Reuters Examines Challenges Of Implementing Genital Cutting Ban In Eritrea

Government officials are hopeful that a new law banning genital cutting will "force a change in attitudes" about the practice, Reuters reports (Kimball, Reuters, 6/10). Genital cutting, a practice sometimes referred to as female circumcision or female genital mutilation, involves a partial or full removal of the labia, clitoris or both.

The Eritrean government in a proclamation published in April said it is illegal for anyone to subject girls or women to genital cutting, provide tools to perform the procedure or fail to inform authorities about intended plans to subject anyone to the procedure. According to a government statement, anyone who requests, takes part in or promotes the practice will face a fine of several hundred dollars or up to 10 years in jail. A government statement said the ban took effect on March 31.

The government said that genital cutting "is a procedure that seriously endangers the health of women, causes them considerable pain and suffering, besides threatening their lives." A 2002 government survey found that less than 1% of genital cutting procedures in the country were performed by people with medical training and that about 62% of circumcised women in Eritrea had the procedure performed before age one (Kaiser Daily Women's Health Policy Report, 4/10).

Aid workers have said cultural traditions will be the "biggest barrier" toward curbing the practice. Government officials said that the ban is only one part of a larger public education program. "Eritrea is easily manageable; there is a chain system, a village level, the sub-zone, the zonal level," Tesfay Misgna, a health ministry campaigner, said, adding that "[w]e can control" the practice. Misgna said that some villages banned the practice before the national government did.

Some advocates "worry the practice is too ingrained for legal threats to have much impact," Reuters reports. According to Reuters, residents of Glass, Eritrea, said genital cutting persists in the village. Luul Ghebreab, president of the National Union of Eritrean Women, said that genital cutting "is a deep-rooted culture, and it needs a persistent continuous effort (to halt it)." Pirkko Heinonen, the UNICEF representative in Eritrea, said that although genital cutting is practiced in Christian and Muslim communities, as well as in all nine of Eritrea's groups, the country has "come to a turning point." He added, "It was the exception not to be cut, but I think in the younger age group, it is the exception to be cut" (Reuters, 6/10).

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