Different approaches to ending FGM/C

The strengthening of a rights-based approach and the increase in public campaigns to end FGM/C, along with the call for zero tolerance and the introduction of the annual UN Day of Zero tolerance, has led to an increased drive towards criminalising FGM/C, and the more active involvement of law enforcement and legal systems as a means of ending it. (More on zero tolerance below. Also see the textbox on p. 204.) As the prevalence rate decreased in key countries, there was an increase in initiatives to provide alternative incomes for traditional cutters, whose incomes were severely hit by the decrease in prevalence. Alternative Rites of Passage (East Africa) and Bondo without cutting (West Africa) are community-based approaches aimed at maintaining cultural practices associated with transitioning from girlhood to adulthood, but without the cut. The recognition that social norms play a role in maintaining FGM/C stimulated a greater focus on listening to communities, and understanding the drivers of and barriers to FGM/C. This led to a stronger focus on community dialogue – engaging teachers, health workers, community leaders, religious leaders, youth and community groups. Attitudes have also changed towards the involvement of men and boys in anti-FGM/C interventions, with them being increasingly seen as agents of change, working in partnership with women. Community radio has been used to increase the reach of education programmes. The increased availability of the internet and social media has led to youth-led social media campaigns, encouraging the development of community-based movements for change. Rescue of girls has also been widely used. This involves removing girls from their families, usually at times of greatest risk of being cut, and keeping them ‘safe’ in a refuge for the duration of the cutting season, or in some cases much longer.

Social norms theory has had an enormous influence on approaches to ending FGM/C since at least 2009, when eleven UN agencies adopted this approach. They have been influenced primarily by the work of the American political scientist Gerry Mackie, who drew on ideas from game theory to develop this approach, and who has long advised UNICEF.1 Information taken from Mackie’s profile: https://web.archive.org/web/20130425000207/http://dss.ucsd.edu/~gmackie/ [Accessed 4 August 2025]. Mackie is co-director of UNICEF’s Learning Program on Changing Social Conventions and Social Norms, with Cristina Bicchieri. He has also worked closely as an advisor to Tostan, the Senegal-based NGO. Put very simply, the theory posits that people conform to the normative behaviour of their social group, partly in order to be accepted socially and partly to avoid stigmatisation and rejection. The social norms of the group must be changed to bring about mass behaviour change. The community concerned needs to be given ‘credible new information’ that changes ‘self-enforcing beliefs’ and leads to abandonment (Mackie and LeJeune 2009:25, 27). Mackie, Moneti et al. (2014:6) have further explained: ‘A social norm is held in place by the reciprocal expectations of the people within a reference group. Because of the interdependence of expectation and action, social norms can be stiffly resistant to change.’ These and other authors (e.g. Bicchieri 2017) predicted long ago that this process (as set out in social norms theory) would result in ‘rapid mass abandonment’. While the theory has helped to shape development thinking and policy in some positive ways, the question remains: if the theory worked in practice, why has FGM/C not been eradicated after all this time?

Social norms theory in relation to FGM/C has become highly contested and debate increasingly polarised. When originally introduced, social norms theory helped change the way practitioners, scholars, and policy makers perceived FGM/C. It provided insights into why community members did not simply abandon the practice when they were aware of the health risks, and it provided a new framework to understand some of the dynamics behind the decision-making dilemmas facing people as they grapple with deciding whether or not to have their daughters cut. Social norms theory encouraged practitioners, and scholars, to consider the drivers for and against FGM/C, how these might influence decision-making, and the ways in which they might act to maintain FGM/C in practising communities. At a practical level, the theory actively encouraged greater listening to communities, encouragement of dialogue about FGM/C within communities, and the promotion of community-led strategies to end FGM/C, all of which have contributed to reductions in prevalence and/or harm caused by FGM/C. However, social norms theory has not proved to be the magic bullet that was once anticipated, predicted to bring about the abandonment of FGM/C. It has been more useful in understanding community dynamics and less useful as a formula for rapid mass abandonment.

The zero-tolerance policy appears to have first emerged in February 2003, though it did not become enshrined as an official date in the UN calendar until 2012, with the introduction of an International Day of Zero Tolerance of FGM/C. The policy aims to eliminate all forms of FGM/C worldwide. However, it is questionable whether elimination is even possible, least of all within the 2030 deadline set in 2015 by the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.2 Known in short as the SDGs, seventeen goals were agreed by 193 countries in September 2015 as part of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. FGM/C is mentioned in goal five, on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, as is child marriage. https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/gender-equality/ [Accessed 16 August 2025].

There are two main arguments against the zero-tolerance policy. Firstly, as O’Neill et al. (2020:266) have pointed out, the socio-legal and ethical inconsistencies between FGM/C and cosmetic genital modification ‘pose concrete dilemmas for professionals in the field that need to be addressed and researched’. They ask whether the strategy is effective or even credible, and discuss the Eurocentric implications of showing zero tolerance toward genital mutilation in the non-Western world compared with the widespread acceptance of cosmetic genital modification in the Global North. The second criticism is that the zero-tolerance policy only recognises the elimination of all types of FGM/C as success, and does not recognise a reduction in harm as a valid interim goal towards complete eradication. (See textbox on p. 204.)

Alternative Rites of Passage (ARP) is a strategy, developed by NGOs, that aims to transform or transition girls to women by replicating many of the cultural rituals that once accompanied ‘traditional’ initiation, but without the physical cut. It is important to note that other alternatives have been developed, some by communities, that are not necessarily called ARP. Since the later 1990s, ARP has become popular in Kenya and Tanzania in particular, but variations have also been pioneered in some countries outside East Africa, such as Sierra Leone. ARP is relatively under-researched (Droy et al. 2018) and there is as yet no firm evidence that it is effective in reducing the incidence of FGM/C, though some NGOs claim otherwise. Long-term monitoring of girls and more rigorous evaluation of this intervention is the only way to determine its effectiveness, and for the most part this has not yet happened (see Conradi et al., Chapter 13; Hughes, Chapter 14).