#BornPerfect: The Global Media Campaign To #EndFGM Caravan
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The Global Media Campaign to End FGM is on the move.
#Frontline Women Rights Organisation in Guinea Bissau became the first in Africa to launch the Born Perfect Women’s Caravan. It happened in the country’s capital, Bissau on 10 May ’24, when hundreds gathered for the launch. Also backed by the EU, the UNFPA #BornPerfect Caravan spent the month of May 2024 going to village to village throughout Guinea Bissau, showing anti- FGM films and hearing from religious and political leaders that FGM, child marriage and other gendered violence must end.
The ‘Caravan’ is an actual bus or similar which travels between strategically selected venues in a given country. This is the route for Guinea Bissau:
The drivers and those travelling with them are women, mostly themselves ‘survivors’ of FGM, who have received training in how to bring the #EndFGM message to the selected locations. Local journalists, some experienced and some younger and just newly trained by the Campaign, plus other community experts, also join the caravan. Every village will hear from politicians, religious leaders, musicians and medics that gender-based violence from mutilation, child marriage to domestic violence must end. Importantly, the message and presentation may change somewhat between venues, to address the issues and beliefs of people in that specific area.
The Caravan will travel across six countries in central Africa, beginning in May 2024 with Guinea Bissau (as above), then moving on via Mauritania, Kenya, Djibouti and Senegal to Sierra Leone (the links above here to each of these locations carries a particular commentary from a person directly involved).
More details of the #BornPerfect Caravan concept are available here. The impacts of intervention are consistently assessed.
During their stay, campaigners will educate the population on the health consequences of FGM and child marriage. The community is encouraged to sign the Dear Daughter pledge book – where signatories promise not to cut their daughters. Critically, the Caravan’s arrival in the village kicks off three years of cheap local radio campaigns.
Also with the Caravan are FGM and GBV survivors trained in Tree of Life trauma counselling which, we are told
“… is a survivor led trauma empowerment 1 day programme that offers a safe space for women who have experienced female genital mutilation (FGM) and other forms of Gender Based Violence to find healing, build community, and reclaim their power.
It uses storytelling and metaphors to build resilience and reframe negative experiences.”
As a team member of the original Guardian #EndFGM programme of a few years ago, and now Advisor (pro bono) to the Global Media Campaign with the same objective, I am delighted to see this inspired and very promising development. But all this costs money – though certainly with a huge ROI (return on investment). Every 10 seconds a girl gets cut, yet less than 2% of big donor funding gets funneled towards the most effective solution: volunteer frontline grassroots movements that instill true change.
All donations for #BornPerfect Caravans will go directly toward training and empowering local activists, putting an end to Female Genital Mutilation and other forms of Gender Based Violence once and for all.
If you would like to support this excellent programme, you can do so HERE.
Thank you.
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Your Comments on this topic are welcome.
Please post them in the Reply box which follows these announcements…..
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Books by Hilary Burrage on female genital mutilation
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6684-2740
Hilary has published widely and has contributed two chapters to Routledge International Handbooks:
Female Genital Mutilation and Genital Surgeries: Chapter 33,
in Routledge International Handbook of Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health (2019),
eds Jane M. Ussher, Joan C. Chrisler, Janette Perz
and
FGM Studies: Economics, Public Health, and Societal Well-Being: Chapter 12,
in The Routledge International Handbook on Harmful Cultural Practices (2023),
eds Maria Jaschok, U. H. Ruhina Jesmin, Tobe Levin von Gleichen, Comfort Momoh
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PLEASE NOTE:
The Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children, which has a primary focus on FGM, is clear that in formal discourse any term other than ‘mutilation’ concedes damagingly to the cultural relativists. ‘FGM’ is therefore the term I use here – though the terms employed may of necessity vary in informal discussion with those who by tradition use alternative vocabulary. See the Feminist Statement on the Naming and Abolition of Female Genital Mutilation, The Bamako Declaration: Female Genital Mutilation Terminology and the debate about Anthr/Apologists on this website.
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This article concerns approaches to the eradication specifically of FGM. I am also categorically opposed to MGM, but that is not the focus of this particular piece, except if in any specifics as discussed above.
Anyone wishing to offer additional comment on more general considerations around male infant and juvenile genital mutilation is asked please to do so via these relevant dedicated threads.
Discussion of the general issues re M/FGM will not be published unless they are posted on these dedicated pages. Thanks.
Hilary Burrage 