Demographic and Health Surveys in 16 African countries have shown that the prevalence rate of female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C) is still very high, despite more then 20 years of awareness raising campaigns. This is the result of a combination of causes. AIDOS has build on this critical assessment, leading to an understanding of the practice in terms of power dynamics among women and men, first and before being a practice that violates women\'s human rights and has serious health consequences. The same power dynamics that influence other areas of development, and that contribute to the subordinate role of women. According to AIDOS\' analysis, FGM/C is perceived as a power gaining tool by practicing women, as well as an essential social act by communities under treat of modernisation and identity lost, who therefore continue to submit to the ritual their daughters and girls. In order to brake this spiral, AIDOS is proposing to address FGM/C in terms of women\'s empowerment, through interventions in other development areas that are at the hearth of the basic and strategic needs of women and of the communities they live in: from healthcare and services to access to education, from agricolture to women\'s business incubators, from legal reform to institutional capacity, from HIV/AIDS to gender based violence prevention. This will contribute to build an enabling environment for behavioral change, involving all actors that play a role in keeping the practice alive: husbands, fathers, grandmothers, traditional and religious leaders, peers, and allowing the practice to become a thing of the past.
Conflict of Interest: None disclosed
Financial Support/Funding: None disclosed
Recorded: Sydney, Australia, April 2007
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