Representatives of Lutheran churches in East and Central Africa expressed solidarity with over 200 million women and girls globally who have suffered female genital mutilation. Photo: LWF/Afram Pete
Lutheran churches support new strategy to fight FGM
(LWI) – “End it now” is the title of the graphic, chilling but real video. In the final scene a five-year old girl is wailing helplessly as her guardian “mothers and aunts” firmly pin her onto a floor mat. The role of the women is to ensure she goes through the important rite of a girl’s passage into this community—female genital mutilation (FGM) or the women’s cut. The chief circumciser uses a razor blade to do the “cut” and then stitches up the whimpering child, who is subsequently dressed in a loose garment and left to rest on a thin mattress.
“I feel that I have failed all the girls and women who have suffered this terrible experience because I was not aware of what was going on,” said Rev. Judith Mbabazi from Uganda, one of the coordinators of women’s desks from churches of the Lutheran Communion in Central and Eastern Africa (LUCCEA), when she watched the video clip for the first time.
The video was developed to advocate against FGM was shown at a LUCCEA workshop, held 22-28 February in Nairobi, Kenya. Ms Miriam Daniel Zere from the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Eritrea could relate to what she had watched. The practice is widespread in her country, and nearly 90 percent of young women and children are mutilated in this way. “It is very common in my country. I was a nurse and midwife for many years and I attended to many women who had gone through it,” she said.
More than 200 million women and girls
More than 200 million girls and women today have undergone FGM in 30 countries across Africa, the Middle East and Asia, according to the World Health Organization. The practice, which includes procedures that intentionally alter or cause injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons, has no health benefits for girls and women, and is a violation of their human rights.
FGM procedures can cause severe bleeding and urinary problems, and later infections, as well as complications in childbirth and increased risk of newborn deaths.
In Kenya, where the practice is outlawed, “it is still practiced by all the 42 ethnic groups except three,” noted Ms Judith Nyaata of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya. “Sometimes women who escaped the practice in childhood are cut just before giving birth after midwives realize that they had not gone through it,” she added.
Sometimes women who escaped the practice in childhood are cut just before giving birth after midwives realize that they had not gone through it.
Solidarity with victims
FGM prevalence in the East and Central African region varies from country to country. Among those represented at the workshop, Eritrea has the highest rate at 89%; Ethiopia, 74%; Kenya, 27%; Tanzania, 15%; Uganda, 1%; while Madagascar and Rwanda are below one percent. Participants also came from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Madagascar has no indigenous FGM practices or similar rites for girls. “This is the first time I have seen what it involves,” said Ms Totomare Femanjafy of the Malagasy Lutheran Church.
A new approach against FGM
The main objective of the training-of-trainers workshop was to move away from the decades-old approach of awareness raising by going around the villages pleading with the mothers, girls themselves and community leaders to stop the practice without graphically showing the negative effects it has on women’s lives.
“The drive now is toward adopting a new strategy of engaging the entire community to analyze the problem in its totality and see how it’s connected to things that previously seemed unrelated,” said Dr Grace Okong’o, one of the facilitators. “This will help churches and communities to develop concrete action plans to stop the practice”.
Okong’o, a gender expert accompanied by a team from the Hope Foundation for African Women, introduced participants to strategies on how to engage with communities to discuss and act on issues affecting them such as FGM.
LWF advocacy
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria supported the training of trainers workshop which was attended by 30 participants from nine countries. FGM is one of the human rights advocacy issues for The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) through its regional and global desks, including the Women in Church and Society program.
The women’s desk coordinators declared their solidarity with women globally who have suffered grievous harm as a result of FGM. They pledged to share the workshop’s action plan with the leadership of LUCCEA, which includes eight LWF member churches and the not yet-LWF affiliated Ugandan church.
Afram Pete, regional coordinator of the African Lutheran Communication and Information Network (ALCINET) contributed this article.
Lutheran churches’ solidarity with 200 million women
More than 200 million girls and women in 30 countries across Africa, Middle East and Asia have undergone female genital mutilation (FGM), a traditional practice that scars its survivors with life-long health and psychosocial consequences. Lutheran churches in East and Central Africa recently held a training workshop to study more effective approaches in the fight against the initiation rite. Some of the participants shared their concerns. Photos: LWF/Afram Pete
Totomare Femanjafy
Female genital mutilation is not practiced in Madagascar. After learning what other women and girls go through, Totomare Femanjafy from the Malagasy Lutheran Church says women in her country are eager to support the global fight against the harmful rite of passage.
Reuben Baraka
FGM prevalence in Kenya is 27 percent but nearly twice as high among Pokots in the northwest, where Baraka works for the Kenya Evangelical Lutheran Church. Over 80 percent of the affected girls, aged between 10 and 20, drop out of school to get married. The church partners with the local government, schools and communities to end the outlawed practice but more action is needed to change attitudes.
Rev. Judith Mbabazi
In Uganda, where FGM is categorized as a criminal act since 2010, and practiced among less than 1 percent of the 14-16 year olds, it is still rampant in the eastern districts of Kapchorwa and Karamoja. Mbabazi is chairperson of women’s work at the Uganda Lutheran Church, which is present in the region.
Miriam Daniel Zere
FGM is common in Eritrea, with a prevalence of 89 percent nationally, and nearly 100 percent in some communities. Carried out at infancy, it is rarely performed beyond the age of seven years. The girls and women develop health complications especially during childbirth due to scar tissue formation in the birth canal, says Miriam Daniel Zere, Evangelical Lutheran Church of Eritrea.
Rev. Jeannette Kabongo
In the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the practice of FGM is below 1 percent. However, some communities carry out other practices that are as harmful to women, according to Rev. Jeannette Kabongo, national women’s coordinator for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Congo.
Martha Massawe
There are regions in Tanzania where FGM is markedly higher than the 15 percent national average—Manyara 81%, Dodoma 68% and Arusha 55%—while Zanzibar has a less than 1 percent prevalence. It is declining since laws were introduced against the practice, which is performed on girls as young as seven years, says theologian Martha Massawe of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania.
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