Statement on FGM of the Director-General to the World Health Organisation's Global Commission on Women's Health, 12th April 1994

' ... I shall take the example of excision. Just denouncing the practice can make some of us feel better and self-righteous but it certainly does not solve the problem. Our purpose should not be to criticise and condemn. Nor can we remain passive, in the name of some bland version of multi-culturalism. We know that the practice of genital mutilation is painful and can have dire consequences on the health of the baby girl and, later on, of the woman. But we must always work from the assumption that human behaviours and cultural values, however senseless or destructive they may look to us from our particular personal and cultural standpoints, have meaning and fulfil a function for those who practise them. People will change their behaviour only when they themselves perceive the new practices proposed as meaningful and functional as the old ones. Therefore, what we must aim for is to convince people, including women, that they can give up a specific practice without giving up meaningful aspects of their own cultures.

Experience shows, for example, that many people in the societies concerned do not naturally see the link between genital mutilation suffered by a woman in her childhood and the pain, infections and health problems she may suffer in her later years. Our first task must be to document this link, and then to inform people very simply and clearly about it. It is for us to explain how and why the ritual practice does not prevent but, in its most severe forms, may in fact increase the risk of infertility. Parents are much the same everywhere: given the chance, they want the best for their children. They will accept the changes proposed once they realise that these are in the best interests of their children and that, together with better health, their daughters are more likely to enjoy a successful social and economic future.

The same approach could apply whenever we want to induce sustainable changes in harmful dietary habits and lifestyles, or to promote safe sex and condoms, family planning, children's treatment with oral rehydration salts, hygiene, immunization, rational drug use, etc. It must be our responsibility to present the changes proposed in such a way that they can make sense to the people themselves and fit in with their own social, cultural and economic environments ... '