Why are current efforts to eliminate female circumcision in Ethiopia misplaced?

Abstract

This paper discusses the eradication challenges of female circumcision in Ethiopia. It argues that despite an overall decline in the practice nationally, eradication efforts have caused significant quandaries for girls and their families. The most common justification by far for its continuance is that circumcision confirms a girl's social place by proving her readiness for marriage and adulthood and thereby ensures her protection against material want. Hence, intervention has often resulted in the transformation, rather than the elimination, of the practice, the exchange of one type of risk for another, or even increased risk to girls. In discussing policy, the paper argues that there has been a misapplication of the risk concept in the promotion of change in Ethiopia. It calls for risk definitions and interventions that are more holistic, correspond more closely with children's social realities and take into account the phenomenological dimensions of experience.

Cet article aborde les défis posés par l'éradication de l'excision en Éthiopie. Il soutient que malgré le déclin général de cette pratique dans le pays, les efforts d'éradication ont confronté les filles et leurs familles à des dilemmes importants. La justification de loin la plus courante de la perpétuation de l'excision est que cette dernière ancre le statut social de la fille en confirmant que celle-ci est prête pour le mariage et bientôt une adulte, et par-là, en garantissant la satisfaction de ses besoins matériels. Ainsi, les efforts d'éradication ont souvent eu pour conséquence la transformation de la pratique, plutôt que son élimination, le remplacement d'un type de risque par un autre, voire une augmentation des risques pour les filles. En discutant des politiques relatives à l'éradication de l'excision, l'article soutient que la notion de risque a été mal interprétée dans la promotion du changement en Éthiopie. Il met l'accent sur la nécessité de définir le risque et de mener des interventions qui soient holistiques et en meilleure adéquation avec les réalités sociales des enfants, et prennent en compte les dimensions phénoménologiques de l'expérience.

En este artículo se analizan las dificultades para erradicar la circuncisión femenina en Etiopía. Sostenemos que pese a que esta práctica en general ha disminuido en un ámbito nacional, los esfuerzos por erradicarla han causado muchos problemas a las niñas y sus familias. Hasta ahora la justificación más frecuente para que continúe es que la circuncisión confirma el lugar de una muchacha en la sociedad al demostrar que está preparada para el matrimonio y la edad adulta y, por ende, garantiza su protección contra la carencia de bienes materiales. Por consiguiente, las iniciativas contra esta práctica muchas veces han llevado a una transformación, en vez de una eliminación, intercambiando un tipo de riesgo por otro o incluso aumentando los riesgos para las muchachas. Al considerar las políticas, en este artículo sostenemos que se ha aplicado mal el concepto de riesgo al fomentar un cambio en Etiopía. Es necesario definir el concepto de riesgo y crear programas que sean más holísticos, que se ajusten mejor a las realidades sociales de las menores, y que tengan en cuenta las dimensiones fenomenológicas de la experiencia.

Keywords:

• female circumcision
• Ethiopia
• childhood risk

Acknowledgements

Young Lives is core-funded from 2001 to 2017 by UK aid from the Department for International Development (DFID) and co-funded by the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2010 to 2014. The views expressed are those of the author. They are not necessarily those of, or endorsed by, the Young Lives project, the University of Oxford, DFID or other funders. Responsibility for fieldwork in Ethiopia lies with Alula Pankhurst, Tassew Woldehanna and Yisak Tafere and I acknowledge their intellectual leadership and commitment to producing high-quality data. I would like to thank Alula Pankhurst, William Myers, Yisak Tafere and three anonymous reviewers for providing invaluable comments on an earlier draft. I am also grateful to the children, families and communities in our sample for their crucial contribution to this research.

Notes

^1. There is considerable debate about the labelling of female genital operations. The term ‘circumcision’ is employed here to reflect local usage, in which the same terms are applied to male and female circumcision, with analogies of ‘pruning’.

^2. The most invasive form of surgery, which, according to WHO (2010), involves the narrowing of the vaginal opening through the creation of a covering seal, the seal is formed by cutting and repositioning the inner, or outer, labia, with or without removal of the clitoris.

^3. Risk is here defined broadly as a specific, acute, stimulus with a high probability of adverse outcomes.

^4. According to one Amharic dictionary, limbut refers to ‘uncircumcised male, foreskin’; however, a similar word lemboch means ‘lower lip’ and lembocham ‘having a large lower lip’ Kane (1990, 46) may be connected and is an insult implying deviance from norms of beauty.