124:, followed on November 6, 1997. He went to Malicounda Bambara to express his alarm but he was sent away and told to speak first to the women of his own village. Diawara took this advice and he saw the benefits of change. The women told him things that he had never known. He knew that his niece was mentally ill and his sister-in-law was not able to have children, circumstances that he attributed to FGC. He never knew how much it hurt and he had never seen what an uncut woman looked like. Diawara wanted his village to follow their lead but he foresaw two problems. He realised that other villages would still consider his village's girls unclean because they were not cut and these girls may have to remain unmarried. He realised that he needed to look at the whole of the village's extended social network if they were to create permanent change. The second problem was that this subject needed to be raised delicately. Some activists used explicit images and they condemned the traditions and those villagers who had, in good faith, observed them for generations.
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Diawara had to raise a delicate subject and persuade the local social network. He decided to just present the facts and to not suggest a conclusion. He was able to mention that this was a secular and not a religious tradition. Diawara's approach was later used as a model of change-management by the
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in their training of activists. Diawara's views were not universally welcomed. Some lamented the loss of tradition and saw
Hillary Clinton's speech as "white people" telling Africans what to do. Diawara's approach grew and in 1999, another multilateral declaration involved 105 villages with an
202:. This agreement resolved the problem identified by Diawara because it meant that girls and boys could find partners from other villages. Amongst the crowd was the woman who had performed the cutting and despite losing her income she was committed to the change.
191:. Diawara chose the village of Diabougou as the site of the ceremony. Previously villages had made this commitment following external support from charities like Tostan but Diawara was able to use his own resources to create this cultural commitment to change.
140:"A person's family is not their village. The family includes one's entire social network: their relatives in many surrounding villages, in all of the places they marry ... If you truly want to bring about widespread change ... they must all be involved"
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who was then the president) gave a speech against FGC on 2 April in
Senegal which attracted international coverage. Diawara's approach to communicating with his social network was later used as a model by the anti-FGC charity
187:(FGC). The villages had an estimated total population of 8,000 people. Diawara had organised the first multi-lateral commitment to end FGC in Senegal. The declaration had been organised by Diawara and the charity
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estimated total population of 80,000 people. The
Senegalese government outlawed the practice, but laws may not effect a whole village's traditions in the same way as Diawara's persuasion.
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Diawara's solution achieved international recognition and attention. On 14 February 1998 fifty representatives from thirteen villages met at
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Diawara, his nephew and the woman who did the cutting in his village walked to spread the message. They used
Diawara's
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Diawara was born in about 1931. He is an imam and a chief of the small, but now well known, village of
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to abandon FGC in 1997 and he led his village and many more to the first multilateral announcement at
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80:. He is known for his leadership in encouraging village communities to abandon the tradition of
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136:. Diawara visited distant relatives from his paternal line and from his maternal line. He said
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297:, Rina Jimenez-David, 4 December 2011, Philippine Daily Inquirer, Retrieved 23 December 2015
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Diawara had been initially concerned in 1997 when he heard that the nearby village of
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The agreement was translated into other languages but it was first drafted in the
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407:, Gannon Gillespie,22 August 2013, The Guardian, Retrieved 21 August 2015
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The Coming
African Hour: Dialectics of Opportunities and Constraints
432:, Vivienne Walt, 1998, Washington Times, Retrieved 23 August 2015
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Female "circumcision" in Africa: Culture, Controversy, and Change
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was declaring that it intended to stop the
Bambara tradition of
84:. He knew of the first declarations at the Senegalse village of
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Kill the
Messenger: The Media's Role in the Fate of the World
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February 14, 1998: The First Inter-Village Public
Declaration
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Ending female genital mutilation, one household at a time
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Bettina Shell-Duncan; Ylva
Hernlund (1 January 2000).
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First Lady promotes fight against female circumcision
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377:. African Books Collective. pp. 160–161.
252:. Lynne Rienner Publishers. pp. 257–259.
444:, 2 April 1998, BBC, Retrieved 23 August 2015
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282:, Tostan.org "blog", Retrieved 21 August 2015
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486:Activists against female genital mutilation
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418:La Décennie qui a fait reculer l'excision.
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312:Geraldine Terry; Joanna Hoare (2007).
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210:Weeks after the Diagoubou declaration
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128:Multilateral declaration and solution
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56:leadership of villages to renounce
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344:Maria Armoudian (23 August 2011).
108:Unilateral declaration and problem
16:Senegalese imam and village leader
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318:. Oxfam. pp. 74–75.
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481:People from Thiès Region
183:to end the tradition of
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185:Female Genital Cutting
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118:female genital cutting
82:female genital cutting
72:and village leader of
58:Female Genital Cutting
371:Luc Sindjoun (2010).
315:Gender-based Violence
179:near the border with
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68:(born c. 1931) is an
420:UNICEF: 2008, p. 26.
163:, Demba Diawara and
120:. A second village,
104:in western Senegal.
48:no formal education
466:Senegalese Muslims
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161:Lynne Featherstone
114:Malicounda Bambara
86:Malicounda Bambara
384:978-0-7983-0230-2
357:978-1-61614-388-6
325:978-0-85598-602-5
259:978-1-55587-995-2
145:anti-FGC charity
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216:her husband
165:Khalidou Sy
37:Nationality
455:Categories
228:References
40:Senegalese
177:Diabougou
92:in 1998.
90:Diabougou
45:Education
171:in 2013
78:Senegal
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221:Tostan
206:Legacy
189:Tostan
147:Tostan
32:c.1931
214:(and
379:ISBN
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320:ISBN
254:ISBN
181:Mali
96:Life
70:imam
29:Born
167:in
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
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