Protecting girls to be saleema in Sudan: An expression of accepting the shift in the norm of cutting girls Samira Amin Ahmed (Ph.D) Senior Advisor on Child Protection and Social Norms The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) stipulates four general principles including the right to survival and development to achieve full potential for all children. When grouping the themes of the convention, the survival rights include the right to life, protection to safeguards against all forms of abuse, neglect and exploitation. In specific terms, article 19 of the CRC states that every child has the right to be protected from all forms of violence, abuse, neglect and mistreatment by parents to any person who looks after them. Moreover, article 36 also stipulates protection from other forms of exploitation that might cause harm to children. Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) is one of the practices that violate such rights and principles. It is an act that is imposed on girls by families and societies without informed consent and at an early age when they are not able to influence decisions. Working to end a practice such as FGM/C tallies with the guiding principles of the CRC and the thematic aspects of protection that the convention has set forth. With the advent of the 25 th year for establishment of the CRC, an area of protection from abuse and harm such as FGM/C needs to be reckoned and efforts to end the practice disseminated especially in countries with high prevalence such as Sudan. Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) goes back to more than 2000 years. In Sudan, approximately 250,000 girls undergo (FGM/C) each year. It is practiced on girls from 5-11 years but variations occur according to ethnicity. The initial cutting of the external genitalia (tahoor) is done at an early age for girls. It is performed again on women after every birth through reinfibulation (adal). Cutting Genitalia is almost universal with different types and grades. Practiced mainly by traditional birth Attendants (TBAs), midwives and sometimes male circumcisers, rarely by medical doctors. After four decades of efforts to end the practice, there was no clear evidence of change in prevalence for women at age group 15-49 (87.6 per cent in 2010) while it even increased in war affected zones. In South Darfur (SD) approving continuation increased from 61.5% in 2006 to 72.1% in 2010 and intention to cut daughters increased from 66.5% to 71.3% in 2010 (SHHS 2006, 2010) Cultural reasoning of the practice continued to be recited by communities for decades to include positive values. The belief that it is universally practiced in Sudan explains the existence of supportive female culture of sexuality and cosmetics. Consequently, it functions as a self-enforcing social convention or a social norm. Protecting girls from the practice of FGM/ needed an innovative way to unravel the norm of cutting by accepting uncutting as a new shift in the norm. 1
Over the past decade, the socio political context in Africa and other parts of the world has been marked by increased will to address issues of gender inequality and the girl child s rights. Governments and UN commitments included passing UN General Assembly Resolutions #51/2 (March 2007) and # 67/146 (20 Dec. 2012) to end FGM/C. These resolutions provided a clear political call to action to strengthen efforts aimed at ending FGM/C worldwide. Frameworks at national, regional and international levels have been initiated to protect girls form harmful practices such as FGM/C. Evidence from community focused in depth analysis has shown that consultations at the community level are more crucial to accelerate change than top down consultations. Tools to change the communication discourse at the community level needed rigorous in depth insights on how change can come from simple people and can feed back to support them. Historical efforts were initiated by civic society (awareness on health hazards, delinking from religion and calling for legislation), individual research efforts (universities and research/er area focused), setting data base (focus on typology, age and practitioners), scattered media coverage. Messages were activist-driven as top down. As such Reduction of Harm was a Strategic anticipation in the history of efforts. The Saleema Initiative grew out of the recognition of a critical language and normative gap in Sudanese colloquial Arabic to describe the uncut girl/woman. While the traditional word that predominated for a long time to describe an uncut girl had negative connotations relating to slavery and prostitution (gulfa), saleema is an Arabic word that means whole, healthy in body and mind, unharmed, intact, pristine, in a God-given condition and perfect. The broad promotion of a wide usage of a new positive terminology to describe the natural bodies and social status of girls and women was an achieved change. Communities started to change the discourse of discussions, dialogue and saleema became an expression of accepting a shift in the norm from cutting to uncutting. The ground message of Every girl is born Saleema, let every girl grow Saleema became the core idea behind the national initiative that was started in 2008 and launched in 2010 with multiple multimedia tools. Currently the abandonment of FGM/C is promoted at all levels, community, state and national - to ensure public acceptance for social change. Glimpses of Change are appearing. Now attitudes are clearly turning against FGM/C. According to the 2010 64% of boys and men, and 53% of girls and women think that FGM/C practice should be discontinued (SHHS, 2010). They reported having no intention of cutting their daughters. 2
Source: SHHS Data analysis, UNICEF- 2012 This is a significant increase from previous years. More importantly, when a social norm is in place, an initial divergence between attitudinal and behavioral change is to be expected. But when a certain tipping point is reached, behavior change can be quite sudden. Shifting from discussions over problems of the practice to saleema as a solution built over the changing indicators and the acceptance created by the mass media campaign and the other tools. Saleema is not about FGM/C, not about top-down messaging but about the stimulation of interpersonal discussion. Religious debates moving to find answers of accepting saleema in religion. The health advantages of full female genitalia become the focus of learning and debate much more than the focus on problems of cutting. Saleema becomes the best scenario for a female socially, physically and emotionally. Conflict and debates turned to new discussions for acceptability. In addition to discussions, the saleema initiative developed interventions in the health system such as the born saleema health facilities where pronounced visibility of saleema colors, messages and designs are displayed accompanied by series of training and counseling sessions to families giving birth to girls. Outdoor visibility and mass media communication included radio, TV, saleema ambassadors (sufara a) coming out to call for abandonment. To monitor the change taking place in accepting saleema as a protection for girls, a series of successive assessments have been made prior to and after each of the social marketing tools used 3
in the vicinities of the saleema born saleema health facilities and outdoor visibility including billboards, light boxes, flags, stickers, branded rekshas and internal branding of hospitals including flower pots, stickers on seats and walls, suggestion boxes, video screens and give always for families with new born girls. The results of comparison in seven states (including Khartoum) have shown remarkable change in knowledge about using saleema to describe un cutting, to know the colors and design and to recite the ground message of saleema. 60.00% Perception of Saleema Colors, Comparison Between Camp. (1) & (2) in KRT and States 58% 50.00% 40.00% 41% 35% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 13% 9.77% 7% 23% 8.86% 8.00% 8% 1% 18% 1st Camp. 2nd Camp. 0.00% Use of Saleema Word- Comparison Between 1st and 2nd Campaigns in KRT and States 90.00% 83% 80.00% 70.00% 60.00% 63% 57% 72% 50.00% 40.00% 30.00% 20.00% 10.00% 16% 7.40% 7.21% 8.80% 16.40% 11% 8.30% 19% 6% 4.28% 1st Camp 2nd Camp 0.00% Completion of Saleema Message- Comparison Between 1st and 2nd Campaigns in KRT & States 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 10% 27% 53% 19% 49% 66% 40% 41% 57% 33% 50% 16% 60% 37% 9.50% 1st Camp 2nd Camp 0% 4
Source: Results of Saleema campaign analysis, Khartoum Council Child Welfare (KCCW), October 2014 In conclusion despite the complexity of FGM/C, Saleema has emerged as a community driven perspective for protection and social change. The same driving force that abandoned other harmful practices mostly in childhood (e.g. facial scars, breaking breasts of new born babies, etc) is currently on the move for saleema. New voices are joining; youth and men are coming upfront force too. Saleema is evolving as a social movement 5