With India taking small, but definite steps to make the cut illegal, her perspective should resonate with all those following the issue
A Stockholm-based journalist, who was working on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) and recently won the Peabody award for her work on FGM in Africa, spoke to this paper on her beliefs, her work, and why FGM is still practised and is legal in some countries.
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With India taking small, but definite steps to make the cut illegal, her perspective should resonate with all those following the issue. This city has seen a deep schism in the Bohra community, which predominantly practices FGM. There are two sides to the debate, but the winner's take was interesting that attitudes need to change along with laws to stamp out FGM.
According to the journalist, when you try to bring a change like this where opposition is fierce because of the defensiveness of one community and ingrained attitudes passed on through generations, the law is only one arrow in your quiver.
Another arrow you need to shoot and concentrate on hitting the target is that of awareness. Awareness, which means talking about the topic, educating the community on the adverse health implications of the practice, and the fact that it impinges on the freedom of choice for the girl child need to run concurrently with the legal aspect.
That's why it is important to keep the activists' voice against FGM alive. The logic, though, can be applied to other practices or laws where change is being espoused and sought. One, for instance, is Section 377, which criminalises consensual sex between two same sex adults. While it is important that we do away with the archaic law, activists are working for change on the ground, because nothing can be achieved if attitudinally we still remain the same. Let's try and look through different prisms, and change our mindsets so that the law becomes a tool to enforce change, but real transformation takes place in the mind.
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