Sahiyo Communication Guide

‘Individual Responsibility’ Approach
Some activists emphasize the idea that ending FGC is a matter of individual
responsibility. They believe that a girl going through FGC is the fault of one
person (the parent, for example), and if that person says no to FGC, then
the practice cannot occur. When this approach is taken, the activist often
ends up asking questions - or making assumptions - about what people
could or should have done to ensure that the girl didn’t get cut (like calling
the police, for example).
The limitation of this approach is that activists tend to take a cognitive
‘blindness’ to systemic factors that might lead to a girl getting cut. In
other words, activists ignore the more universal reasons why people might
continue FGC and tend to focus on blaming individuals. These other
systemic reasons include FGC being promoted as a religious or cultural
necessity, people raised with the belief that authority cannot be questioned,
or fear of being disowned by the community. But even for a sympathetic
activist, sometimes these systemic factors are harder to see and difficult to
cognitively grapple with.
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