International Development CommitteeFurther written evidence from Equality Now
Summary
Equality Now congratulates DFID for dedicating £35 million for a programme towards ending Female Genital Mutilation in Africa and beyond.
Equality Now supports a comprehensive programme that combine targeted action with communities with support for legislative and policy change, and effective implementation of laws and policies as well as robust international research component to build the global evidence base on the most effective strategies to end FGM.
Equality Now also supports a movement within countries and globally to raise awareness and understanding of FGM and build support for efforts to end the practice, through social change communications.
However we note a number of contradictory messages in the document that might give the impression that it is not serious about the delivery of a comprehensive programme.
The document appears to show a strong bias towards the TOSTAN approach favoured by the UNJP over other approaches whilst at the same time noting the lack of robust evidence on effectiveness of interventions to end FGM.
TOSTAN is described as avoiding the topic of FGM but because in 1998 Tambacounda took up the issue “on their own”, the project is said to (somehow but how?) “encourage” introduction of FGM by participants themselves. How this can work given the need for lesson plans, etc. is truly a mystery to many of us, ie how a program that claims explicitly not to address FGM can be funded as a program against FGM.
A key indicator that FGM has stopped in the TOSTAN programme is Public Declarations and street parties. A bit of drama and singing is very common in African tradition but it is debatable that conclusions can be drawn from this that FGM has indeed stopped. Given the fact that the largest ethnic group in Senegal—the Wollof (about 60% of the population), do not practice FGM and the massive investments put into TOSTAN over the last decade and half with apparently 5,000 villages stopping FGM, one would expect that FGM would have stopped completely in Senegal by now. However this is not the case.
In Senegal the latest data on national FGM prevalence (15–49%) showed only a drop about 2% over a five year period. See the attached FGM prevalence figures between the older women and younger women which could be described as another indicator of where FGM is dropping in Africa. The areas where a good reduction had been recorded are Kenya and Burkina Faso not Senegal.
Equality Now is surprised that Burkina Faso that has shown strong political will to address FGM by implementing a comprehensive model of interventions and most importantly is beginning to show some positive results (see attachments), does not get a look in the document even as an interesting approach for examination.
Equality Now is also amazed that, with a straight face, the document can affirm it put monitoring of the TOSTAN under the aegis of the Innocenti Center in Florence whereas it should be clear to everyone that that in itself means a conflict of interest, since Innocenti and its leaders advising UNICEF are the same people who “do” TOSTAN. There is no way they could deliver an objective evaluation.
We would ask DFID to make sure that funding given to the UNJP goes to a wide reach of women’s organizations doing targeted work in affected communities.
We would also request that future evaluation of FGM programmes need to consider issues round conflict of interest amongst researchers on FGM. Feminist researchers conversant with research on violence against women, currently missing from inputs into the UNJP on FGM will need to be part of future evaluation of impact of FGM outreach programmes.
May 2013