a holiday in their country of origin and that theywere not in a position to protect their daughters;• Women participants who were indifferent about the statusof their daughters and who announced that it did not matterto them if the daughters were subjected to the practiceduring a home visit to Africa.We organised an additional meeting to discuss each of thecases. The conclusions of the meeting were as follows:• No action could be taken for the daughters who had alreadybeen subjected to the practice. The girls concernedhad undergone FGM/C in Africa and most of them stilllived there. There was no means of tracing them in orderto assess the need of support. A small minority of the girlswas living in Hamburg, but had been subjected to thepractice before migrating to Europe.• The other cases required a follow-up and monitoring, butthere was no girl in immediate danger. The case analysisindicated that there was sufficient time to develop aresponse strategy.• We consulted an advisor of the intercultural centre inEimsbüttel 7 and our focal point at the BSG and developeda response strategy adapted to the needs of each individualcase. At the time of report writing, the need forfollow-up responses had been identified for 13 girls livingin nine different families of West African origin. 83.6. Difficulties and challenges during the projectThe difficulties were mainly linked to the mobilisation andavailability of participants, their reactions to the researchtopic and the accessibility of communities from certaincountries.7 District of Hamburg.8 More detailed information about the response strategy and thefollow up project is available at Plan Germany’s office.3.6.1. Availability of participants and of women in particularThe interviewers reported repeatedly that it was challengingto fix appointments with potential participants. The beginningof the data collection coincided with the second weekof Ramadan and many families gathered outside workinghours to break the fast and were not available for interviews.Moreover, numerous African immigrants are shift-workersand difficult to reach as they start working very early orget home very late. Identifying women for interviews wasa particular challenge. They are less represented in placesof public gathering and less likely to accept an interviewon FGM/C with a stranger. Organising an interview with aMuslim women could be particularly time consuming. Theresearcher was expected to obtain an authorisation from thehusband before conducting the interview. This sometimesimplied that a researcher had to visit the same family severaltimes before being able to meet the husband and to make anappointment with the woman to conduct the interview.3.6.2. Lack of interest in the topicThe topic of FGM/C proved to be of little or no interest tomany immigrants approached during this research. Theycommunicated that it was not a priority issue for them andoften insisted on discussing their current problems linkedto topics like the status of their residence permit, the workpermission, job seeking or their accommodation. Moreover,some stated that this type of study should take place in Africaand not in Europe where people have other preoccupations.Men often responded that FGM/C is women’s businessand that they don’t see any use in participating. Membersof non-practicing groups often objected that FGM/C is of aslittle concern to them and that they have neither knowledgeof nor interest in the topic.3.6.3. Mistrust and cautiousness of participantsThe interviewers encountered many immigrants who wereextremely suspicious and expected the questions to be traps,in particular questions related to their socio-demographicstatus. Items enquiring about the region of birth, the statusof the residence permit, ethnic group or marital statusseemed to awaken memories of frightening experiences withthe German authorities and the police. Numerous participantswere worried that their responses would be handedover to the German authorities and that the nature of theiranswers could have a negative impact on their residencestatus. Thus, many participants preferred to omit certainquestions from the socio-demographic section. Some participantsalso requested to be interviewed without the questionnaireand note taking. Persons without a residence permitwere particularly tight-lipped when it came to the sociodemographicsection. The interviewers were amazed to see18Listening to African Voices