CROSS-BORDER FGM

I think we need to think about actions and interventions that first help to identify and control these practices in order to better eradicate them. Among others:

• Having a common tool, a regional law to harmonize sanctions so that the fight is unanimous and consistent. As long as people have this facility to cross the border and continue the practice, the struggle will be difficult even for a country like Burkina Faso which rigorously applies its law on cutting.
• Having political will in all border countries, because if you have a regional law and all the countries do not apply it rigorously, it will be a waste of time. There are cases of cross-border FGM where each border country has a law (Burkina Faso-Niger; Burkina Faso-Ghana for example), but people still cross to “go do the thing on the other side”.

“When you look at Ghana it’s the same thing, when you take the South-West region, people take their daughters, they cross over, go to Ghana to do that and then they come back, so you see! When you take the Ivory Coast, they bring the girls to the forest areas, they do that and they come back; because I’ve already been to the Ivory Coast, I’ve seen it. I visit an aunt who lives there, so I know what’s going on over there.” A resource person, Burkina Faso.

• Reinforce awareness actions at community level so that people understand WHY they must stop the practice, using respected local leaders who have enormous power in the community and who are above all convinced of the merits of the abandonment of the practice. The CNLPE in Burkina Faso has been doing this for a long time, but the work must be continued. It may be that the message of a local leader who is well known and close to the population, particularly if he/she is well respected, is better understood than that of a bureaucrat who arrives from the city and who does not properly understand the ins and outs of local community life. In Burkina Faso and in Mali, our participants are very aware of the harmful consequences linked to excision, with concrete examples to support it.

So why do people still cut their daughters, often covertly?

Our study highlighted that in the 6 villages, people tend to resort to customary law in any type of conflict situation rather than civil law (sought as a last resort). We also found that there are always people who are fierce advocates of the practice (men and women). For them, FGM only has advantages and all campaigns have the sole aim of making their customs disappear and of undermining their integrity. When you have tenacious mindsets of this nature, repression and the law alone are insufficient. There is a need to scale up more appropriate community interventions so even those people who are fierce advocates of FGM, who openly say so in interviews, are nevertheless afraid of losing their daughter as a result of FGM which is said to be frequently improperly performed.

• Do not neglect the action capacities of youth. We have noticed that young people are starting to question the arguments of loved ones who are in favor of the practice. The reasons: the media, education, mobility (some have lived in countries that do not practice FGM, but where women are married and have children), etc.

The young girls and boys in our focus groups refer to the elders to explain the reasons for the circumcision: “the old people said that …”. Some even think that “when they [the old people] are gone,” the practice may disappear. But since these young people live in communities where respect for the elders is essential, where one does not often contradict “what the old people said”, it is sometimes difficult for them to openly oppose the values and practices of another time that exist in their communities. These young people need support.

• Other people in our research say that only health workers can tell if the girl has been cut or not, and only during a medical visit. Consequently, these health workers could be on the border with the security agents to control the return of the girls from Mali. However, they themselves recognize that this is a utopian measure given the number of health workers available in the villages and the extent of the border.

Instead, they propose that the government introduce (or impose) regular medical visits for children aged 0 to X years of age, which would allow the child / girl to be seen regularly and mothers could continue to be educated about the harmful effects of FGM. That having been said, many women still hesitate to bring their circumcised daughters to the hospital. For example, we listened to cases about girls suffering haemorrhages following their cutting, but people tell you that they never brought the girl to the hospital, in Mali or in Burkina Faso, because they were afraid. So they attempt DIY medecine at home until the haemorrhage stops. Some even went to borrow medication from priests, but they never said that it was to stop a haemorrhage due to excision !

• The need for more studies on cross-border FGM. Currently there are few. The cross-border struggle is now on the African agenda and beyond. It is important to better understand its manifestations, the motivations of the various communities and other factors in order to develop effective and, above all, sustainable intervention strategies due to the complexity of the problem.