Female genital mutilation: Conditions of decline

Female genital mutilation (or femalecircumcision) has been experienced by over 100 millionwomen in sub-Saharan Africa and the Nile valley.Efforts to suppress the practice were made in theearlier decades of the present century, especially bymissionaries in Kenya in the 1920s and early 1930s.Successful indigenous opposition to this activity ledto a cultural relativist attitude toward FGM beingdominant among governments and international bodiesfor the next half century. This situation has changedover the last 20 years as the women's movement has ledan attack on the practice, so that by the mid-1990sall relevant major international bodies andgovernments without exception had committed themselvesto its suppression. Nevertheless, efforts to counterFGM have often been weak and there has been littleevidence of their success. This paper draws on acontinuing research program among the Yoruba peopleof southwest Nigeria to show not only that FGM hasbegun to decline but that this occurrence can beexplained wholly by programs organized by theMinistry of Health and women's organizations. Thefocus of this paper is on the determinants of thischange. These are shown to be: (1) a reduction inceremonies associated with the practice, (2) itsincreasing medicalization, (3) indigenous secularcampaigning based on the provision of information, and(4) a focus on individuals, especially women. There islittle belief that the campaign is an assault on theculture, but rather a growing feeling, especiallyamong those influenced by it, that it would be moreappropriate once such a campaign has begun for it tobe whole-hearted rather than lukewarm.     

The implications of the demographic transition theory for fertility change in Nigeria

Data on educated urban women in Nigeria demonstrate the effect women's education and urbanization has on reproductive behavior, marriage, family formation, and family relationships. Available health services contribute to a fall in infant mortality, but most services are in urban areas. Further, people of high socioeconomic status who have access to modern health services are more concerned about public health problems than those in the low group. Urbanization occurs at a rate of about 11%/year. In Lagos, people with primary education delay marriage 1-2 years longer than those who have no education. Further, 71% of uneducated people in Ibadan who were = or + 38 years old were in a polygynous marriage compared to 38% of educated people in the same age group. The actual and desired family size in Nigeria ranks amoung the highest in the world. In addition, only 20% of the total population use modern contraceptives and usage is highest in Lagos and Ibadan. Most acceptors are educated urban middle class who use contraceptives to space births instead of the traditional spacing methods of postpartum abstinence and prolonged lactation. Eventually more and more urban middle class women will use contraceptives to prevent births. 1% of these acceptors are demographic innovators, however. Further they begin to use contraceptives at high parities. Still child mortality among them is lower than others. Since the late 1970s, as people are being exposed to Western culture, the economy has improved, mortality has fallen, more children attend schools, yet fertility has grown substantially in urban and rural areas. With the expansion of Western education to females, the changing pattern of life style of the educated urban middle class, and increase of women in nontraditional professions, expectations and needs of children will change. Around 2000 Nigeria will begin its demographic transition from high to low fertility.