Combating Female Genital Mutilation

Photo by Mike Skelton

Plan is highlighting health risks in Mali

The World Health Organisation estimates that up to 140 million girls in 28 countries, mostly in North and West Africa and the Middle East, have undergone female genital mutilation, and each year a further two million girls are at risk. In Mali, 94 per cent of girls are circumcised, but a campaign that focuses on the health risks of female genital mutilation is slowly changing attitudes.

Since 1995, Plan has been working with local organisations and the Malian government to reduce the number of girls who undergo female genital mutilation. During the operation, performed for cultural and religious reasons, the clitoris of girls aged from a few days old to their early teens is cut off, often with a blunt penknife and without anaesthetic. 

Health risks of female genital mutilation include:

• Loss of blood, shock and infection
• Kidney damage due to restricted urination
• Infertility and scarring which obstructs childbirth and can result in the death of both mother and baby if the scar is not cut open

“To combat the use of female genital mutilation Plan focuses on the health risks,” says Thiekoro Coulibaly, Plan’s Mali Country Director. “In Muslim literature there is some mention of the health impacts so this is the only approach that Malians will accept.”

Plan has been encouraging group discussions, home visits, advocacy through radio and TV programmes, and lobbying opinion leaders to promote public discussion on ending the practice.

Mr Coulibaly says; “We also provide healthcare and psychological support to girls and women affected and are funding the training of hospital staff to better deal with complications in girls, teenagers and women transferred from rural areas.” 

While female genital mutilation is not illegal, the Ministry of Health through lobbying by Plan, has now forbidden the practice to be performed in hospitals and by hospital staff. Three villages have also officially abandoned the practice and two public forums to discuss the issue were organised.

As an ongoing process, Plan continues to lobby for a law banning the practice. But changing attitudes is a slow process and thousands of girls continue to have their genitals forcibly and brutally mutilated every day. “At least now people talk about the practice. Some years ago there was no debate about it. Now there is a lot of public discussion,”  Mr Coulibaly says.

About infibulation In Mali, infibulation is practiced when a girl is quite young, to protect the girl’s virginity and increase her bride price. Infibulation is the practice of cutting the girl's clitoris and labia minora, abrading the inner edges of the girl's labia majora, and then either sewing the abraded edges together or tying her knees and thighs together until the abraded edges adhere and heal together in a cicatrice, leaving only a tiny opening for urination.