This thesis used female genital mutilation as a lens through which the effectiveness of the current laws aimed at protecting women and girls can be explored.

Following the First World War, colonial policy in West Africa underwent a transition as British administrators began to adopt indirect rule reforms to help usher in peasant-driven agricultural development in Northern Ghana. This thesis addresses the impact of these important policy changes on women and children through a study of local colonial and indigenous responses to four bodily practices: female circumcision, human trafficking (female pawning and illicit adoption), nudity and prostitution. Although much has been written about colonial and post-independence legislation of the female body, especially the female circumcision controversy in Kenya and prostitution in the mines and cities of east and southern Africa, few historical studies have fully considered the role of West African development doctrine, or the importance of ‘tradition’ and ‘community’, in colonial policies affecting women and children in Northern Ghana. Through a Parliamentary inquiry in 1930, West African departments came to reluctantly engage with questions of women and children’s status. Collectively, they decided that a gradualist path which sought to preserve community or ‘tribal’ cohesion was preferable to legislation promoting individual rights and civil society. This thesis situates this reluctance to introduce potentially destabilizing legislation in the context of development doctrine in northern Ghana. This thesis focusses on the north-eastern borderland corridor of northern Ghana where in the 1930s anthropologists and district officials investigated questions of female circumcision and as a solution to Parliamentary inquiry, sought to encourage a milder form practiced in infancy, rather than adolescence. The refusal to legislate reflected West African officials’ privileging of ‘community’ over the ‘individual’ and was repeated in their responses to ‘undesirable practices’, including nudity, pawning, and in post-independence times, illicit adoption and prostitution. In exploring state officials’ handling of these practices in a gradualist manner, this thesis illuminates the connections between development doctrine and the role of the male colonial gaze in managing undesirable practices in north-eastern Ghana, West Africa. / Thesis (Ph.D, History) -- Queen's University, 2014-04-03 14:33:00.037

This qualitative research study explores female circumcision within the Canadian community perspective. / Issues examined in the literature review include: the historical background of the practice, its cultural and religious implications, its effects on health, existing social pressures to continue or discontinue the practice and the subjective constructions of majority and minority identities, perspectives and interactions in Canada's multicultural society. / For the purposes of this study majority/minority relations are explored in terms of the interactions between an immigrant community from a FC practicing country and the mainstream community in Canada. The Somali community has been chosen for this case study as the one best known to the author and as one in whose country of origin available statistics indicate a 98% prevalence rate of FC. Canadian mainstream reactions to this practice are analyzed through media reporting and statements from Somalis in Canada describing their interactions with the mainstream community on this issue. / Members of the Somali community in Montreal, Quebec and Ottawa, Ontario were interviewed in order to cover as wide an area as possible, including difference in provinces. The following six themes were chosen after data analysis: the Effects of FC on Health, the Cultural Orientation of FC, Religious Beliefs Regarding FC, Social Pressures, A Sense of Differentness and Efforts to Discourage the Practice of FC. These themes are discussed with special attention being paid to 'differentness' and the mechanisms or coping skills developed to deal with this complex social phenomenon which involves opposing values, beliefs and perceptions. / In its final section, the study examines the social work implications of the findings which address intercultural fears, anxieties and the dynamics of power involved in the way the FC issue has been addressed in Canada. / Practice, program and policy recommendations with regard to discouraging FC practice are made at the end of the thesis. / The study concludes with the observation that the debate around FC in Canada is much wider than the issue itself and that the practice has been sensationalized in a manner which has emphasized perceptions of differentness which exist in our society. No constructive dialogue will be possible around this issue until the issue of differentness is addressed, and mutual fears and anxieties evoked by the perception of differentness are dealt with in a sensitive manner, in both immigrant and mainstream communities.

This thesis used female genital mutilation as a lens through which the effectiveness of the current laws aimed at protecting women and girls can be explored.

Magister Legum - LLM / This thesis used female genital mutilation as a lens through which the effectiveness of the current laws aimed at protecting women and girls can be explored. / South Africa

Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for The Degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Community Psychology) Faculty of Arts University of Zululand, 2010. / The lives of individuals in all societies are a series of passages from one age to another and from one occupation to the other. Among the Vhavenda, there are fine distinctions among age or occupational groups and progression from one group to the next is accompanied by special rituals enveloped in ceremonies which involve actions that are clearly regulated and guarded so that the entire society suffer no discomfort or injury. The research explores and describes the lived experiences of Vha-Venda initiated women in the rural areas of Mashau, Mashawana and Shayandima village in Limpopo Province, South Africa. The perception that transition practices, otherwise known as initiation rituals or rites of passage, are only practiced in the ‘traditional’ societies because it is believed to be where the culture is embedded. This study draws on qualitative research principles based on the ethnographic approach. This research explores and describes the lived experiences of initiation of Venda women that is practiced and currently being implemented in the three villages that is, Mashau, Mashawana and Shayandima village in Limpopo Province, South Africa. As a result, this study is informed by the qualitative data gathered during the initial stages of the research with the assistance of research guides. The core material in this study emerges from in depth, semi-structured interviews conducted during individual interviews and focus group interviews with fifteen initiated women and two research guides between the age of thirty and sixty. The research guides, with special knowledge of the culture assisted the researcher on the process and activities of the initiation and also informed the researcher about the venues where certain rituals take place and also assisted in translation of certain phrases for clarification. In compliance with research ethics, the identities of the respondents remain confidential through the use of pseudonyms. The research concludes that the lived experiences of women initiation are private and one is strictly prohibited to talk about them, especially with uninitiated women. The aim is to portray the traditional social and cultural ritual proposed to be learnt and preserved. In this study, the researcher’s findings are that: Conformity, compliance and obedience with the initiation rituals can save a person from embarrassment in Limpopo Province where initiation is practiced. Participants reported that women are silenced and forbidden to talk about initiation outside ‘dombani’ with the uninitiated women. They reported that the initiation ritual is secret and thus a taboo to talk about it. Initiates are prohibited to disclose what happens during the initiation process. In contrast, uninitiated women viewed the ritual as barbaric and promiscuous. The initiated indicated that they were forced to attend because of fear of rejection, discrimination and isolation by the community. Other participants agreed to have attended for the sake of acceptance, though they believed to have gained knowledge about understanding womanhood. Most of the women mentioned that although it was some years that they had attended the initiation school, they still carried the burden of anger, shame, humiliation, frustration, low-self esteem, sense of helplessness and lack confidence and still find it hard to share their experiences or talk about them. The researcher concurs with the participants and Stayt (1968) that initiated women are denied freedom of expression. It is sticky prohibited to talk or share the initiation experiences with the non- initiated let alone discuss it outside dombani. Thereby, the aim, and its concomitant 4 objectives, have been thoroughly explored and achieved.

Allegations by the Canadian media that the Canadian-Somali population has been continuing its traditional practice of Female Circumcision (FC) or Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Canada despite its illegality was questioned in this thesis. Through qualitative interviews undertaken with fourteen members of the Somali community in Southern Ontario, it was discovered that the respondents do not believe the practice is being continued in Canada. Their views concur with those of the Ministry of Health -Canada which claims that to date, not a single case ofFC/FGM being performed in Canada has been substantiated. The respondents credit their voluntary abandonment of the practice primarily to anti-FGM campaigns that were supported in the urban regions of Somalia from the 1970s until the onset of the Somali civil war in the late 1980s. A secondary deterrent is the fact that the practice is illegal in Canada. Present anti-FGM programs in Canada were deemed necessary by the respondents to reach the minority of individuals who might seek to continue the practice in Canada. Such programs, however, also serve to provide support to circumcised women living in Canada, as well as to provide education about health care in general. Non-FC/FGM related health concerns were deemed more pressing to the Canadian-Somali community, namely, lack of employment, overcrowded living conditions, and inability to access proper health care. Consequently, the respondents were critical of the Canadian media's approach to FC/FGM since the media has neglected to consider other, and in their view, more immediate health concerns faced by the Canadian-Somali community. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

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