According to a recent poll, 65% of people in Yemen think that new laws are the solution to Yemen’s FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) problem. The other options that were offered in the poll were education and religious training. We’ll ignore for the time being that FGM is already “illegal’ in Yemen, I think that this poll shows that people still have a real faith in government power. Why I have no idea. With problems like this, top down “solutions” just don’t work. The laws are unenforceable. If you want to make a change in this area, it has to come from the bottom up. For me, education is the key. In a really religious place like this, religious education might help as well, but I would hope that pure humanitarian reasons would be enough to stop FGM. My gut feeling is that until women have some power in these countries, not much will change….
Categories