November 15: Success in Senegal

Although things started to pick up for a bit, I haven’t had much contact with Tostan since my last entry. Molly is still waiting on an email back from the student government, and until we establish some sort of plan, there isn’t very much to do. I told both Gannon and Molly that I would be more than willing to come into the office, even to do the mundane things like filing, but Molly laughed at the idea seeing as she barely has enough busy-work to stay occupied. Considering the recent lull, I figured it would be an opportune time to do a little more research. I remember Molly telling me about her witnessing Tostan’s success in Senegal, due, in her belief, to Tostan being Senegal- led and due to their unique approach. I wanted to look into the actual success of Tostan in Senegal. Indeed, Molly was extremely correct. A website I came across-- http://www.popcouncil.org/rh/tostan/tostan.html-- did an excellent job of summing of Tostan’s impactual successes. In the past decade alone, almost half of the 5,000 communities estimated to practice FGM in Senegal have publicly abandoned the practice along with child/forced marriage. Essentially, though, the two issues go hand in hand in that one of the leading reasons for FGM is a need for acceptance into a marriage.
Specifically, a group of women from the Senegalese village of Malicounda Bambara declared their decision to end the practice of FGM in 1997. The women attributed their departure from centuries-old traditions to Tostan’s basic education program, and the knowledge they had attained in classes on human rights and health. A seeming domino effect is detected, as 3,307 Senegalese villages, 298 in Guinea, and 23 in Burkina Faso, as well as villages from 3 other African countries, have joined the abandonment of FGM since this initial 1997 decision. The 1997 announcement of the women’s’ decision was a first in the history of Senegal, and can be noted as a conscious decision to apply what they had learned in the program to their own lives and betterment. The fact that such a massive number of villages would make a pledge as substantial as abandoning the practice of FGM as well as all other forms of discrimination against women speaks volumes to the progress being made. And hope for more progress seems like a realistic goal. While UNICEF welcomed the decision, they said they would continue to fight for end to the practice in the entire country. While such an epic decision should be appreciated for what it is, it is important not to be satisfied with some change. FGM is a cruel enough practice and counters relatively universal morals enough to hold out hope for its abolition everywhere. Hope remains yet in the fact that a formal law was passed In January 1999, making FGM illegal in Senegal.
To understand how monumental a decision this was, one must have a general knowledge of the extent to which FGM has been culturally entrenched in Senegal. Female genital cutting has existed in Senegal for approximately 2,000 years. While not all ethnic groups practice FGM, many do-- the practice is mandatory for girls to marry. In Senegal FGM tends to be practiced on girls between the ages of 2 and 5, with excision as the most common type performed. The most severe type of FGC--sealing-- does occur sporadically in Senegal. Further proof of the deeply rooted nature of FGM in Senegal lies in the hostility with which other villages reacted to the decision. FGM is so deeply rooted a tradition--especially in that it is required for a girl to marry into another family-- that ending the practice requires agreement among groups whose children marry one another. In this sense, social change could never be achieved in one village alone, highlighting the importance of the domino effect that resulted from the historic decision to abandon FGM.
My research affirmed Molly’s interesting mention of the notable success of Tostan, in large part due to the fact that it is Senegal-led. Indeed, there was a direct correlation between success in Senegal-- especially when compared with other areas of Africa such as Mali-- and Tostan’s work. It was intriguing to learn that women had directly attributed Tostan to their decision to change such a long-standing cultural tradition.