Liberia will suspend female genital mutilation (FGM) until 2025. And it does, as it did on two previous occasions, in 2012 and 2018, temporarily. A step forward, albeit timid, for the defense of women’s rights in the African country, one of the five on the continent – along with Mali, Sierra Leone, Chad and Somalia – where FGM is widespread and remains legal, since it is not classified as a crime. According to UNICEF, 200 million women and girls alive worldwide have undergone FGMa practice that consists of the total or partial mutilation of the female genital organs intentionally and, in most cases, shielded by ancestral traditions rooted in many communities.
The Liberian Government announced this Monday, February 21 the agreement to suspend the ablation temporarily after the signing of a document with the main traditional leaders. In it, endorsed by the spotlight initiative of the European Union and the UN, undertake to stop all activities of Sande, a secret and exclusively female society that operates in 11 of the 15 states, and that is responsible for the circumcision of girls and adolescents in a country of just over five million inhabitants where 44% of women between 15 and 49 years are mutilated, according to the organization 28 Too Many.
Liberia is, together with Mali, Sierra Leone, Chad and Somalia, one of the five countries on the African continent where female circumcision is still widespread and legal, since it is not criminalized
“You don’t have to cut a girl to become a woman,” said Laurent Delahousse, Ambassador and head of the European Union delegation in Liberia, after the document was signed in Monrovia. The ceremony, at the offices of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection, was also attended by Zanzan Kawor, Head of the National Council of Chiefs and Elders of Liberia (NACCEL) and Jewel Cianeh Howard Taylor, the current vice president of the Liberian Government.
FGM, recognized by the United Nations as a violation of the human rights of women and girls, does not produce any health benefits. The intervention can cause serious bleeding, problems at the time of delivery, urinary complications, infections and an increased risk of death of the newborn.
Although it has not been until now when the announcement has been made official, since last February 6, World Day of Zero Tolerance with Female Genital Mutilation, the press in Liberia echoed the news. After a conference, held between February 3 and 5 in Gbarnga, an agreement was reached between the Liberian Government and the National Council of Chiefs and Elders (NACCEL), according to the daily GNNLiberia. “My work has made me understand that only the issuance of decrees and the signing of commitments with our traditional leaders is insufficient to curb the practice,” assured the Minister of Gender, Children and Social Protection, Williametta E. Saydee-Tarr, at this meeting. “We insist with them [los líderes] in which traditions can and should evolve. When these are illegal and harmful, they must change”, expressed Delahousse, also present at these conferences. “Despite the fact that on other occasions society has felt frustrated by setbacks in this area, we hope that this forward movement will continue,” he added.
However, Liberia has not yet passed legislation permanently banning female circumcision. For the first time, in 2012, the Government announced the closure of the activities of Sande and stopped issuing permits to the zoes –the spiritual leaders of the secret society in charge of clitoral circumcision–, after this practice was denounced in several reports by the journalist Mae Azango, from Front Page Africathe largest daily newspaper in Liberia.
In 2016, the prohibition of the practice was proposed again in the new Domestic Violence Law, but all references to mutilation were eliminated when the project was approved in 2017, after much pressure from the most conservative groups with the argument that it was a cultural tradition. Two years later, in 2018, the president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, before handing over her position to George Weah, signed the executive order number 92 which prohibited FGM in girls under 18 years of age. However, this order expired a year later, in January 2019, and has since been legal again. Until now.
The rite of horror and the business of ‘forest schools’
The Sande, which will paralyze its activities until 2025 under the new agreement, is a secret society that is considered the guardian of traditions in Liberia, but also in neighboring countries such as Ivory Coast and Sierra Leone. His power is perpetuated through the calls forest schools, allegedly educational female centers, permitted and financed by the Ministry of the Interior, where the rites of excision are performed.
“It is not the first time that mutilation has been suspended for a period of time in these centers. Without a law, there is a risk that everything will be the same again after the ban ends…. But yes, it is good news”, says Emanuela Zuccalà, journalist and director of the forest school, a documentary that denounces the impunity enjoyed by this practice in the African country. “It is a very important film because it puts us before a very cruel ritual. We hope that our diplomats and relations with these two countries –Liberia and Sierra Leone– can make there be a law against mutilation”, expressed Emma Bonino, an Italian politician, minutes before the presentation of the tape, on February 8, In a debate organized by No Peace Without Justice and sponsored by the European Parliament, entitled Take action against FGM in Liberia and beyond.
Through the voice of various activists, including a exzoe, the documentary uncovers the hidden ins and outs of these centers that prepare girls to be good wives, for which, in an indispensable way, they have to go through the knife. “It’s not a school, it’s a place of humiliation and suffering,” says Mar Azango, in front of Zuccalà’s camera. The Liberian reporter infiltrated one of them to find out how they worked, posing as a mother: “They told me to take 10 limpet (traditional skirt), two cans of oil, two sacks of rice and 50 dollars (44 euros), and then they would admit the girl”, she explains in the documentary.
Another of the protagonists of the film, Mary T, 29, confesses that she refused to attend this forest school when her parents wanted to take her and now she pays the consequences. “If you are not a member of SandeThey don’t consider you a woman. The community abandons you.” The social pressure and stigma suffered by young people who do not go to these centers is a burden on their future. “The girls leave the regular educational system to enter these schools. You can see entire schools empty of girls in a village,” she explains in the post-movie discussion. Rugiatu Turaya women’s rights activist from Sierra Leone, a country where female circumcision is also legal, and is run by the Sande.
“How can we reduce the number of girls they take there?” asked Turay, who proposed creating “safe places” for women who are about to undergo mutilation in these schools, especially in rural areas, where the number of cuts is not known, due to the lack of data due to the secrecy of this organization. “My physical and psychological consequences have made me side with all women and girls, so that they don’t suffer the same. With education, awareness and funding we can end it”, adds Phyllis Nguma Kimba, exzoe and anti-cutting activist in Liberia.
Financing, key against ablation
Among the 28 African countries where this practice is widespread, five of them have not yet passed a law that makes it a crime -Sierra Leone, Somalia, Chad and Mali-, among which is Liberia, with the practice suspended, for the time being , for three years. “We are at a crossroads, where there is a society willing to change and a political class that is too. The European Union must defend human rights and condemn any action to politicize and control women’s bodies through mutilation”, assured Delahousse, another of the guests at the debate sponsored by the European Parliament.
The closure of schools and the quarantines due to covid-19 have not helped the risk situation of girls to improve. Before the pandemic, it was already estimated that 68 million of them were at risk of suffering from FGM between 2015 and 2030. The prolonged interruption of education due to the health crisis threatens an increase of another two million more cases that could occur over the next decade.
“There is an urgent need to accelerate investment to end it. Some 2,400 million dollars (2,095 million euros) are needed to eliminate this practice in 31 countries”, calculated the executive director of UNFPA, Natalia Kanem, and the executive director of Unicef, Catherine Russell, in a joint statement in line with the International Day of Zero Tolerance with Female Genital Mutilation. “We face an unprecedented challenge. Global efforts must maintain momentum and build on years of progress to completely end this harmful practice.”
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