Author: hannelore.vanbavel

By Nardos Hagos (The Orchid Project)

The work to end female genital cutting (FGC) can sometimes seem insurmountable. We know that the practice is linked to deep-rooted social and gender norms that have become entrenched over generations. If there is any chance of eliminating FGC then this is where our focus needs to be.

However, shifting norms that have taken root over generations will take a long time. In the meantime, ARP has been lauded as a way to maintain culture while avoiding the cut. There isn’t one set definition of ARP, but in their most popular and basic form they offer an alternative to cutting that can include a ceremony and an alternative rite, such as pouring milk over the lap of the girl.

The obvious benefit of this is that the community continues to mark the significance of a girl’s transition into womanhood, while the girl avoids the potentially life-long consequences of being cut.

A win-win for everyone, right?

People are conflicted about the efficacy of ARP. There is as yet no clear evidence to show that the use of ARP in communities where FGC is practised as a rite of passage actually works, although research by Amref Health Africa suggests that community-led ARPs (CLARPs) can lead to a reduction in the prevalence of FGC. A recent report from the Population Council on the effectiveness of interventions found there is not enough evidence to show that ARP works. Furthermore, anecdotal evidence has shown that many girls who undergo ARP are still subjected to FGC.

Development agencies such as the Orchid Project and the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme for the Elimination of FGM have been exploring the potential of gender transformative approaches in tackling FGC. The thinking here is that FGC is a result of deeply entrenched harmful gender norms, and if we are to end the practice, we need an approach that aims to rectify the inequity between girls and women, and boys and men.

To what extent does this approach align with ARP?

The purpose of FGC when practised as a rite of passage is to ‘prepare’ a girl for womanhood and marriage. FGC is believed to ensure virginity, fidelity and cleanliness. Therefore FGC cannot be divorced from harmful gender norms that emphasize/promote virginity, encourage early marriage and view girls only as future wives and mothers. This limits the range of possibilities for the lives of girls and women. Furthermore, FGC is not a standalone harmful practice; for instance, we know that girls who are cut are more likely to be forced into early marriage. Then there is the stigma. If a girl has the agency to refuse FGC, she is likely to face huge disapproval and discrimination from her community. This can be devastating, for the girl and her family – a burden no child should have to carry.

So, FGC is not a harmful gender norm in isolation. It operates in a wider system of gender inequity and inequality that needs to be addressed using a holistic approach.

As they stand, ARPs are not gender transformative. They keep in place the entire system, while only removing the cut. Despite little evidence of the effectiveness of ARP in reducing FGC prevalence, some argue that their not being gender transformative is OK. As long as we remove the cut we are ‘saving’ girls from being cut, or delaying it until they are old enough to have bodily autonomy. If so, what is the problem?

The problem is that we cannot separate FGC from what underpins it – patriarchal systems, gender inequity, economic disparity, and telling girls that their value lies in marriage and child rearing. We cannot separate FGC from the fact that girls who undergo it are more likely to leave school early, and/or be married while they are still children. As is the case with any issue, if we don’t address the root cause of the problem, in this case harmful gender norms, ARP (or any other short-term intervention) is likely to be ineffective. Any interventions aimed at ending FGC should strive to strengthen girls’ agency and provide the support and opportunities girls need to thrive.

By Lotte Hughes, with Ernst Graamans

A key question emerging from discussions about ARP is this: what exactly is it a passage to? If we don’t know the answer to that, there is little point in investing in ARP as a rite of passage and alternative to FGM/C.

• Is it a passage to womanhood, as FGM/C is said to be?
• Is it a passage to being uncut, and living as an uncut girl and woman?
• Is it a passage to some other kind of personhood?

As a result of FGM/C, girls are said to transition to women. But not everyone agrees with the wisdom of this claim. Girls clearly don’t become women overnight – either as a result of FGM/C or any alternative rite. They are neither physically nor emotionally ready for womanhood, let alone child-bearing. The danger with assuming ARP instantly transforms girls into women is that parents may consider them eligible for early marriage, and marry them off soon afterwards.

Some practitioners working on FGM/C and ARP feel that the communities they are working with see ARP more as a passage to acceptance of uncut girls and women as full and respected members of the community. But this prompts the question, who decides what is acceptable? And what is the new social structure and framework in which such fundamental social change takes place?

Ernst Graamans is a change management scholar at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, who has carried out collaborative research on ARP in Kenya, and published on this subject. I asked him the following questions. Some of his answers have previously appeared in his published work.

 

Why must ARPs be a rite of passage to something?

Folklorist Arnold Van Gennep in his book The Rites of Passage (first published in English in 1960) divided rites of passage into three phases: a separation phase, a transition phase and incorporation phase. As a change management scholar, I see parallels with Kurt Lewin’s change management model that highlights three stages of change: unfreezing, changing and refreezing. The acronym ARP stands for Alternative Rite of Passage. It can be seen a rite on the one hand, and a planned change intervention on the other. Change interventions have both an underlying rationale for change and an intended effect. In this case, the rationale of ARP is that the circumcision of girls is bad; the intended effect is that girls will not be cut on their private parts; and, most importantly, they can still become fully-fledged members of their community even though they have not undergone FGM/C. This sounds great, but in practice this intervention tends to somewhat over-promise.

 

At the ARPs you have observed, what kind of transition do you think the participants believed this to be?

That really depends on who you ask and also, to some extent, on what the participants think you want to hear. It requires some probing to get to the real story, and even then, that story can change rapidly, even within a single conversation. On the whole, most participants expressed hope that by taking part in these events, things will change for the better, meaning that they won’t be cut and can pursue their dreams. But when I probed further I also noticed what I interpret as a sense of realism, an understanding that change does not happen overnight. None of the girls I interviewed considered themselves to be fully-fledged women after participating in these rites, nor were they considered as such by the elder members of the community. So your question ‘a passage to what?’ is justified and, as far as I know, nobody has a clear answer.

 

What problems does ARP present in terms of transitioning?

The ARPs I observed had two objectives: encouraging people to stop circumcising girls, and also ending child marriage. Both objectives are worthwhile, but the problem is that they are difficult to reconcile within the whole idea of ARP, which is to stop the cut and to do so within the traditional arrangement of which the original rite is part. Traditionally, after undergoing the cut girls were considered women and earned the right to marry (or rather, be married off) and bear children. But if that is not the case any more, what is the use of the rite, whether traditional or alternative, at all?

 

These alternative rites are actually more like ‘alternatives to a rite of passage’, ‘rites of prolonged passage’ or ‘rites of undetermined passage.’ Some would argue that these are not rites of passage at all, but just large-group interventions with limited transferability so long as the social environment to which the participants have to return after the event doesn’t also change in tandem. I don’t have hard data, but I have been told by health workers and community members who have embraced ARP that they are aware of this challenge.

 

How do traditional rites of passage differ in terms of transitioning?

In the traditional rite it was relatively clear what was expected from the girls, both during transitioning and thereafter. To follow Van Gennep, after the transition phase the girls were incorporated into a social arrangement that was set with clear codes of conduct and modes of behaviour. When it comes to the alternative rite that cultural embedding is not there. Put simply, the alternative rite is clear about the don’ts (no more cutting and child marriage) but ambiguous about the do’s thereafter.

 

What challenges does modernity present, with regard to transitioning?

Youngsters all over the world face uncertainties of a kind that their parents never had to face. Some have coined the term ‘waithood’ to describe a state of stagnancy and uncertainty for modern-day youngsters. As a father I also ask myself the question: when will my own children become fully-fledged adults? When they have reached a certain age or earned the right to vote? When they finish their education? When they buy a house? When they get a job?  I honestly don’t know. And that is exactly it. The promise of a better life if one follows a template based on (let’s call it) ‘modernity’ might severely disappoint. In my research I have come across cases where Maasai youngsters chose a return to tradition after the promise of modern schooling, for example, failed them.