• Age-specific data on knowledge and attitudes towards FGM for females aged 15 to 49.
• The number of respondents who are aware of FGM.
• The number of respondents who express opposition to the continuation of FGM practices.

Evaluators may also wish to collect data on whether the woman surveyed is already the mother of a girl and, if yes, the child’s age.

Data Source(s):

Household surveys such as the Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS) and the Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS)

Purpose:

By quantifying the proportion of girls and women who are informed about FGM and advocate for its discontinuation, the indicator provides critical insights into the prevailing cultural norms and the success of ongoing efforts to alter perceptions surrounding this practice.

Where FGM is widely practiced, it is supported by both men and women, usually without question, and anyone departing from the norm may face condemnation, harassment, and ostracism. But in many societies, older women who have themselves been cut often perpetuate FGM, seeing it as essential to the identity and social standing of women and girls. This may be one reason why women, and more often older women, are more likely to support the practice, and tend to see efforts to combat it as an attack on their identity and culture (UNICEF, Innocenti Research Centre, 2008).

Since women are generally the gatekeepers of the practice, they also play a critical role in its elimination. Advocacy activities trying to create awareness, increase knowledge, and change attitudes are the cornerstone to FGM abandonment programs, particularly among young women, both as potential victims and key change agents. This indicator measures attitudinal shifts among women in the population of interest, which is an important step to behavior change.

Issues:

In every society in which it is practiced, FGM is a manifestation of gender inequality that is deeply entrenched in social, economic and political structures and represents society’s control over women (UNICEF, Innocenti Research Centre, 2008). Advocacy efforts, particularly among women’s groups, should focus on women’s empowerment. Addressing this through education and debate brings to the fore the human rights of girls and women and the differential treatment of boys and girls with regard to their roles in society in general, and specifically with respect to FGM. This can serve to influence gender relations and thus accelerate progress in abandonment of the practice (WHO et al, 2008).

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