How Reframing An Age Old Problem Helped Drive Change

Market background

A Cut-Happy Nation

You probably have heard of the term Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) before. However, in case you haven’t, you are probably not alone. Female genital mutilation (FGM) comprises all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injuries to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. At its mildest, it is life-threatening, and at its extreme, it equals death. Sadly, 1 out of every 10 cases globally happens to a Nigerian female, the highest rate in the world (UNISEF, 2015)

The South is Red

It got even more surreal when we looked at the concentration of where cuts happen in Nigeria. As seen in the “blood map” below, it is literally a bloodbath for women and girls in the southern part of Nigeria, with Osun state being the epicenter. 

For context, according to the 2016 population census, there were approximately 43 million women and girls in the southern part of Nigerian (Nigerian Bureau Statistics). Around the same period, approximately 20 million Nigerian women and girls had been mutilated, most of which were in the south (UNISEF, 2016). Southern Nigerian was bleeding, and the only silver lining for us was that the data showed us where to direct our efforts and the channels to use.

Speaking of channels, internet, and smartphone penetration was way higher in the south (SOURCE), as such leveraging digital in tandem with other reach oriented channels was a no brainer, but more on that later.

Challenge and business objectives

Culture, Religion, Science, It’s All Blood

Like with most things that have to do with culture, it is difficult to say precisely when different tribes started FGM. What is more evident however was that the perpetrators were wary of being labeled culture-killers if it ended on their watch; No one wanted to be the demise of culture. 

More so, the act had also found some backing with some religions, thereby making it even more difficult to fight. For a long time, one of the strongest arguments against FGM had been the danger to life it posed due to the crude and unhealthy manner with which it is carried out by local cutters. In more recent times, however, even educated people have paid trained medical practitioners to carry out this process.

With this one thing was clear, this wasn’t an issue that affected the less educated alone. It was a culture deep problem that transcends education or wealth

A Common Thread

To really place our hands on why this act held so much sway, we tracked down a couple of local cutters to hear their side of the story. 

What we found out was telling, as it coincided with what we had been hinted at by some matriarchs in our research process. The most pervasive reason for this was to reduce the sexual drive of the girl child for her not to “sleep around” before she is rightfully married. As eccentric as this sounded, it was the strongest hold in most parts - a supposed drive to help the girl child keep her innocence.

The Problem? How do we show that cutting girls does no good to them, rather the reverse is the case?

An Insight in Plain Sight

There are a lot of gender-based social issues Nigerians contend with. However, sexual assault, and particularly rape is the one mostly frowned at, at least publically. Unlike FGM, no one dares to excuse it. Even the worse of people agree it is a crime, and against minors, it is a brutal war on their innocence. If we were to spur a collective change, we needed an insight that turned FGM on its head, one that showed that FGM isn’t a positive, rather, it is negative.

Society believe they are helping a girl when she is mutilated but when a girl/woman is cut, she is violated and her innocence is stripped from her

Strategy

At this point the strategy almost wrote itself; reframe the problem - show that FGM defeats the purpose for which it is practiced. Rather than help maintain the girl child’s innocence, the act brutally takes it

Get FGM Apologists

Who See the act as for the good of the girl/woman

To Stop the cut

By Showing how FGM snatches a girls innocence

Execution

A Story Rooted in Culture

On the International Day for Zero Tolerance for FGM (6th February 2021), we shook Nigerians. We told a story with a dose of misdirection across channels. For our film (online and TV), we showed how different members of the family cooperated to “defile” the girl child, as in most cases of FGM, the closes family members (Mother, Father, Grand Parents) are the culprits.

For our prints and online displays, we leaned into the insight and the misdirection trope by highlighting the excuses given for FGM by its apologists, but in a way that suggested “defilement”. This was adapted for billboards and digital banners to great effect.

It would have been naive for us to stop here as this needed more humph, so we engaged key stakeholders to lend their voices in a series of webinars and talk shows. This included the United Nations, government officials, consultants, young victims, even men, as well as traditional leaders; chief amongst them was the Queen of Ile-Ife, which is the epicenter of FGM in Nigeria. Her willful involvement not just validated our campaign, but gave girl and women the confidence to seek help.

The initial campaign ran for 4 weeks, but we remain steadfast with continuous stakeholder engagement and grassroots education for FGM to be totally eradicated.

Results

This was a contentious campaign that few could back, as such, much of what we achieved was organic. We had 2,410,062 social media impressions, 505,062 organic reaches. Compared to most campaigns, that looks meager. But when you put into context uplift in calls for help, which was our key metric, this picture is way brighter - Average monthly call-ins for help grew from 3 to 270.

In all, we triggered a much-needed conversation. How could we tell? Young women in their numbers began to speak up online about their FGM experiences. Interestingly, It got to a point where the Queen of Ife (generally seen as a custodian of culture) weighed in on the conversation to say “If you do not plug out the eyes of a man who has wandering eyes, why cut a girl child who is not even yet of age”.

Case Video