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Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: The dynamics of social change

Selected Resources on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C)

FGM/C Senegal
Over the past decade, significant progress has been made in understanding the factors that perpetuate female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and other harmful practices, as well as the processes that encourage their abandonment.

UNICEF IRC has develop a study to analyze the nature and implications of social norms and how they promote or limit the well-being of children and the realization of their rights.

The study looks at highly promising approaches being used to support social change (around FGM) and how these strategies are being implemented in Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Senegal and Sudan.

In these countries FGM/C and other harmful practices have been widely performed for centuries, yet programme interventions in recent years have had success in promoting abandonment of such practices. The study provides enough evidence that the social dynamics surrounding FGM/C are complex, intergenerational and deeply embedded, as well as that intervention approaches that take these social dynamics into account and work with them show good (and often immensely good) effects on communities' declared intention to abandon FGM/C.

However, data is not readily accessible on actual changes in behaviour, but the available evidence indicates that behaviour change in terms of abandoning the practice of FGM/C, including its surrounding norms, is much less than people's declared intention to abandon.

The following bibliography offers an overview of some of the main resources that IRC has collected during the preparation of the Multicountry study on FGM/C.




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Contents

Selected Resources on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C)

Egypt

Ethiopia

Kenya

Senegal

Sudan