Music video rejects all forms of FGM, challenges policing of female body

02.10.17

Monday marked the Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation Day, an annual awareness campaign aimed at ending FGM. In observance of the day, a catchy music video made by the non-profit Integrate U.K. assumed particular pertinence. In the video, titled “#MyClitoris,” a group of girls challenge the constant policing of the female body by society and the media, and reassert control over their own bodies. Putting it frankly the girls sing, “Seems it’s up to us girls to be quite tough … If we need to spell it out, get your mitts off my muff.”

While there is virtual unanimity amongst experts that FGM should be outlawed, and although the UN passed a resolution back in 2012 banning the abuse within its 194 UN Member States, the practice is still widespread. According to the U.N., at least 200 million girls and women have been mutilated and research by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests there has been a threefold increase in the risk of FGM to girls in the U.S. And, as Women in the World reported earlier this week, changing opinions on the practice comes with a unique set of complications.

The video was made in direct response to a highly contentious Op-Ed published last June by The Economist. The author suggested that since the outright banning of FGM wasn’t working, governments should instead focus on prohibiting the very worst forms of the practice, while permitting its less harmful variations, such as “symbolic nick from a trained health worker.” Watch the full video below.