ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that preventing FGM is axiomatically better than prosecuting perpetrators. It takes a health and law perspective through consideration of two significant projects. First, one-to-one interviews with FGM survivors as part of a PhD thesis and, second, a community FGM education project. It is based on a collection of works by the authors where we argue that the use of law in the UK may have reached its outer limits in the ability to prevent FGM and that a combined health and law approach through a joint public health upstream strategy aimed at protecting women and girls through eradication may be a way to reach the United Nations’ “Sustainable Development Goals to eradicate FGM.” FGM prevention is as much a public health matter as it is a matter of personal health for those affected by it. The chapter suggests that Haddon’s matrix, a framework typically used in analyzing “injury events,” could be applied to better understand stages of intervention and the impact on the host (individual at risk), the agent (cause of injury), and the environment (both physical and social). This chapter seeks to find sustainable strategies to eradicate FGM and to make the world a happier place.
