FGM/C in Upper River Region (URR) of the Gambia: Tostan’s Application of the Social Norms Approach, the success, the remaining challenges and the way forward

Salifu Jarsey, The Gambia.

UNICEF- UPENN Programme, 2013

Background/context • FGM/C prevalence rate in the Gambia is 76.3% nationally

(MICSIV,2010) and 99% in URR (Tostan’s Region).

• Political and religious sensitivity and no law against FGM/C• Patriarchal and Muslim majority (95%) society. • FGM/C is a social norm in the Gambia, a conditional

preference with strong empirical and normative expectations.

• Reference network: mother-in-law, grandma, co-wives, aunties, other women in the village, the Imam.

• Factual beliefs regarding FGM\C are• Uncut girls are unclean• Uncut women become promiscuous.• The pain of cutting symbolically initiates girls into the

life of woman which is perceived to be full of pain.

Past Approaches 1985-2006Information campaigns highlighting the harm of FGM/C

targeted at this rational individual person or family, the underlying assumption being that FGM/C is an unconditional individual preference, driven by ignorance of the harm done.

Initiation without cutting which focuses on the function of FGM/C and providing an alternative to this function while ignoring the reason for FGM/C.

Human Rights: emphasis on girls’ right to bodily integrity and quoting global & regional HR Instruments (CRC & CEDAW).

Dropping of the Knife & Economic incentive: Alternative livelihood for the circumcisers. If there are no circumcisers there will be no demand for their services.

Past Approaches Cont’dAll the past approaches were similar in three respects:

1) They all failed to perceive FGM/C as an interdependent action whose preference is conditional upon the empirical and normative expectations of the reference network.

2) They failed to account for all the factual beliefs surround FGM/C and power of these factual beliefs in upholding the practice.

3) They were mostly condemnatory and judgemental.

4) Criticism of the dropping the knife. Analogous to the logic of controlling fertility by removing mid-wives and obstetricians. No obstetrician, no pregnancy.

Enters Tostan….In 2006/2007 Tostan started with a new, more holistic, non-

directive and non-judgemental approach →CEP→Social norms framework.

Implementation of the CEP starts with a baseline survey which serves to identify core groups, the reference network and baseline data in each village.

An intense and prolonged non-formal education in each village → addresses the factual beliefs and narrows the information gap.

Three years of values deliberation through series of classes, cyclical village, zonal, inter-village and inter-zonal meetings as well as social mobilisation events facilitated by a team.

SuccessfulWithin six years, 153 out of the 387 villages in URR have

made public declarations to abandon FGM\C and child marriages.

Support for FGM\C dropped significantly (see graph below)

The Gambia Basse Region0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

71.10%

92.20%

64.20%

73.10%

MICS III (2005/06)MICS IV (2010)

…but challenges remain• How to transform the declared villages (153) from isolated

clusters into a web of connected villages.

• Scalability: How to facilitate and accelerate diffusion (organised and spontaneous) from the 153 villages to the rest of URR and nationally so that it snowballs into a national mass movement, without the need to replicate the model everywhere, by relying on natural leaders to act as bridges between villages.

• Multi-level synergy: what is the synergistic relationship between the community level work by Tostan and national level policy/legal work? How to harness the success of the community level work so that it acts as a catalyst for policy/ legal reform? What is the causal pathway for this process?

Challenges cont’d• Sustaining the new norm: Post-declaration follow and

verification mechanism to sustaining the new norm.

• Little understanding of the role of men among Sarahuleh, Fulla and Mandinka ethnic groups in URR in upholding FGM/C as a social norm. What are their NPBs, FBs, EEs and NE regarding FGM/C? How important is the cut status of a prospective wife to them or is the marriageability argument as a driver of FGM/C exaggerated? If they can marry an uncut Wollof woman why can’t they marry an uncut woman from their own ethnic group? Answers to these questions will determine what role can and should men play in FGM/C eradication in URR and by extension the whole of Gambia.

Suggestions to do better

Isolated Clusters of Villages: Organise the declared villages into a federation of “new norm” villages. They could meet regularly to reinforce the new norms, validate the mutual expectations (EE and NE) in the new and enlarge reference group and to offer mutual support.

Scalability: Adaptation, not replication. Relying on diffusion, organised and spontaneous. This requires strong network analysis especially during baseline survey to be able assess the strength of the relationships, identify the connected nodes and natural leaders which they could use as bridges between villages to accelerate and facilitate diffusion of the new norm.

Suggestions cont’d

The next evolutionary step for Tostan: post-declaration monitoring and follow-up to verify compliance with the new norm in the declared villages by a third party: health workers, community development workers, social workers in the community, governor’s office, etc.

Multi-level synergy: this needs to be better understood, managed and guided. A law against FGM/C will have great signalling function.

Role of men: more and context specific research is needed.

ConclusionIf after 22 years and more than 4,500 villages declaring to abandon FGM/C and a law criminalising FGM/C, Senegal , low prevalence country, is yet to be FGM/C-free. The Gambia is a high prevalence country ,76.3% nationally and 99% in URR. Tostan has been operating in the Gambia for only six years and only 153 villages out of 387 in URR have made public declaration to abandon FGM/C. How long will it take to reach the entire nation of practising villages and ethnic groups and how much will it cost and where will the money come from. Thinking about these questions and looking at the parallel between Senegal and the Gambia one cannot escape the conclusion that Tostan has to take the next big step along its evolutionary path. In its application of the social norms approach it needs to respond to the challenges highlighted above, if it wants to continue to maintain its credibility and the continued relevance and effectiveness of its CEP programmes across many African countries.

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