Response to questions on survey. Surveyors may wish to ask more detailed questions based on the interviewee’s response. For example, if the respondent answers that girls undergoing FGM are at greater health risk, a follow-up question could be, “Could you please give me some examples of health risks FGM poses?”

Evaluators should break down indicators measuring knowledge by age, sex, and education to better understand differences among these subgroups.

Data Source:

Representative survey of the population

Purpose:

An important first step in eradicating FGM is to raise awareness about the procedure and to expel widely held myths. This indicator measures what knowledge or beliefs people have about FGM so program interventions can be tailored and tracked accordingly.

Three knowledge points that are useful to this end are:

1. that FGM is illegal in a given country;
2. that FGM is not mandated by Islam; and
3. that there are health risks (which can be potentially life-threatening) to performing FGM.

Information on the legal status of FGM may strengthen the resolve of community members to dis­courage the practice. Information on the position of the Islamic faith on FGM may dispel the widely held myth that women of the Islamic faith must be circumcised.

These questions also serve as useful markers of progress in the wake of public information campaigns designed to increase FGM awareness and combat miscon­ceptions about the practice.

Issues:

Since the definition of “correct knowledge” about FGM varies based on the context, it is not feasible to standardize the measures used for calculation. However, progress of different programs can be compared as long as similar components of the indicator were assessed (legality, religious teaching, health impacts, and/or others). There is no minimal set of questions used to assess correct knowledge, nor is there a summary indicator, index, or scale.

This indicator does not assess how knowledgeable people are on the human rights perspective as it relates to this issue. Specifically, women’s rights and health are protected under major human rights treaties, including the International Bill of Human Rights, which includes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. The Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment may also be applicable to FGM. The practice violates the rights of the child as stated in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (USAID, 1997).

People may not change their attitudes or behavior even with useful and accurate knowledge of FGM. In areas where strong social conventions affecting women’s roles keep FGM in place, those forces may predominate despite improved knowledge.

“Female Genital Mutilation from a Human Rights Perspective”.  African Voices.  USAID Bureau for Africa, Office of Sustainable Development Vol. 6, No. 2 Summer 1997.