Youngsters in Burkina Faso are joining the state in the fight against female genital mutilation (FGM) as population displacement caused by jihadist violence threatens significant progress made over the last decade.
New cases of FGM have been recorded in areas where people affected by the violence have fled.
Since 2015, almost 20,000 people have died in the unrest and more than two million have been displaced in the Sahel nation of 23 million inhabitants, the majority of whom are women.
“Today, in areas where we have made gains, we are in the process of moving backwards because there are community practices that are transferred with the displacement of populations,” said Bilal Sougou, child protection head at UNICEF-Burkina.
“I hope that within five years we will have succeeded in halving the current figures.”
Burkina Faso is one of 29 countries most affected by FGM, according to UNICEF, but the practice has declined thanks to the commitment of the state and the mobilisation of young girls and boys.
The percentage of girls and women aged between 15 and 49 subject to FGM dropped from 76 percent in 2021 to 56 percent in 2020.
Sougou said this “significant progress” is linked to “major political commitment from the authorities”.
“To date, almost 400 cases of circumcisers or people who have practised circumcision have been brought before the courts,” he added.
FGM cases among children aged up to 14 have, however, dropped only from 13 per cent in 2010 to nine per cent in 2021.
“We still have difficulties in the north, the Sahel and south-west regions,” which are among those most affected by jihadist violence added Roukiatou Sedgo, FGM victim and coordinator of the “Living with FGM” project.
Survivors’ voices
A strong mobilisation of young people plays an important role in decreasing FGM cases.
At the child development centre in Saaba town, near Burkina’s capital Ouagadougou, around 20 youngsters list the consequences of FGM.
The children recall the stories of relatives who have been victims and pledge to act as “bearers for the voice” of “survivors of this tough practice”.
“We need the help of all teenagers to fight against FGM,” which can lead to “loss of life”, said 22-year-old student Soutonnoma Pascaline Nitiema.
Describing herself as an influencer, Nitiema said she intends to “use social networks to raise awareness of the practice of FGM, spark debate… denounce cases”.
“I have noticed that a lot of girls live with this evil but find it hard to talk about it,” said student Tatiana So, 19, whose cousin experienced FGM.
“I realised that she was not happy… (so I) decided to lead the fight to stop FGM in my community by raising awareness among parents, especially mothers.”
“A part of us cut off”
For Roukiatou Sedgo, those who bear the voices of FGM survivors have an ambassadorial duty to communities, as well as a duty to report cases and raise awareness on social media.
The aim is to “ensure that tomorrow there are no more survivors of FGM and that we manage to reach zero cases,” she said.
“(As) a survivor of FGM, I experienced it when I was 10-11 years old,” Sedgo recalled, “I was already old enough to understand things and to know what it was and that I had just been hurt.
“There is a trauma we live with a part of us has been cut off.
“I told my family that if I had known what they were going to do to me, I was going to denounce them,” added Sedgo, now 31.
“From that moment on, I knew that I was going to fight against this practice. I started raising awareness within the family, with my cousins and my sisters,” she said, rejoicing that her “little sisters have not been circumcised”.
For Sedgo, FGM is “a profound evil done to women”.
No one who has experienced the practice “feels happy today, even though there is sometimes talk of reconstruction of the clitoris,” she added.
AFP