FGM Awareness Project in Erbil

Services Provided: FGM awareness school workshops and community focused media campaign, “Stop FGM Practices”

Timeline: April 2015-September 2015

Female Genital Mutilation, FGM, is a long-standing cultural practice that involves the cutting of the clitoris and/or inner and outer labias of young girls. The practice of FGM is rooted in gender inequality as it is used to control women’s sexuality and maintain their purity till marriage. This practice is carried out on girls aged 4-14 years old, and it is routinely done in secret. Bleeding to death or dying from infection are possible results.

It is believed that FGM is a far less common practice within modern and large cities, such as Erbil, and more rooted in rural areas. This is a major misconception. According to recent studies carried out by KRG Ministry of Health, the fraction of women suffered from FGM is as high as 72% in 2013. This shockingly high percentage of women and girls experiencing FGM in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq needs to be challenged by programmatic intervention.

Those who undergo FGM will often suffer severe pain and shock, bleeding, infection, urine retention and injury to adjacent tissue. FGM is carried out by untrained women with no medical knowledge in unsanitised and unclean conditions. In the long-term women and girls who have undergone FGM can have problems during menstruation, complications in pregnancy and cysts and scarring. FGM has been shown to cause problems with childbirth and can cause the death of the baby and mother. FGM can be emotionally very damaging. Some girls and women go on to suffer emotional distress, sexual problems and post-traumatic stress.

WRO implements FGM awareness campaigns throughout Erbil to abolish the harmful practice by raising awareness and increase receptiveness amongst  communities on the laws and regulations criminalizing FGM as stated in KRG law. WRO facilitators and religious leaders, such as Mr. Mustafa Zelmi,  work together to educate women and girls explaining how FGM practice are not mandated by religious beliefs and are harmful to society.

WRO works to strengthen the voices of women and their agency by providing the space for women to speak out about FGM through community workshops and school workshops that coordinated with the Ministry of Health to reach intermediate school age girls to educate about the risk of FGM. Coordinating with village representatives, workshops that gather both men and women are facilitated to ensure the message is delivered to all.  In order to spread the message of eradicating practices of FGM throughout the community, WRO created a TV campaign, “Stop FGM Practices” on local television stations.