During activities marking the Women’s History Month in the United States, the consensus is that female genital mutation/cutting (FGM/C) has no health benefits for girls and women, with a call to the civil society and governments to unite and end this harmful practice that is still widespread around the world, writes United States Bureau Chief OLUKOREDE YISHAU
When U.S. Department of State’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion Senior Advisor Maryum Saifee was in the Office of Global Women’s Issues, one of the countries the office worked on was Nigeria and she discovered that Female Genital Mutation/Cutting (FGM/C) transcended religion and culture.
“There’s a practice called medicalisation, which I think is something that happens and I’ll explain it for folks, that in some countries, the process is conducted by medical professionals. I know in Egypt, for example, that was another issue – in the law itself, there was a loophole in a sense that said it’s okay for – if it’s for medical reasons. So, I believe that’s been strengthened a bit recently, which is really exciting to see, but that’s a phenomenon that happens in Nigeria, – and other parts of the world,” Saifee said on Tuesday at a Department of State virtual briefing in New York on countering FGM. It was part of the activities to mark Women’s History Month.
Saifee added that in her community, FGM is “sort of medicalised by a professional to sanction it,” but explained that “there’s absolutely no medical purpose.” Unlike male circumcision, FGM specifically, she said, only causes harm.
“There is literally no justification. Because sometimes, in some communities, we would hear, oh, it’s for purity or it’s for this sort of – for hygiene or things like that. And that’s just a myth. And the WHO, this authoritative source, has weighed in – I think it was one of their most tweeted tweets when it came out, because it was so needed for an authority to sort of say that in clear terms,” she added.
For those who think FGM is a problem of the developing world, it is practised in the developed world. It affects around 200 million women and girls around the world. In the U.S., an estimated 513,000 women and girls have undergone or are at risk of FGM. In the United States, it was considered a cure for hysteria up until the 19th century. It happened to white Christian communities in the United States that people just do not know about.
Saifee, who discussed the need for integrating diverse voices and survivor perspectives into policy efforts, said the Office of Diversity and Inclusion believes every day of every second of every month should be Women’s History Month. She said until some years ago the U.S. government largely focused on countries with high prevalence, especially in sub-Saharan Africa. She added that the State Department and the United Nations Population Fund/UNICEF have partnered to work towards ending FGM in many nations. The Department of State contributed $5 million to support the joint programme to end this trans-border monster.
As a survivor of FGM, Saifee was able to bring her perspective in, leading to the expansion of the scope of the war against FGM to Asia and Indonesia. When she first told her FGM story, people were completely shocked. It made no sense to them that a U.S. diplomat and product of an Ivy League education could have experienced that. It was done without her parents’ consent by her dad’s sister.
“In 2016, UNICEF released information that half the girls in Indonesia are cut before 14. So, the number of people affected by FGM went from 120 million girls up to 200 million. And so, when the data was coming out, there had to be context to say, hey, it’s not that prevalence maybe isn’t rising at that rate; it’s that we have new data. So that’s another piece I hope we can discuss in the Q&A is the need for inclusive data collection so that all survivors – this is a topic, as other panelists will probably discuss, is very taboo; it’s very difficult. I myself in my personal capacity shared my story as a survivor and had a really wonderful experience within the department because it so aligned our efforts to end FGM that colleagues were amplifying my story, and also I had the ability at the State Department to bring in new voices,” Saifee said.
One of the first things she did was to coordinate with the team in Global Public Affairs and the Foreign Press Centre and others to have white American Christian survivors of FGM who had not been heard of to be part of a video that included voices of survivors across religious backgrounds, across race, class and geography.
Not enough attention to FGM
Speaking at the briefing, human rights lawyer and girls’ rights advocate Shelby Quast said FGM is denied the attention it deserves. Survivors who are speaking out, she said, are breaking myths that “really take this issue forward.” Quast faulted claims that issues such as FGM cannot be solved with the law. She explained that any law that is not used does not have an impact. Good laws, according to her, are part of a bigger package, part of societal and cultural changes.
“When a law is used it can be a tremendous tool to accelerate social change, for prevention, to raise awareness, for education, and to help with responsibility,” she said.
The United States, she said, enacted the first law on FGM in 1996, but not that much was known about it until 20 years later when civil society began to ask questions about its implementation. The posers raised by the civil society include: What is the issue in the United States? Who is affected? The posers, she said, pushed the government to act and that was when the Centre for Disease Control revealed that 513,000 girls had either experienced FGM/C or were at risk of FGM/C.
“And at that time, that was tremendous information. I think we now know we need to get better data. We need to get more data, and that’s happening. But that role of civil society and the role of survivors – and not only working with law and policy makers to advocate that there should be laws in place, that we should protect our girls from all types of violence, including FGM/C, and that there shouldn’t be any segments of the population that are not prevented from violence.
“So, the civil society played that role of really working with lawmakers, of meeting with them, and talking with them, with survivors. And I think that was what, again, really changed the course, as so many survivors began to break the silence. They started to speak out and share their stories of this happening right here in the United States; it’s not just something that happens over there. And that became a bit of a game changer.
“And in 2013, we passed another law that said – we’d looked around and looked at best practices. In the United Kingdom, there were some laws against taking girls outside the country, and civil society advocated to have a law in the United States, a federal law, that stated you cannot take girls outside the country for purposes of FGM/C. So not only was it illegal in the United States at the federal level, but you also could not take girls outside the country for purposes of FGM, which added another layer,” Quast said.
The global pushback against FGM, she explained, can be seen in the Sustainable Development Goals, which has a target to eliminate FGM/C. The target does not apply to just a small number of countries; it applies to all countries, she added.
An enemy that must be defeated
A Senior Trial Attorney in the Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, Susan Masling, is keen on the prosecution of those who commit FGM. An active member of the U.S. interagency working group on FGM, she was on the Steering Committee of the US END FGM/C Network from its inception until 2019. Speaking at the briefing, Masling said the U.S. government considers FGM a serious violation of human rights, a form of gender-based violence as well as a form of child abuse.
“In the United States, FGM is illegal under every state under their child abuse laws. It’s also illegal under 40 state-specific FGM laws, many of which have recently been passed, and as Shelby mentioned, under the federal law, which dates back to 1996. She also mentioned, I believe, or alluded to the new law, which civil society worked hard to pass, called the STOP FGM Act.
“It was enacted on January 5th, 2021, and it strengthens the existing law by increasing penalties for commission of FGM from five years to 10 years in prison; expands the scope of prosecutable conduct; clarifies the jurisdictional basis for the law; and requires yearly reporting by federal agencies about their efforts to eradicate FGM. And I’m going to speak a little bit about that in a few minutes,” she said.
According to Masling, there have been three prosecutions under the federal law. “In 2017, nine girls between the ages of 6 and 8 were subjected to FGM at a Detroit medical clinic. DOJ brought charges against two doctors, the health care office manager, and five parents. The FGM charges were dismissed by the judge on the grounds that Congress lacked the constitutional authority to enact the FGM law. As a result, DOJ asked Congress to revise the law to address the purported constitutional issues and to strengthen the law in other ways. Ultimately, this and efforts by civil society led to the passage of the STOP FGM Act, which was passed unanimously by Congress, and did strengthen the law,” she said.
Masling said in 2021, a federal grand jury in Houston, Texas, indicted Zahra Badri for taking a 7-year-old girl out of the United States for the purpose of having her undergo FGM in a foreign country. It was the first time that charges were brought under the “vacation cutting” provision of the federal statute, which prohibits taking a girl out of the U.S. for the purpose of FGM. The trial in that case, she added, is expected in August in Houston, Texas.
The first FGM case brought, Masling recalled, was in 2004 when through an FBI sting operation, the operators of a tattoo parlour in Los Angeles were charged with conspiracy to commit FGM after they offered to perform FGM on two young girls. They pleaded guilty.
Aside legal battles, the Department of Homeland Security, according to Masling, five years ago began a public engagement programme at U.S. international airports to inform travellers about the dangers of FGM and its legal and immigration consequences. Tagged ‘Operation Limelight USA,’ it is conducted during school breaks when there is a higher likelihood that children are being transported from the United States to countries where FGM is practised. Since its creation in 2017, it has been conducted at 14 airports across the country with thousands of passengers reached and informed about FGM. “It’s modelled after the successful Operation Limelight programme that began in the United Kingdom,” she added.
The U.S. government, she explained, is also educating persons entering the United States about FGM by notifying refugees and visa recipients coming from high-prevalence countries about the physical and mental harms caused by FGM and about the legal consequences of committing FGM in the U.S. All consulate sections in high-prevalence countries, according to her, must display fact sheets on FGM in both English and local language and provide the fact sheet to travellers over the age of 14.
The U.S. government, Masling said, also recognises the importance of supporting local efforts to increase services, education, and partnerships to stop FGM. The Justice Department’s Office of Victims of Crime, she added, awarded $5 million in grants to support community projects around the country designed to increase direct services, education, and community engagement to eradicate FGM. Law enforcement and other stakeholders are also being educated about the danger of the practice. This has seen the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security sponsoring local, state, and federal training for law enforcement officials on the physical and psychological effects of FGM. They are also trained on best practices for interactions with FGM survivors, and how to investigate and respond to allegations of FGM, Masling said.
She explained the estimate of 513,000 women and girls at risk in the U.S. was extrapolated data “and the figure does not account for factors that can influence behaviour change among those women, such as whether or not practices from a home country are continued when people come to the U.S. and the impact of United States laws that ban the practice”.
She said in 2020, the CDC began an in-depth study talking to women who were born or whose mothers were born in a country where FGM is common. “They asked women in four major U.S. cities about their FGM experiences, including health outcomes, attitudes, and beliefs about FGM. I believe that study will be published later this year, and hopefully it will lead to a greater understanding of this complex practice and will improve our ability to help eradicate FGM” Masling said.
On a final note
It is agreed that FGM manifests differently: It could be driven by religion, culture, or a rite of passage ceremony, like in Sierra Leone. But whatever it is, it should be fought with the law and enlightenment of all concerned that this is a harmful practice that has nothing to do with purity, hygiene and that it is just a myth— with lifelong implications for mental health and for physical health, and should be avoided at all costs.
END
QUOTES
In the United States, FGM is illegal under every state under their child abuse laws. It’s also illegal under 40 state-specific FGM laws, many of which have recently been passed, under the federal law, which dates back to 1996. The new law, which civil society worked hard to pass, called the STOP FGM Act. It was enacted on January 5th, 2021, and it strengthens the existing law by increasing penalties for commission of FGM from five years to 10 years in prison; expands the scope of prosecutable conduct; clarifies the jurisdictional basis for the law; and requires yearly reporting by federal agencies about their efforts to eradicate FGM.