Female Genital Mutilation: An intervention that brings only harm

As health economists, we spend a lot of energy weighing up the costs and benefits of medical interventions, be it pharmaceuticals, surgical interventions, public health programmes or any other activity with the potential to improve health. Common to all of these is the potential to do good for the patient, at the cost of a usually small risk of adverse outcomes.

For this reason, and because I am a father of two young girls who would be at risk in a different geography, working with the WHO Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research to determine the economic burden of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) has been an emotional journey. FGM is the cultural practice of cutting/mutilating female genitalia for no medical reason, with significant pain and lifelong consequences to follow, and with absolutely no benefit. It is usually carried out in young girls, before adolescence.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. It reflects deep-rooted inequality between the sexes and constitutes an extreme form of discrimination against women. It is nearly always carried out on minors and is a violation of the rights of children. It causes only harm, has no medical benefits, and must never be carried out.

Today the 6th February is the International Day of Zero Tolerance for FGM. For the past year, I have been working with Dr. Christina Pallitto of the WHO Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research and her colleagues to untangle the myriad of health complications associated with FGM, build nationally representative cohort models for 27 high burden countries, and project the prevalence and economic burden of FGM 30 years into the future. We have found that, by not acting to abandon FGM now, the number of cases will increase dramatically over the next decades due to population growth. With that growth in cases comes not only an unacceptable growth in human suffering, but also a dramatic increase in health complications and costs. Our model suggests the economic burden of FGM, across 27 countries, may be as high as US$ 1.4bn per year today, and will be over US$ 2bn per year in 30 years.

To raise awareness of FGM and the associated economic burden, we are releasing the FGM Cost Calculator, a user-friendly online interface to the model which allows users to understand the consequences of action and, more importantly, inaction.

To learn more about FGM, you can listen to Director-General of WHO Dr. Tedros statement on Youtube, go and try the FGM Cost Calculator, and most importantly help #EndFGM on #ZeroToleranceDay by Tweeting, posting and like'ing!