Manana, Sierra Leone

Tuesday 21 August 2012

Mañana, Sierra Leone

The challenge

FGC in Sierra Leone is practised overwhelmingly in secret societies.(2) The women-only Bondo secret society prepares girls for womanhood with the help of its cutters, the Soweis.

In September of last year the Soweis and other Bondo women met with the UN Secretary General’s Executive Representative (ERSG), Michael Schulenburg, in Freetown. At this meeting, the Soweis were eventually persuaded by other society members that FGC should not be practised on girls under 18 years old.

The Soweis’ reluctance in accepting the restriction was due to FGC being “not only their culture and tradition, but also the trade in which they survive”,(3) explained one Bondo woman, Salamatu Mansaray. Considering this testament to the Soweis’ deep-seated attachment to the practice, it is astonishing that their hesitant agreement, accompanied by no other assurance or evidence that under-18s would not be cut, was quite so applauded by the ERSG.

A month later, blogger Ulysses Ronquillo reported witnessing the initiation celebrations in the streets of Freetown.(5) Ronquillo describes girls, not women, publicly ‘graduating’ the Bondo initiation “schools… almost like every other weekend”.

Only words

Having failed to put in place sanctions to ensure that cutting on underage girls actually stopped, Schulenburg then urged the Bondo women “to embrace access to justice, education for the girl child and freedom for women from all forms of violence”.

Do such declarations get us anywhere? It is obviously easier to pay lipservice to the vague ‘women’s rights agenda’ than push the specific issue of FGC to the point where girls are no longer cut.

That change takes time is well understood. However, this has all been said before in Sierra Leone. In February 2011, seven months before the Soweis met with the ERSG, the leaders of the traditional Bondo society in the country unanimously signed a Memorandum of Understanding forbidding the initiation of girls under 18 into the society.(6)

A Sierra Leonean girl holds her ceremonial knife. Five years of age, she is learning the trade of the Soweis so she can support her family. Photo © IRIN

A Sierra Leonean girl holds her ceremonial knife. Five years of age, she is learning the trade of the Soweis so she can support her family. Photo © IRIN

A cohesive approach

The Bondo secret society is fundamental to Sierra Leonean women’s cultural identity and self-empowerment. So perhaps this powerful bond could be used to promote women’s rights. An article in The Harvard Law School Human Rights Journal advises NGOs and activists tackling FGC in the country to “tailor their efforts to reflect the existence and influence of the Bondo society.”(7) It further warns that previous campaigns have failed when FGC opponents ignore Bondo’s social and economic significance, which a 2007 UN report examines in detail.(8) Ill-conceived external intervention is frequently viewed as cultural imperialism and can encourage a backlash in which, in its most violent form, anti-FGC campaigners in Sierra Leone have been abducted and forcibly cut.(9)

Alternative Rites of Passage (ARP) have been somewhat successful in Kenya, where FGC is also a celebrated rite of passage.(10) An appropriate alternative ritual to cutting could maintain both the traditional significance of the ritual and the relevance of the Soweis as experienced and influential senior members of the Bondo group. Ultimately, however, female genital cutting is a social norm in Sierra Leone, and one which must change.

Demand must change – not just supply

Some activity in Sierra Leone has focused on providing alternative employment, and hence incomes, for Soweis. However it is not enough to find other employment for Soweis, as the demand for cutters remains. What needs to change in Sierra Leone is the social norm of cutting girls. This requires a long-term and multi-faceted approach. Change must ultimately be community-based, as demonstrated by the success of Tostan’s Community Empowerment Programme (CEP): the CEP supports trained locals to conduct 30 months of regular discussion groups and awareness-raising sessions aimed at educating communities about their human rights-  which leads to them deciding, with this new knowledge, to stop cutting their daughters.

In Sierra Leone, the support of people at every single level is needed to help the norm to shift – from UN dignitaries such as Schulenburg, to cutters, religious leaders, and girls themselves.

TThe prevalence of FGC and its life-long effects keep Sierra Leone at the bottom of the world tables for infant mortality and maternal survival. The luckier of the country’s young mothers are able to take their babies for check-ups at facilities like the Kroo Bay Community Health Centre. Photo via Save the Children.

The prevalence of FGC and its life-long effects keep Sierra Leone at the bottom of the world tables for infant mortality and maternal survival. The luckier of the country’s young mothers are able to take their babies for check-ups at facilities like the Kroo Bay Community Health Centre. Photo via Save the Children.

 

Blog post by Genevieve Moss