Somali Girls affected by FGM down to one quarter

[OdaySomali]

Great News. My only concern is that the survey results are probably flawed.

 

 

 

75% of northern Somali girls have not undergone FGM - Unicef

 

Three-quarters of girls aged fourteen and under in northern Somalia have not been subjected to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), the United Nations children’s agency (Unicef) said in a survey released on Tuesday.

 

If sustained, this could lead to the abandonment of FGM, which previously was almost universally practised in Somalia despite the risk of death and lifelong health problems.

 

“I was absolutely thrilled,” Sheema Sen Gupta, chief of child protection for Unicef in Somalia, told TrustLaw.

 

“FGM is practiced just around puberty. It usually spikes in 10 the 14 [year-old] group and to see that it was at 25 percent, that was fantastic.”

 

“The new constitution of Somalia bans FGM so that’s a good place to start at the policy level,” she said, adding that al Shabaab opposes FGM as “non-Islamic”.

 

The survey showed that in the semi-autonomous northern region of Somaliland, 25 percent of girls aged 0 to 14 had been circumcised compared with 99 percent of women aged 15 and above. In neighbouring Puntland, 26 percent of girls aged 0 to 14 had been circumcised compared with 98 percent of women aged 15 and above.

 

Unicef and partners surveyed over 9,000 households in Puntland and Somaliland in 2011 as part of the global Multiple-Indicator Cluster Survey, carried out every five years. It was the first time that households had been asked the ages of all their daughters and whether they had been circumcised.

 

Almost half the population of Somalia lives in the northern regions of Somaliland and Puntland, which declared independence in the 1990s. They are relatively stable compared with the war-torn south but they have not been recognised internationally.

 

ENCOURAGING RESULTS

 

Sen Gupta said FGM could be eliminated in these areas if present trends continue.

 

“I do think it’s possible. But what we need is sustained interventions. We have to continue and expand the work that we are doing,” she said. “If, five years later, we find that this trend is reflected in the next age group, 15 to 25 [years old], then we know that it is sustained.”

 

Sen Gupta pointed to the success of Egypt in banning FGM and reducing its prevalence among young girls. The government estimates that around half of Egyptian girls aged 10 to 18 are circumcised, falling to 22 percent among those whose mothers attended university.

 

In December, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution banning FGM, which is forced on some three million girls around the world every year.

 

What we found encouraging, particularly with Somaliland, is the rate of support is declining,” said Suzannah Price, Unicef Somalia’s chief of communications.

 

In Somaliland, only 29 percent of women said they supported FGM, down from 32 percent in 2006. In Puntland, 58 percent of women approved of it.

 

Somalis practice the most extreme form of FGM, called infibulation, in which all external genitalia are cut off and the vaginal opening is stitched closed.

 

It can cause severe bleeding, problems urinating, cysts, infections and infertility, and is a factor in the country’s high rates of death in childbirth.

 

Traditionally, Somalis believe FGM keeps a girl chaste, prevents promiscuity after marriage and increases male pleasure. Some say it is a religious requirement.

 

Unicef works with religious leaders, teaching them that FGM is not part of Islam but a practice that pre-dates it. It also brings women who have had bad experiences with FGM to talk to families.

 

Social acceptance is critical.

 

”Even when mothers are beginning to believe that this is not religious and not required, the thing that stops them from preventing it is ‘Will my daughter be marriageable or not?’” said Sen Gupta.

 

“They would first simply say to you: ‘Find me a boy who will marry a girl who is not cut.’”

 

Unicef encourages communities to publicly renounce FGM. In 2012, 28 villages in Somaliland did this.

 

“They have actually declared abandonment, which means that no new kids will be cut,” said Sen Gupta, while acknowledging that monitoring this pledge will be a challenge.

 

The governments of both Somaliland and Puntland have drafted bills outlawing FGM.

 

 

 

[Alpha Blondy]

NONSENSE!

 

too many white-apologist and INGO's jajuus around these boards, ma istidhi. FGM 4 life.....

[Blessed]

I do wonder how UNICEF and such organisations conduct their surveys, there are some who would say that they don't practice FGM but sunna- which off course is nonsense as there's no Islamic basis for tampering with female parts, but I wonder if these semantics were addressed in this study. Having said that. I've suspected that this practice was less common these days, but this is quiet impressive...

[Alpha Blondy]

^ this is a taboo subject. i'm not comfortable to talk about this. i will leave the thread immediately, ma istidhi?

[Blessed]

You've pretty much summed up your position Alpha, so toodles for now.

[Alpha Blondy]

.......and i suppose you've been given the all-clear to discuss these taboo and indeed xaraam topics because you're an empancipated woman, miyaa?. i swear everything and anything..... has been to all intent and purposes, engendered, these days to be pro-woman. where are my rights, insofar as FGM is concerned? LOL..

[Blessed]

Why would YOU want to be associated with this 'xaraamic', 'taboo' topic?

[Alpha Blondy]

^ because i'm affected by it, dee. what kinda of question is that, inaar?

 

are you now denying the voice of the voiceless majority.... whose reputation has been tainted by this women on women violence?

 

NO somali man actually supports nor part-takes in this barbaric and 'xaraamic' practice, ma garatey?

[Chimera]

OdaySomali;940651 wrote:

Great News

. My only concern is that the survey results are probably flawed.

Its nonsense, their starting point is post-collapse of the Somali government, and they immediately put the percentage at 95-99%, while completely ignoring the massive eradication campaign that was initiated by the Somali government and the Somali Women's Democratic Organization in the preceding years. Unicef and other NGOs by doing this now can claim credit for a decline that had already been ongoing long before their non-applicable workshops, and money-wasting.

 

Initially like Egypt, Somalia started it's eradication campaign by encouraging partial clitoridectomy, rather than infibulation, under use of anesthesia and antibiotics(today all forms of FGM are banned). The Somali Campaign was innovative because it's message focused on the four premises associated with the practice: ''It was not healthy, not clean, not islamic and did not even guarantee virginity''. In Somalia the impetus to eradicate came from within: It was strongly advocated by the Somali Women's Democratic Organization. The measures advocated included the need for an educational effort throughout the country to present medical facts and re-examine traditional attitudes: co-operation with community leaders(religious leaders, doctors etc) to combat this practice and the use of mass media to encourage change and to establish a different relationship between the sexes. Eventually one of the women leading the campaign and the Author of 'Sisters in Affliction:Circumcis ion and Infibulation of Women in Africa' by Raqiya Abdullah became the deputy minister of health in 1983. -

Women in Muslim societies: diversity within unity pg 53

 

 

Never trust statistics on Somalia by NGOs, they all serve a purpose.

[Reeyo]

UNICEF in Somaliland? Nonsense. They don't know the difference between an interview and questionnaire.

[Coofle]

[Coofle]

FGM is barbaric and primitive....our forefathers have been ignorant, the new generation should fight FGM....and nothing is taboo about saying NO to wrong.....I am highly optimistic about the results...

[ANWAR]

IN Galmudug we dont hav FGM problem allhamdurillah

[Blessed]

Alpha Blondy;940702 wrote:

^ because i'm affected by it, dee. what kinda of question is that, inaar?

 

are you now denying the voice of the voiceless majority.... whose reputation has been tainted by this women on women violence?

 

NO somali man actually supports nor part-takes in this barbaric and 'xaraamic' practice, ma garatey?

Well, well. We've made some progress here, inaar, ma is tidhi? I'm glad that we agree that this is a xaraamic, barbaric practice which taints our reputation. Down with FGM ila dheh

[Alpha Blondy]

*Blessed;940795 wrote:

Well, well. We've made some progress here, inaar, ma is tidhi? I'm glad that we agree that this is a xaraamic, barbaric practice which taints our reputation. Down with FGM ila dheh

YES! down with FGM, ma istidhi?