Mobilize Health Care Providers to Advocate Against FGM/C (2004)
This study is a Descriptive research regarding All FGM/C with the following characteristics:
Author(s): Population Council’s FRONTIERS Program
FGM/C Type(s): All
Health area of focus: Understand the motivations behind this medicalization.
Objective: The study’s objectives were to understand the motivations behind this medicalization,and determine the feasibility of using health personnel to communicate messages encouraging the abandonment of FGM/C
Study Population: key informants ,health personnel,focus group discussions (including parents,adolescent girls,young married women with girl children,and young married and unmarried men),providers from government,private,and faith-based facilities,antenatal (ANC) clients with girls under age 10, simulated and providers at public and private clinics
Findings: Providers and clients cited tradition,cultural identity,symbolic maturity,control of women’s sexuality and fidelity,and marriageability as rationales for cutting. Girls are reportedly being cut at younger ages—some as young as age six,rather than at puberty as was the tradition. Nearly 90 percent of Abagusii interviewees cited nurses and midwives as providers of FGM/C. Only 4 percent cited traditional circumcisers. Among providers,the main rationale for performing FGM/C was financial (64%) or hygiene and safety (10%); other reasons included community pressure and cultural demands. Circumcision by a medical provider is expensive. Awareness of the medical consequences of FGM/C has also affected the type of cut performed. Between 6 percent of providers (self-reported) and 19 percent (reported by simulated clients) said that they would perform,or had performed,circumcision. Less than half of providers and ANC clients knew about laws banning FGM/C or protecting children. However,61 percent of providers and about half of ANC clients agreed that FGM/C violates girls’ rights. Over half (52%) of ANC clients said that they did not intend to cut their daughters. Most providers (86%) said that they were willing to speak against FGM/C; and about 40 percent said that they had discussed the issue; but of those,about half said that they had had difficulties. Just over a third of providers (39%) had ever attended training on FGM/C.
Geographical coverage
Region(s):Eastern Africa
Country(ies):Kenya