In 1996 Burkina Faso–land-locked, drought-prone and prey to chronic economic hardship–became thethird African country to legally ban Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C). Even before this, in 1990,a National Committee to Fight the Practice of Excision (CNLPE) was established by Presidential Decree.After the FGM/C prohibition was enacted, the committee was equipped with a Permanent Secretariat to

improve operational efficiency. The UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme on FGM/C has been supportingthe SP/CNLPE since 2009 as it works to raise awareness about the law and promote its enforcement.But in a country where cultural practices like FGM/C have been shrouded in secrecy, law enforcementfaces many challenges. This should be accompanied by educating people about its harmful effects andthe benefits of ending it.

BURKINA FASO HAS A STRONG LAWAGAINST FGM/C, BUT WINNING HEARTSAND MINDS REMAINS CRUCIAL

“MOST CASES ARE NEVER KNOWN”“The real problem in Burkina is that many cases ofFGM/C are never known,” says Günther Lanier ofUNICEF’s Child Protection programme who workswith UNFPA in the Joint Programme. “Once theauthorities become aware of a case, the systemworks fairly well”.

The FGM/C arrests that occur are usually theresult of anonymous tips. As early as 1990 the gov-ernment established a national telephone hotlinecalled the Green Phone: SOS Excision to encour-age people to report casesof FGM/C, even though,at that time, they were notillegal. Today, such re-ports serve as the basisfor legal interventions and prosecutions. Informa-tion about the hotline is disseminated on radio, TV,in newspapers, on posters, at public events, in streettheatre and door-to-door by the police.

“In the last few years many more people havereporting cases of FGM,” says Marie Rose Sawadogo,Permanent Secretary of the SP/CNLPE. “This doesn’tmean that more people are practicing FGM/C, but thatmore people are aware of the harm caused by thepractice and are reporting cases. In the past theydidn’t speak up because FGM/C is considered afamily matter and there is a sense of family andcommunity solidarity. People were afraid they wouldbe treated as social outcasts if they reported cases.But recently we’ve had many reports from aroundthe whole country, especially from areas wherepeople never reported this before, where there usedto be a code of silence surrounding this issue.”

The way in which the telephone hotline func-tions (it is manned only during working hours) di-minishes its effectiveness. Since most cases ofFGM/C take place after dark, a night watchman maytake the calls and, in theory, relay the information to agendarme attached to the SP/CNLPE–hardly a reli-able system. More volunteers are needed to man thephones, and they will require some compensation.

The number of calls to the Green Phone tends

The nationaltelephone hotline:

SOS Excision

to increase during school vacations–any time betweenMay and December–because that is when most girlsare cut. In 2009, 203 cases of FGM/C were reported.Callers tend to be women, educated individuals andyoung people. Cases are also reported at police sta-tions or customs offices, through religious leaders andlocal administrators, or directly to the SP/CNLPE.When an informant reports that the procedure is aboutto be carried out, the police go to the scene to halt it, ifit is not too late, and they explain to the child’s familywhy FGM/C is harmful and is against the law. If theprocedure has already been carried out, they take thechild to a health clinic for medical examination andtreatment. But the SP/CNLPE lacks sufficient re-sources to cover the cost of treatment, so the healthfacility is expected to provide care and seek reimburse-ment from the child’s family, who can seldom affordto pay. Meanwhile, the police create a case file whichbegins to make its way through the justice system.

WINNING HEARTS AND MINDS

The SP/CNLPE has at least a presence in allof Burkina Faso’s 45 provinces. In the 17 provinceswhere FGM/C is most prevalent, the committeehas deployed 22 special patrols that are supposedto reach remote areas and report cases of FGM/C–a daunting task given the reluctance of com-munity members to speak up. But more important,in an effort to change “hearts and minds” about thepractice, the SP/CNLPE has put in place agrassroots-based system for educating the publicabout the harm caused by FGM/C to women andtheir unborn children.

The law has been accompanied by campaignsto raise awareness about the problems caused byFGM/C. “We work with the gendarmerie doing pa-trols. A group of gendarmes, social workers andsometimes people from the local radio go out intothe villages and do awareness-raising.” The JointProgramme has given the gendarmerie an impor-tant role as a national advocate against FGM/C.”But the gendarmes are often not very mobile. Theytend to be hampered by the high cost of petrol whenthey try to follow up on a case.”

The mere fact of government agents arrivingin a village to talk about FGM/C sends a powerfulmessage, Mr. Lanier says. But the way the mes-sage is conveyed–through discussions and ex-changes within the community, what he calls a “softapproach” –is all-important. “Ideally, the gendarmescome into a village and get the villagers to talk abouttheir problems and then steer the discussion towardsa public awareness of the problems involved withFGM,” he says.

“The problem is that the facts about FGM/Care the exact opposite of what people believe in thevillages,” points out the joint programme focal per-son . “They actually believe that cutting is good forthe health of both mothers and babies. If you livein a community where all the women are cut, youhave no means of comparison. You won’t listento people telling you the contrary of what every-one believes.” And he points out that even though,as a result of FGM/C, many women face lifelonggynaecological problems and severe difficulties dur-ing childbirth, not all do. Public opinion, therefore,finds it difficult to believe that FGM/C is harm-ful, and tends to attribute complications in child-birth and other problems to other causes, suchas punishment for “sins.”

“Nevertheless, the very fact that the gen-

darmes come to a village with theexpress purpose of talking aboutwomen’s problems, such as exci-sion, is a good thing.”

In 2003 Burkina Faso beganimplementing the Integrated Com-munication Plan (PIC), in which theSP/CNLPE uses regional- or pro-vincial-level radio stations to broad-cast information about harmful tra-ditional practices including FGM/C.And as part of PIC, 4,840 localvolunteer activists located in 868 communities havebeen trained to discuss the consequences of FGM/C in order to convince communities to abandon thepractice. The five volunteers in each communityinclude two women, a member of the local tradi-tional authority, a member of a local youth groupand a member of a local non-governmental organi-zation. The goal is to eventually reach the entirecountry with messages.

“These teams show pictures of the conse-quences of FGM/C,” says Mrs. Sawadogo fromCNLPE. “We have a video of a birth from begin-ning to end showing all the problems that a womanwho has been cut has to face, and another videoshowing how comparatively easy childbirth is for awoman who has not been cut. When they see these,people begin to understand. And since people cher-ish their children, they are much more interested inreproductive health than in human rights. People withno education don’t respond to the idea of humanrights. They think it’s a reflection of Western val-ues, not African values.”

In addition, the Joint Programme supports thedissemination of information about the law throughnational and international radio, television, newspa-pers, street theatre, focus groups, pamphlets publishedin local languages as well as through the police.

In 2009 the President of Burkina Faso, BlaiseCompaoré gave a powerful speech condemningFGM/C and calling on the leaders of the threeprincipal religions–Muslim, Catholic and Protes-tant–as well as traditional leaders, NGOs andgovernment ministries to commit themselves toactively support the campaign to end the practiceand to produce action plans detailing how they willgo about it. “It’s not only uneducated people whosupport FGM/C,” says Mrs. Sawadogo. “There arequite a few intellectuals who support it. So the Presi-dent requested that this awareness-raising take

place at all levels. As has beendone in the campaign against AIDS,the SP/CNLPE is coordinating theestablishment of offices withineach ministry and each institutionto enable us to explain the prob-lems of FGM/C so we can arriveat zero tolerance by 2015.”

Mrs. Sawadogo says that sup-port from the Joint Programme hasbeen critical in the creation of net-works of influential people that can

support the campaign against FGM/C: religious andtraditional leaders, human rights workers, NGOs,journalists who work in local languages, gendarmes,police, magistrates and corrections officers. “All ofthe activities of these networks are funded by theJoint Programme,” she says. So far, the networkshave produced the following results:

Twenty traditional and religious leaders haveprepared talks and sermons condemning the prac-tice of FGM.

Members of Parliament and other politicalleaders were provided with information to enablethem to educate and mobilize the electorate to aban-don FGM/C.

Twenty-eight magistrates from 20 high courtswere trained in the enforcement of the law and giveninformation about the harm done by FGM/C. Theyalso received training in how to raise public aware-ness about the consequences of FGM/C during tri-als and in how to improve the performance of pros-ecutors in cases where the law is not applied or isinadequately applied. Magistrates are also enjoinedto punish anyone who is aware of a case of FGM/Cbut does not report it to the authorities.

In October 2010, with support from the JointProgramme, the SP/CNLPE addressed a plenarysession of the National Assembly, showing a videoabout the consequences of FGM/C. “The Membersof Parliament said they were horrified,” says Mrs.Sawadogo. “They promised to encourage their con-stituents to abandon the practice. The presidenturged them to follow through and report to him onthe actions they have taken.

“By calling on the most influential leaders, thePresident really added impetus to the campaign,”says Mrs. Sawadogo. “It made people understandthat the campaign is a top priority. And donors also

From 2005 through 2009, thenumber of people sentencedfor FGM increased to 686 – 40excisors and 646 parents. In2009 alone, the authoritiesresponded to 230 individualcases and halted threeplanned excisions. Eightexcisors and 54 accompliceswere arrested in 2009.

understand thatthere is politicalwill behind theseefforts. That in-spires them tosupport the ef-forts of the gov-ernment.

“We re-cently conductedfocus groupswith communityrepresentativeswho asked us toinclude teachingabout FGM/C inp r e - s c h o o l s , ”says Mrs.Sawadogo. “Insome communi-ties, that’s theage at which thepractice is car-ried out. If chil-dren are awarethat it is harmfulthey can reportcases and de-fend themselves.If they don’twant to be cut,they can seekhelp. We need tostart this educa-tion very early.”

CHALLENGES IN ENFORCING THE LAW

In Burkina Faso as in many developing coun-tries, the wheels of justice turn slowly; enforcinglaws against deeply ingrained cultural practices suchas FGM/C is fraught with difficulties.

When cases have come to trial, many convictedexcisors and their accomplices (usually the child’sparents) have received suspended sentences – of-ten because judges are, perhaps understandably,reluctant to incarcerate a child’s parents and thusdeprive her and her siblings of their care. More-over, because the law is not widely supported bythe public, police officials, and even local politicalleaders, are subject to intimidation and pressure notto enforce it. In addition, some judges and their

staffs still needto be convincedof the negativeeffects of FGM/C and thus, de-spite the statute,do not take theissue as seriouslyas they should.

A numberof purely practi-cal problemsalso hamper therigourous appli-cation of theFGM law, whichcalls for sixmonths to threeyears imprison-ment and a fineof up to CFAfrancs 900,000(US $1,724) foranyone perform-ing, arranging orotherwise aidingFGM. Until2008, however,the average sen-tence pro-nounced wasjust over threemonths. This islargely becausemany jails lackseparate facili-

ties for women (virtually all excisors are women),making it difficult to incarcerate them for extendedperiods with a modicum of dignity. Furthermore,since most excisors are elderly, their health tends todeteriorate in jail, and their supporters often rally todemand their release–hence the large number ofsuspended sentences. As a result, a public percep-tion has been created that in cases of FGM/C, par-dons are to be expected.

Some magistrates are also reluctant to imposefines. The SP/CLNPE recently sent a letter to theMinister of Justice demanding that fines be imposedmore vigourously. One member of the SP/CNLPEbelieves that the threat of fines should be a power-ful disincentive to practicing FGM/C. “In a very poor

country, fines are actually more of a deterrent thanprison,” he says.

Then there are the problems that arise frombeing a land-locked nation. Burkina Faso is sur-rounded by six countries: Ghana, Togo, Benin, Niger,Mali and Côte d’Ivoire. All of these countries, ex-cept Mali, have laws against FGM/C and Ghana’slaw even forbids excision abroad. But when it comesto the enforcement of these laws, Burkina Faso’srecord is far better than that of its neighbours. Thismeans that Burkinabés who are intent on havingtheir daughters cut can easily slip across the near-est border to have the practice performed. Addingto this problem is inadequate coordination amongnational authorities in border areas, insufficient co-operation among the police and justice systems inthese countries.

During the early years following passage ofBurkina Faso’s FGM prohibition, the judicial system’srecord-keeping was also erratic : local police andcourt administrations did not always keep reliablestatistics about the enforcement of the law. To rem-edy this, at the 2008 meeting the SP/CNLPE re-quested that the Minister of Justice be responsiblefor keeping detailed records of FGM/C cases andpassing them on to the Committee.

[1] Analysis of the Evolution of the Practice of Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting in Burkina Faso, The Population Council, 2008.

Thus, despite many challenges, the SP/CNLPE’s records now show a gradual increase inthe numbers of FGM/C prosecutions over the years.Between 1997 and 2005, a total of 94 individuals(excisors and parents) were sentenced for violatingthe law. From 2005 through 2009, the number in-creased to 686–40 excisors and 646 parents. In 2009alone, the authorities responded to 230 individualcases of FGM/C and halted three planned excisions.Eight circumcisers and 54 accomplices were ar-rested in 2009 and received sentences ranging fromthree months (with parole) to five years.

Perhaps most significant, a report published in2008 indicates that over all in Burkina Faso the prac-tice of FGM/C is declining.[1] While 80 per cent ofwomen between the ages of 20 and 49 have beencut, among women between15 and 19, the level is65 percent. Among girls of less than 10 years ofage, only around 20 percent have been cut (in thepast, this figure would have been at least 50 percent or more) and it is reasonable to hope that amajority of these girls will never be cut. While theFGM law is important, the downward trend in theincidence of FGM/C in Burkina Faso, althoughgradual, is almost certainly the result of shifting at-titudes about the practice and its consequences.