Against the argument that women willingly choose FGM for their daughters, UNICEF calls the practice a "self-enforcing social convention" to which families feel they must conform to avoid uncut daughters facing social exclusion.
Ellen Gruenbaum reported that, in Sudan in the 1970s, cut girls from an Arab ethnic group would mock uncut Zabarma girls with Ya, Ghalfa! ("
Hey, unclean!").
The Zabarma girls would respond Ya, mutmura! (
A mutmara was a storage pit for grain that was continually opened and closed, like an infibulated woman.)
But despite throwing the insult back, the Zabarma girls would ask their mothers, "What's the matter?
Don't we have razor blades like the Arabs?"

Because of poor access to information, and because circumcisers downplay the causal connection, women may not associate the health consequences with the procedure.
Lala Baldé, president of a women's association in Medina Cherif, a village in Senegal, told Mackie in 1998 that when girls fell ill or died, it was attributed to evil spirits.
When informed of the causal relationship between FGM and ill health, Mackie wrote, the women broke down and wept.
He argued that surveys taken before and after this sharing of information would show very different levels of support for FGM.
The American non-profit group Tostan, founded by Molly Melching in 1991, introduced community-empowerment programs in several countries that focus on local democracy, literacy, and education about healthcare, giving women the tools to make their own decisions.
In 1997, using the Tostan program, Malicounda Bambara in Senegal became the first village to abandon FGM.
By August 2019, 8,800 communities in eight countries had pledged to abandon FGM and child marriage.
Against the argument that women willingly choose FGM for their daughters, UNICEF calls the practice a "self-enforcing social convention" to which families feel they must conform to avoid uncut daughters facing social exclusion. Ellen Gruenbaum reported that, in Sudan in the 1970s, cut girls from an Arab ethnic group would mock uncut Zabarma girls with Ya, Ghalfa! ("Hey, unclean!"). The Zabarma girls would respond Ya, mutmura! (A mutmara was a storage pit for grain that was continually opened and closed, like an infibulated woman.) But despite throwing the insult back, the Zabarma girls would ask their mothers, "What's the matter? Don't we have razor blades like the Arabs?"
Because of poor access to information, and because circumcisers downplay the causal connection, women may not associate the health consequences with the procedure. Lala Baldé, president of a women's association in Medina Cherif, a village in Senegal, told Mackie in 1998 that when girls fell ill or died, it was attributed to evil spirits. When informed of the causal relationship between FGM and ill health, Mackie wrote, the women broke down and wept. He argued that surveys taken before and after this sharing of information would show very different levels of support for FGM. The American non-profit group Tostan, founded by Molly Melching in 1991, introduced community-empowerment programs in several countries that focus on local democracy, literacy, and education about healthcare, giving women the tools to make their own decisions. In 1997, using the Tostan program, Malicounda Bambara in Senegal became the first village to abandon FGM. By August 2019, 8,800 communities in eight countries had pledged to abandon FGM and child marriage.
Female genital mutilation