Contributors

Amal Ahmed has been Executive Director of the Somaliland Family Health Association (SOFHA) since its foundation in 2009. She introduced community-based research into SOFHA’s work, and has led several initiatives to combat FGM/C, including healthcare for girls who have undergone it, and a national campaign to end FGM/C.

Nada Alassad is a Sudanese statistician and researcher. She has a PhD from the European University of Cyprus-Nicosia, focused on identifying the drivers of FGM/C behaviour change. She has wide consultancy experience in the development world.

Sean Callaghan is Head of Research and Programmes at the Orchid Project, an anti-FGM/C NGO. He is studying for a PhD at the University of Leicester, on FGM/C in the diaspora. He has written or contributed to numerous reports for the Orchid Project, 28 Too Many, and Plan International. Most recently (2025) his work has been published in the journal PLOS One.

Natasha Carver is Senior Lecturer in International Criminology in the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, UK. A socio-legal scholar with a background in migration advocacy, Natasha’s work focuses on legal coloniality in historical and present-day legislation and policy.

Hilke Conradi has an educational background in political science and international development. She has worked as a research advisor at Amref Health Africa since 2014, including research on FGM/C in Kenya, Tanzania, and Senegal. Her work has been published in journals including PLOS One and the Journal of Global Health Reports.

Michela Fusaschi is Professor of Anthropology in the Department of Political Science at the University of Roma Tre, Rome. She is Associate Researcher at the Laboratoire d’anthropologie politique at the EHESS-Paris. She has worked for many years on gendered body modifications, and published extensively.

Ellen Gruenbaum is a feminist medical anthropologist who retired as Professor Emerita of Anthropology, Purdue University (US). Her research since the 1970s focuses on gender, social change, and global health, especially cultural practices affecting the health of women and girls in Sudan and elsewhere in Africa. She has published extensively, including the book The Female Circumcision Controversy: An Anthropological Perspective (2001).

Lotte Hughes is an historian of Africa and empire. Her D.Phil. in Modern History, University of Oxford, focused on land alienation in colonial Kenya. While at the Open University (UK) she led three major research projects on Kenya, and carried out a case study on FGM/C and Alternative Rites of Passage for the last of these.

Abdoulaye Kaba is a public health expert with over twenty years of experience in international NGOs, UN agencies, and the national Guinean health system. He is a trained doctor and a Master in Public Health. His work includes advocacy and policy integration to address FGM/C and improve health outcomes in affected communities.

Bintou Mady Kaba studied biology at the University of Kankan (Guinée Conakry) and has long been active in the fight against FGM/C. He has worked for many international development agencies. He is co-founder and executive secretary of the NGO Association des Amis de la Solidarité Sociale et du Développement, and has also worked with the NGO Aniké since 2012 on FGM/C issues.

Tatu S. W. Kamau is a retired medical doctor and public health specialist with many years of experience in public health administration in Kenya. In 2017 she filed a petition against Kenya’s 2011 anti-FGM law on the grounds that it disregards both the agency and constitutional right of adult women to follow their culture.

Saffron Karlsen is Professor of Sociology at the University of Bristol, UK. A mixed-method researcher, her work explores the impacts of stigmatisation and social exclusion on health and other life experiences.

David Kawai is a social scientist and community development expert with over two decades of experience in public health, community development, advocacy, and social research. He has served as the Community Engagement Lead for various projects at Amref Health Africa.

Samuel Kimani is a health expert, researcher, and Assoc. Professor in the Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Nairobi. He is also a Research Associate at the Africa Centre for Abandonment of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting, Nairobi. He has over ten years’ experience in global health research, especially on FGM/C.

Mark Lamont is Lecturer in Sustainable Development at the Open University, UK. He has held academic posts at Goldsmiths (University of London) and the University of Victoria in British Columbia. He has investigated the socio-political dimensions of Voluntary Medical Male Circumcision (VMMC) for HIV prevention in Kenya, which involved research on the medicalisation of male circumcision in colonial Kenya by missionaries.

Els Leye studied socio-cultural sciences and worked for over twenty-five years at the International Centre for Reproductive Health at Ghent University, Belgium, where she was Professor in Global Health. She now works as an independent consultant, focused on FGM/C and gender-based violence, in particular FGM/C and child/forced marriage.

Magda Mogilnicka is a Senior Teaching Fellow at the University of Southampton, UK. Her research interests are in the fields of citizenship and migration, lived experiences of diversity and everyday racism. She has expertise in qualitative methodologies for researching sensitive topics with marginalised communities.

Samuel Muhula is an epidemiologist, strategic information and impact evaluation expert with ten years’ experience in monitoring and evaluation, implementation science, and operations research in Kenya and Africa. He is Senior Manager: Learning and Impact at Amref Health Africa, and has over thirty-five research publications.

Katy Newell-Jones is a practitioner-researcher who has supported community groups working to abandon FGM/C, particularly in the Horn of Africa, Kenya, and West Africa. She has undertaken ethnographic research on attitudes, beliefs, and practices associated with FGM/C in Somaliland and Kenya. She has provided technical assistance to the WHO, and co-authored Ethical Considerations in Research on Female Genital Mutilation (WHO, 2021).

Kirigo Njenga is a lawyer and researcher with extensive experience in leading research, policy, and advocacy on gender-based violence and gender inequality. She has undertaken research on FGM/C in twelve African countries, and provided technical input in formulating laws and policies to tackle FGM/C at international, regional, and national levels.

Christina Pantazis is Professor of Zemiology in the School for Policy Studies at the University of Bristol, UK. Her work draws on zemiology and feminism to examine the development and implementation of anti-FGM/C law and policy and their impacts on affected communities.

Damaris Seleina Parsitau is Director of the Nagel Institute for the Study of World Christianity at Calvin University, US, and Assoc. Professor of Religion and Gender Studies at Daystar University, Nairobi, Kenya. She has a PhD in Religion and Gender Studies from Kenyatta University. She has published extensively, including on issues relating to FGM/C.

Marta Patrício is a political scientist with an MA and a PhD in African Studies, both from ISCTE-IUL in Lisbon, Portugal. She is currently project manager at the Center for International Studies, University of Lisbon. From 2016–18 she was a Research Fellow for the project MAP-FGM (Multisectoral Academic Programme to Prevent and Combat Female Genital Mutilation).

Eefje Smet is a medical anthropologist who has worked as a research advisor at Amref Health Africa since 2015. She has been involved in programmes and research on FGM/C in Kenya, Ethiopia, and Senegal, and has published in journals including Culture, Health & Sexuality, The Pan African Medical Journal, and PLOS One.

Jessica Tatout has three degrees, including in sustainable international collaboration and in social work. While an intern in Guinea, she helped to set up a project raising awareness about FGM/C with the NGOs ASD and Aniké. She currently works for the Groupement pour l’Abolition des Mutilations Sexuelles’ (GAMS) in Belgium.

Shannon Thomson is Research Manager at the NGO Orchid Project. She has an M.Sc. in Health, Community and Development from the London School of Economics. She has worked in international development since 2010, working primarily with civil society organisations around themes of health, economic empowerment, and gender-based violence.

Hannelore Van Bavel is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Rhea Research Centre for Gender, Diversity, and Intersectionality at Vrije Universiteit Brussel. A social anthropologist and gender scholar, she researches female genital mutilation/cutting, female genital cosmetic procedures, and their differential socio-legal framing and treatment.

Nina Van Eekert is a social worker and sociologist, with a PhD in Sociology and Health Sciences, who teaches and researches at the University of Antwerp and the Flanders Research Foundation. She wrote her PhD thesis on the medicalisation of FGM/C in Egypt and Kenya.

Anneke Vercoutere is a gynaecologist/obstetrician at the Hôpital Erasme at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. She is the founder and driving force behind the NGO Aniké. She started her research in Guinea in 2004, and has since collaborated with the NGO ASD (Association des Amis de la Solidarité Sociale et du Développement).

Tobe Levin Freifrau von Gleichen has been an Associate of the Hutchins Center for African and African American Research at Harvard University since 2006. She has a Cornell University PhD in comparative literature, and is Professor Emerita, University of Maryland. She launched UnCUT/VOICES Press in 2009, to publish books on FGM/C.