The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA

Abstract #50354

Patricia Akweongo, MS¹, Fred Binka, MD², Evelyn Sakeah, BA¹, Cornelius Debpuur, PhD¹, and James Phillips, PhD³. (1) Navrongo Health Research Centre, P.O. Box 114, Navrongo, UER, Ghana, 233 742 22310, pakweongo@navrongo.mimcom.net, (2) University of Ghana School of Public Health, Parakuo Estates, 10 Joe Reindorf Street, Dome, Accra, Ghana, (3) Policy Research Division, Population Council, 1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, New York, NY 10017

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is reportedly practiced in 28 African countries. In northern Ghana, FGM is found among several groups, though it is absent among groups in southern Ghana. Excision, an intermediate form of the operation reportedly associated with delivery complications and genital infection, is the main type of FGM found among the Kassena-Nankana.

FGM, viewed as a harmful traditional practice, is opposed by the international community and women’s groups in Ghana. Ghana was the first independent African nation to legislate against FGM with a specific prohibition in 1994. However, FGM among rural residents of the Kassena-Nankana District appears to have been declining for some time.

The NHRC intervention was created to hasten the decline of the practice of FGM in outlying rural villages. The program is broad-based, with strategies including education of adolescent girls about reproductive health and FGM, livelihood training to create opportunities, community-wide educational programming, and formation of educational groups of adolescent boys and older women in the community. A baseline survey of 3,200 girls aged 12-19 in 1999, prior to implementation of the intervention, and a follow-up survey in 2000 are used for analysis. Despite an ambitious program of community outreach and activities focusing on adolescent girls, the experiment shows no impact among 500 girls in the experimental area in the first year of project activities. Denial of circumcision status made analysis problematic, and implications of denial for further research are discussed. Long-range prospects for social change remain to be evaluated.

Learning Objectives:

• Assess FGM intervention strategies and their reported results from programs throughout Africa.
• Discuss major theories from the field of Anthropology used to explain the practice of FGM and how they informed development of an intervention strategy to hasten the decline of FGM in a rural area of northern Ghana.
• Understand and evaluate the effectiveness of the components of an FGM intervention strategy tested in a rural community of northern Ghana.

Keywords: Female Genital Mutilation, Interventions

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.