Non-governmental organizations preventive work against female genital mutilation in Kenya : a qualitative minor field study

Sammanfattning: FGM is practiced in around 30 countries, mainly in Africa, The Middle East, and Asia. An estimated 200 million girls and women have been cut anywhere between infancy and 15 years old. This practice is usually linked to traditions, cultures, and sometimes religion, although this seems to be more of a question of how religion is interpreted. There are 4 recognized types of FGM including various ways of cutting and removing parts of or all of the intimate sexual exterior organs of the female, and sometimes also sewing together the remaining parts. The purpose of this study was to describe non-governmental organizations preventive work against FGM in Kenya. The study has a qualitative design. All data, including interviews, was collected between January 26th and March 5th, 2023, by accompanying several NGOs in different parts of the country visiting different communities and carrying out individual semi-structured interviews with 6 different Kenyan NGOs that fight FGM locally. From these six interviews, three main categories and seven subcategories were identified. The main categories were Education, with subcategories Finishing School and Training Local Role Models in the communities, Local Activists, with subcategories Local solution and change from within and finally Empowerment with subcategories Equality and Equity, Women’s, Girls’ and Children’s Rights as well as tackling the difficulty with medicalization. The results show the necessity of training local role models to be able to stop FGM because change should come from within. Girls also need to finish school to learn about human, women’s, and children's rights and how to protect yourself against pregnancy. The preventive work also includes focusing on the medicalization of FGM. Today, FGM is performed in healthcare facilities by healthcare workers. The prevention work involves educating communities about the health risks of FGM, regardless of where it is performed.