Female genital
cutting and the international
response surrounding the practice represent incompatible cultures coming
together in a shrinking world. According to UNICEF, in 2016, an estimated
200 million girls and women have been cut in 30 different countries.
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| Theconversation.com |
Though an incomprehensible practice to
some, cutting makes
sense to people socialised in practising cultures. Whatever one’s cultural
background, however, cutting arguably represents a violation
of universal human rights that supersedes culture.
These alternate views place international
agencies promoting the abandonment of cutting in
a dilemma, trapped between conflicting commitments to cultural tolerance
and universal human rights.
This dilemma is exacerbated by the common
view that cutting is a locally pervasive practice based on a deeply
entrenched social norm. An influential version of this view suggests that,
where cutting is practised, families must match the local norm to ensure good
marriage prospects for their daughters. When most families cut, under this
view, incentives favour cutting. When most families do not cut, incentives
favour not cutting. Incentives like this could be present because, for example,
a family that deviates from the local norm is ostracised and hence their
daughters cannot grow up to marry good husbands.
If correct, this view implies that
abandoning cutting requires efforts that introduce or even impose foreign
values onto a cutting society.
But a successful programme can change
incentives in the marriage market by shifting a sufficiently large number of
families away from cutting. Such a shift means that the incentives for families
to coordinate with each other can switch from favouring cutting to favouring
abandonment. Once this happens, the need for families to coordinate takes over
and accelerates the process of abandonment.
My colleagues and I
have been examining these ideas in Sudan, a country known for both a high
overall cutting rate and extreme forms of the practice that bring risks of
infection, haemorrhaging, and obstetric complications. Continue to full article
News credit: The Conversation
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