1378: Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) | Skeptical Sunday

13:02Jessica Wynn:So why does it matter what we call it? Honestly, I'm not losing sleep over offending anybody about this. If you're cutting little girls, I'm calling it mutilation by some Stone Age-ass religious psycho or whatever. There are just some traditions that deserve to be judged out of existence.

13:17Jordan Harbinger:Absolutely. And you're in really good company thinking that. That's exactly why the World Health Organization, the UN, most human rights organizations use the word mutilation. They want to make it just so clear that this isn't a cultural curiosity. It's certainly not a medical procedure. There's no bones about it. It is a human rights violation. So the debate isn't whether the practice is horrific. It's about how to have the conversation about it that doesn't make practicing communities feel attacked.

13:52Jessica Wynn:So now we're balancing two things, moral clarity and actually persuading people to stop this madness.

13:57Jordan Harbinger:Exactly. And human rights organizations tend to prioritize moral clarity. Some community health workers prioritize persuasion because, you know, in some communities, the word mutilation, it sounds like a personal accusation instead of an invitation to reconsider the practice. You know, tell parents here in America that male circumcision is mutilation and watch how quickly people stop listening.

14:23Jessica Wynn:Yeah. So it's funny because I'll admit it, this exact type of conversation did change my mind. I was when I was born in 1980, I was circumcised, I guess, because everyone was probably back then.

14:34Jordan Harbinger:It was just done. Yeah.

14:36Jessica Wynn:And my mom was Jewish, but non-practicing. I don't think that played any role in it. I think the doctor was just like, all right, we're going to do this unless you have some weird objection. She was like, I don't know. I'm loopy on fentanyl or whatever they give you when you give birth. So do what you got to do. My son is not circumcised. Sorry, Jaden, I'm putting your business out there. But basically we did, I would say, a lot of research, but even a couple of hours, Like the most cursory amount of research will show you that the procedure is quite antiquated and mostly unnecessary if you don't have some other issues and you live in the Western world and you wash yourself and stuff like that.

15:08Jessica Wynn:So we just we opted out of it. I just felt like there was no real medical reason for it here in the 21st century. And if that changes, you can always get circumcised as an adolescent or a teenager or an adult, but you can't go the other way. There's no restoration. There's no reliable way to restore it. I know people try, but it's, you know, it's not quite the same.

15:27Jordan Harbinger:That's actually a perfect example. Nobody told your parents that they were monsters for circumcising you. Right. But when presented with information you'd never really considered before, you know, when it came time to make that decision yourself, you made a different one. So there's another side to all this when the idea of circumcision surprises people, too, in other cultures.

15:48Jessica Wynn:Well, yeah, I when I was an exchange student in Germany, it was 1997, 1998. and they have co-ed saunas there, which was really surprising. I walked into the sauna and there was a bunch of old ladies in there and I was like, oh my God, I'm sorry. And they're like, what? And I was like, wait. And I went out and I came back in and then there was an old man in there and I was like, okay, so everybody's just mixed, huh? And they were like, yeah, oh, you're American, haha. And I remember looking around and all the, you know, everyone's naked. I remember this exact moment because I was like, what is wrong with everyone's penis?

16:21Jessica Wynn:you're 18, 17, whatever years old. And you're like, I've seen almost everything in the world. Why am I seeing something that I just is so confusing that I haven't what like what is going on here? Why is every and then I was like, Oh, right. That's what a foreskin looks like. I've never seen one before. Right. I just never knew about it. And so then I told my host brother, I was like, Hey, it's the circumcision thing is crazy. And he's like, Yeah, kind of looks like you're like this oddity and we must look like aliens too and i was like yeah it's so weird and so we had he had a birthday party at the house and we were talking about how weird it is that everyone's circumcised i'm not sorry and i remember the girls were like well i want to see it i've never seen a circumcised penis before and i was like what and i remember my brother was like dude you have this is this is your chance you know you get to like just whip it out in the living room it's science it's for science so i remember one of my friends was like wait let me get you another beer because you're definitely we you you have to do this like and it wasn't just the girls by the way it was the guys were like i'm also curious because remember this is like maybe you could download your email from aol if you had internet but there wasn't like you couldn't just google what this looked like there wasn't international porn everywhere that you could see on the internet

17:38Jordan Harbinger:right this is like way before that and you didn't have to worry about people posting pics of there There was no camera phones back then.

17:45Jessica Wynn:Nothing. So it was just like no one had seen it and nobody and the curiosity was overwhelming. And it was there was no consequence other than people talking about my penis at school, which was like I would pay to have that kind of publicity. Right. And in the 90s. So, yeah, that was my introduction to the fact that there's other there's a whole world of other dicks out there that just look like alien look like anteater trunks to me.

18:09Jordan Harbinger:Right. And it happens on the other extreme, too, where when circumcision is really normal in America. I mean, we both know a gentleman who was not circumcised at birth. He does comedy bits about it. So we're not talking out of turn here. Sure. But when he was a teenager and he started seeing other guys in the locker room, he felt out of place because he wasn't circumcised and everybody else was. I mean, I just think it's so wild. He went to his parents as a teenager and was circumcised at 16. I mean, it's astounding what we'll do to our bodies to fit in, you know.

18:48Jessica Wynn:I would imagine he regrets that as an adult or maybe doesn't care.

18:51Jordan Harbinger:He does. And I will. It does make him have a very unique penis. I will say. I've heard.

18:59Jessica Wynn:I've heard. So I've heard. Yeah. Unlike the rest of this entire episode, the following ads are safe for work. We'll be right back. This episode is sponsored by Dell and AMD. Your encrypted data may be secure today, but will it be secure tomorrow? Episode 16 of the Cybersecurity Tapes explores a growing threat facing organizations with sensitive, long-lived information. Attackers stealing encrypted files now and storing them until quantum computers may be able to crack them. In this episode, a pharmaceutical company is preparing to launch a potentially groundbreaking cancer treatment. After infiltrating a third-party partner, attackers copy the company's encrypted research archives.

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21:46Jessica Wynn:Don't forget about our newsletter, We Bit Wiser. It's a two-minute read every Wednesday, almost. Highly practical and something that'll change the course of your week, day, or possibly even the whole month. JordanHarbinger.com slash news is where you can find it. Now back to Skeptical Sunday. Okay, so with the female genital mutilation, back to the topic at hand here, which is not the same thing as circumcision, how big of a problem are we actually talking about here? What are the, what's the scale of this?

22:11Jordan Harbinger:I mean, the numbers are staggering. I was blown away. And the statistics are actually getting worse, not better. So the United Nations estimates 230 million girls and women alive today have undergone FGM.

22:27Jessica Wynn:Wait, 230 million currently alive, not like throughout all of human history. Currently today. I guess I just thought it was a tiny isolated practice in a handful of sub-Saharan African villages in Sudan or something. I just thought this was much more niche.

22:43Jordan Harbinger:I mean, that's what most people think. That's what I thought before I dove into this, for sure.

22:48Jessica Wynn:I thought you were going to say a few hundred thousand or like single digit millions, not 230 million. So 230 million, that's really hard to wrap your mind around. I mean, that's like close to the population of the United States. You know, it's that's crazy to me.

23:03Jordan Harbinger:Yeah. And that figure has increased by 15 percent. That's like 30 million more cases over the past eight years alone. So more than two million girls undergo FGM every single year, often before their fifth birthday, sometimes within just days of being born.

23:23Jessica Wynn:Days of being born. That has to be a dangerous procedure for a newborn. Come on. And by the way, the population of the U.S., for those wondering, is like 345 million. So 230 million women is more women that are in the United States have had this done. This is crazy to me. So days of being born again, like that sounds super dangerous to me.

23:42Jordan Harbinger:It definitely is. And the reason the numbers keep climbing isn't because the rate is necessarily increasing everywhere. It's because the population in the places where FGM is most common are growing rapidly. Like sub-Saharan Africa and parts of the Arab states, they're experiencing the fastest population growth on Earth. And by 2050, the number of girls born annually in those regions is projected to increase by over 60%. So even if the rate of FGM slowly falls, the number of girls affected can still go up. So in 2026, in this year, nearly four and a half million girls are at risk of undergoing FGM.

24:28Jordan Harbinger:More than half of them are under five years old.

24:32Jessica Wynn:And if the current trends hold?

24:33Jordan Harbinger:If things continue at the current pace, the numbers will rise and millions of girls will continue to be subjected to FGM. The global target is elimination by 2030, which that's approaching fast. So to meet that target, progress needs to accelerate 27 times faster than it's currently moving. That's a whole generation of girls.

24:57Jessica Wynn:An entire generation. So FGM probably is not a standalone practice. I have a feeling if a culture is doing this to girls, it's probably not the only terrible thing happening to these girls in that culture. Is that safe? Yeah.

25:10Jordan Harbinger:Unfortunately, yeah, you're right. One of the strongest connections is child marriage. FGM and child marriage are often two parts of the same system. So the cutting is meant just to prepare the girl. And the marriage reinforces the social value of the cutting. So you really can't understand one without the other.

25:31Jessica Wynn:So it's not just about one cultural practice. It's about a whole infrastructure of beliefs about what girls and women are for. Is FGM happening only in poor villages where people just don't know any better and a little education might fix it? Is that the basic story here or what?

25:46Jordan Harbinger:I mean, that's the stereotype, right? But it's wrong in two important ways. So first, that thinking lets people in wealthy countries think, well, it's somebody else's problem. And second, it reduces a deeply complex practice down to ignorance. And that's not just inaccurate. It blinds us to what's actually keeping it alive. So Jaha Decore, who is a UN Women Goodwill Ambassador and FGM survivor, she's spoken about this directly. She says there are still a lot of misconceptions about FGM, like it's practiced by ignorant Africans and people, you know, quote unquote, over there who are uneducated.

26:31Jordan Harbinger:But she underwent FGM in Gambia when she was one week old. She spent her adult life fighting to end the practice everywhere.

26:39Jessica Wynn:Well, in fairness, there's a disconnect between Western culture and communities where FGM is practiced, obviously, right?

26:46Jordan Harbinger:Well, not always. I mean, FGM is documented in 94 countries. That's a lot. That's a lot. Most of the world.

26:53Jessica Wynn:Again, I thought you were going to say five. This is prevalent in five countries. But once you said 230 million, I was thinking, where the heck are they doing this?

27:00Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, it happens in parts of Asia, the Middle East, Europe and the Americas. So, for example, Mariam Safi, she was born in Texas. She was cut at age seven on a family vacation to India. Her aunt apparently lured her into a basement clinic with the offer of a chocolate bar or something. I mean, she was seven years old. So she doesn't fit the picture most people carry around, and that's exactly why her story matters.

27:30Jessica Wynn:Yeah, that's super sad. My son isn't even seven. So the idea of luring him into the basement and cutting his wiener off or something like that is just makes me so angry.

27:40Jordan Harbinger:And he would remember that for sure.

27:42Jessica Wynn:Of course. Yeah. I'll never complain about family vacations again. That's for sure. So I can't believe this is a thing that little going on a little trip and snip. It just seems like that's got to be illegal. It's certainly horrible. Oh, God. Trip and snip. That's sorry. That's yeah.

27:57Jordan Harbinger:It's actually sometimes called vacation cutting. And this is a documented phenomenon where families living in Western countries like the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, France, wherever, they take their daughters away specifically to have FGM performed, knowing it's illegal where they live. And then the cutting happens in a jurisdiction where it may be legal or where enforcement is weak. And by the time the family returns, it's done. You know, Safi's story is just one of many, many vacation cutting stories.

28:31Jessica Wynn:Makes me so angry that they bring that stuff here. And then also it's just I hate this so much. OK, is there a legal response to this? I feel like it's just got to be illegal to take your kid on a trip abroad, mutilate their genitals and then come home like nothing happened and be like, well, you can't do anything, France, because we did this back in, I don't know, Somalia or whatever. So suck it.

28:53Jordan Harbinger:I mean, it's so muddy. So some countries have extraterritorial legislation, meaning their laws technically apply to what their citizens do abroad. But prosecution is extraordinarily difficult. So you need someone to report it, first of all. If you do this to an infant or toddler, they don't... You need evidence across international jurisdictions. You need cooperation between legal systems that may have very different approaches to the practice. The UK has had laws against FGM since 1985 and didn't secure its first conviction until 2019. So that's one conviction in 34 years. I mean, that's not real enforcement.

29:42Jessica Wynn:No. Wow. So how are people escaping consequences. I guess, you know, lack of reporting and stuff, but are there religious arguments for this? I think a lot of people assume this is like some kind of Islamic practice or something like that, or I don't know.

29:55Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, that's another one of the biggest misconceptions. So FGM isn't an Islamic practice. It actually predates Islam by centuries. It's also been practiced by some Christian communities and by communities with no particular religion at all. So the common thread isn't theology, it's culture. And in fact, many Muslim religious leaders have been among the loudest voices condemning FGM. In 2024, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, or the OIC, which represents 57 Muslim-majority countries, they formally condemned FGM and called on member states to eliminate it.

30:35Jessica Wynn:Wait, so the biggest organization representing Muslim-majority countries is saying, hey, guys, don't do this. That is very reassuring. And I hope that that message is effective.

30:44Jordan Harbinger:Absolutely. I mean, it's encouraging, but it's not the whole picture. So in 2024, for example, some influential religious leaders in Gambia publicly argued the exact opposite, issuing a religious opinion, defending FGM and supporting efforts to roll back the country's ban. That's why this matters so much. You know, religious leaders can be among the most powerful forces for ending FGM or for keeping it alive.

31:12Jessica Wynn:So why does the religious justification persist?

31:16Jordan Harbinger:Well, because it's a useful mechanism of controlling a woman's body, right? Saying God requires this is a much more powerful enforcer than saying our tradition requires this. It puts the practice beyond question, beyond the reach of ordinary social debate, Because, you know, if it's a divine mandate, opposition becomes dissent. But the good news is religious leaders are among the most effective allies in ending FGM precisely because of this dynamic. So when the framing is religious, the counter framing also needs to be religious. There's an umam in the village of Tongoy in Mali who has made it his mission to speak against FGM every single Friday before prayer.

32:03Jordan Harbinger:and his community has completely abandoned the practice. So when the most trusted religious voice in a community says, hey, this is messed up, this is not what our faith requires, the ground shifts.

32:17Jessica Wynn:That is remarkable power used for good. It shows people change fastest when the message comes from somebody that they already trust, which makes sense. So do people also claim there are medical reasons for the practice as well? I mean, that's kind of what it is with circumcision, right? It's like, oh, something, something hygiene. And when you talk to, let's say, religious Jews, sometimes they'll just say, oh, it's in the book. And so we do it. But other times it's like, oh, well, it's more hygienic. And that was true for thousands of years. But now it's like, hey, soap and water. Go ahead and use some of that.

32:47Jessica Wynn:And you should be all right most of the time.

32:48Jordan Harbinger:Who was the first person to do that? I mean, it's just so bizarre.

32:52Jessica Wynn:Yeah, that's a good question.

32:54Jordan Harbinger:This seems like a good idea.

32:56Jessica Wynn:It would have been a healer tens of thousands of years ago, or I don't know, even just maybe 5 ,000 years ago, I suppose. Depends how old the practice is. I really don't know. I assumed it was older than when it was written down by some years, but I guess we can't ever know. But yeah, they probably went, hey, these things keep getting infected. And whenever we peel it back, it's pretty gross in there. What happens if we just cut this thing off? and, oh, look, that ceases to be an issue. You know what? Why don't we just cut it off from the jump? It's not supposed to be. And then somebody was like, we need a real reason for this because people don't understand.

33:27Jessica Wynn:Just tell them God said to do it and we'll stop getting so much pushback.

33:31Jordan Harbinger:I mean, that's probably so close. It's just, it's so hard to wrap my mind around that somebody wouldn't be like, or we could wash more thoroughly. I don't know. But I mean, one of the more harmful myths of FGM is the medicalization of it, and that's accelerating. So earlier I mentioned this is usually done by traditional practitioners, but one of the biggest changes in recent years is that FGM has become increasingly medicalized.

34:00Jessica Wynn:Yeah, that sounds insane to me, but it's not super shocking, I guess.

34:04Jordan Harbinger:I mean, today about a quarter of all girls who have recently undergone FGM were cut by healthcare workers, and in Egypt it's as high as like 75%.

34:14Jessica Wynn:And when you say in Egypt 75%, does this mean they were being cut by doctors now or what's going on here?

34:21Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, doctors, nurses, other licensed healthcare providers. I mean, this is a really new trend.

34:26Jessica Wynn:I see. I guess I would have assumed medicine would have killed this practice and not adopted it.

34:32Jordan Harbinger:Well, that's what makes the trend so disturbing, right? I mean, the logic is if it's going to happen anyway, better that it happened in a clean clinic than on a dirt floor.

34:43Jessica Wynn:I can almost see how somebody talks themselves into medicalizing it, right? It sounds compassionate on the surface, but let's say you're the healthcare worker or community member who performs FGM and come to understand the practice is wrong, but then you know if you refuse, the family's going to walk down the road to somebody with a rusty pair of pliers and a razor blade. Oh, my God. Is there a clinic where they could just kind of fake it? I don't know. I'm thinking out loud here. Yeah.

35:07Jordan Harbinger:Actually, that happens. It happens very quietly, very secretly. So there are documented cases of midwives and health care providers performing a symbolic ritual, what's called mock FGM, or I've seen it called whisper of the blade.

35:26Jessica Wynn:Okay.

35:26Jordan Harbinger:Which means no cutting at all. So they bring a girl into the room, they close the door, they let everyone outside believe the ritual is happening, but they never make a cut.

35:38Jessica Wynn:So they convince the family the procedure happened when it actually didn't.

35:41Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, correct. So the girl comes back out with, you know, a bandage or whatever. Everyone believes the obligation's been fulfilled, but the provider has secretly spared the child. And in communities where FGM is normalized, it's an incredibly controversial form of harm reduction. So I read some accounts that in communities where the secret gets out, it's bad news for the provider. But it's also secretive. I haven't been able to verify specific cases. Plus, if you're not doing the cut to a five-year-old, they don't know the difference. So unless you're being inspected by your parents after, nobody's the wiser.

36:24Jessica Wynn:Yeah, you'd think that would happen. Like, let's see how this is healing. Oh, perfectly intact. I mean, how do they not figure that out right away?

36:31Jordan Harbinger:I mean, maybe they're relieved. Maybe they're in on it. It's really hard to get the information clearly. But UNICEF has interviewed several anonymous midwives who admitted they felt conflicted about lying to the families, but believed refusing outright would just simply send the family somewhere more dangerous.

36:51Jessica Wynn:Yeah, that's just an impossible position to be in.

36:54Jordan Harbinger:I mean, it really is. And it's why organizations like the WHO and UNICEF ultimately oppose even symbolic procedures. So their concern is that if healthcare workers participate in any version of FGM, even one that causes no physical injury, it risks reinforcing the idea that the practice itself is acceptable. So everyone agrees the child should be protected. The disagreement is whether harm reduction today delays ending the practice tomorrow.

37:25Jessica Wynn:That's one of those ethical problems where I can see why good people end up on different sides of the issue.

37:31Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, sure. But it's completely categorically wrong to cut a girl. You know, there's just no safe form of genital mutilation. Medicalization doesn't eliminate the harm. So the goal can't just be to prevent the next injury. It has to be ending the practice altogether. So arguably it makes it more harmful because it's a veil of legitimacy. But the WHO's position is that it actually legitimizes the practice instead of ending it. So even though we think it's compassionate, it's not the best solution. You know, there was a 12-year-old girl named Nada Hassan Abdel Maksoud. She bled to death at a private clinic in the town of Manfalout in Egypt.

38:16Jordan Harbinger:So it's awful and it would have been better if it was a mock FGM, but that still happens because the practice is still done. You know, her family took her there for the procedure, thinking they were doing the right thing by getting it done by a medical professional, and she still died. So there's just no clinical context in which cutting healthy genital tissue from a non-consenting child is medicine. medicine.

38:45Jessica Wynn:Isn't there professional accountability when a doctor does this? I feel like in most places, I should say most civilized places, and that answers the question I'm about to ask, I guess, but you can't just do your own pseudo medical procedures and be like, well, that's how we do things around here where I pretend that what I do is medicine, even if it's not like doctors who do this lose their license in the United States. They can't just make up a procedure.

39:08Jordan Harbinger:Unfortunately, accountability is almost non-existent. So in most countries where medicalization is common, doctors face little or no professional discipline. Medical schools should train students explicitly that this isn't medicine, but I couldn't find any medical school that covers FGM even a little bit. So you're not reducing harm by performing it. And participation in this practice should and must be grounds for losing your license. And that institutional failure is a serious accountability gap.

39:44Jessica Wynn:Do the doctors who are doing this often genuinely believe they're helping or are they just doing it for the money?

39:49Jordan Harbinger:I mean, both probably exist, right? So we know from interviews and the WHO that many health care providers genuinely believe they're reducing harm. Others are responding to patient demand or community pressure. And yeah, sometimes financial incentives. So human motivation in general, it's just messier than simply one explanation.

40:13Jessica Wynn:Yeah, that's honestly scarier somehow.

40:15Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, I think so, too. But, you know, because if people are doing something horrific while believing they're helping, simply telling them they're evil, it's not going to change their behavior. The WHO addresses this directly, and they actually created an international day of zero tolerance for FGM. Medical practitioners carrying out FGM, you know, they're only causing harm, full stop. But it's practiced, surprisingly, in the UK, in Europe, and in the United States. So assuming modernization fixes it is dangerous because it makes everyone think someone else will solve it.

40:54Jessica Wynn:Are there any hopeful signs in the younger generation, though?

40:57Jordan Harbinger:I mean, there is good news, sure. Young people are significantly less supportive of FGM than their parents and grandparents. The problem is, like we mentioned before, the population growth is happening faster than attitudes are changing. So researchers estimate that the number of girls who are expected to undergo FGM each year will rise to about 4.6 million by 2030, even though there's efforts to eliminate it. And not because support for FGM is growing, but because there are simply more girls being born in the regions where the practice is most common. That's why changing minds matters, but, you know, it just isn't enough on its own.

41:39Jessica Wynn:Apparently, tradition is the preferred euphemism when felony committed by grandma sounds too judgmental. We'll be right back.

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42:42Jessica Wynn:Small detail, but it showed that they really were paying attention. Concierge MD works around your schedule and keeps everything connected under one roof. Go to concierge MD.com slash Jordan and use code Jordan. This episode is sponsored in part by Progressive. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies just to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies. The process only takes minutes and it could mean hundreds more in your pocket. Visit progressive.com after this episode to see if you could save.

43:13Jessica Wynn:Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. Come join us on our subreddit, the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. You can discuss the show, get some dank memes, and or interact with other show fans. That's over on the Jordan Harbinger subreddit. And now, back to Skeptical Sunday. So what keeps this going? because at this point, this feels less like ignorance. It's obviously not as simple as, well, people just don't know any better, right? If they're going to a hospital where a health care worker is doing it, I mean, they, oh, yeah, some people die while doing this and there's no medical, like, they have to know that.

43:47Jordan Harbinger:It isn't one thing that makes it keep going. It's like five or six things stacked on top of each other. You know, it's marriage. It's about sexuality, family honor. In some places, it's tied to inheritance rights because being cut is a prerequisite for a girl's right to inherit property. You know, it's an economic livelihood for a lot of practitioners who are often women who depend on it for income. But underneath all of it is the same fear that a girl who isn't cut may be considered unmarriable, ostracized, or worse.

44:24Jessica Wynn:What's happening to boys in these same communities at the same time?

44:28Jordan Harbinger:This is actually crucial. So in many of the communities where FGM is most prevalent, boys are also undergoing severe initiation rites involving their own bodies, often around the same ages.

44:42Jessica Wynn:When you say initiation rites, what are we talking about? You know, those those things you see on Discovery Channel where they make a glove and they fill it with bullet ants or something like that, or they bungee jump with a vine into some dirt. I mean, that kind of stuff.

44:54Jordan Harbinger:It depends. There's so many different things. And in some communities, you know, boys are taken away from their families for days or weeks as part of a broader initiation, right? And the circumcision is only one piece of it. So they undergo circumcision, usually without anesthesia, sometimes in groups. And they're expected to endure the pain without showing fear, you know, to be a man. The ordeal is often tied to learning cultural traditions. they're expected to prove their toughness and they're formally welcomed into adulthood. It's about courage, masculinity, and just becoming an adult, but infections, injuries, and even deaths are documented in some of these ceremonies.

45:37Jessica Wynn:So this isn't a doctor in a hospital with a newborn?

45:40Jordan Harbinger:No, not in these communities. It's a cultural rite of passage that usually happens, you know, at 12 or 13. So they're older, they are fully aware of what's happening. And the point here isn't that boys and girls experience the same thing because they don't. FGM causes dramatically greater lifelong harm. The point is that these societies often see physical suffering as the gateway to adulthood for both sexes. Now, this doesn't justify FGM or circumcision, but it changes the story to something more complicated than just men oppressing women, you know.

46:18Jessica Wynn:So who's usually driving this? Is it the fathers?

46:21Jordan Harbinger:Surprisingly, no. It's mostly women. So the decision is overwhelmingly made by women, mothers, grandmothers, aunts. The older women in a girl's life are often the ones who insist it happens. The men pretty much stay silent and the women often perform it as well.

46:41Jessica Wynn:That's really the last answer I expected. But at the same time, if families believe a girl won't get married unless she's cut, men are still part of the equation for sort of, I guess, demanding that or allowing people to think that they're demanding that.

46:56Jordan Harbinger:Yeah. I mean, that's an important distinction. So in many communities, the immediate decision is often made by older women in a girl's life. But they're making that decision inside a system that's shaped by expectations about marriage, about status. and what they believe men want. So it's not as simple as saying women do this or men do this. The system depends on both. And although women often make the decisions, you know, they're not creating the whole system.

47:25Jessica Wynn:I see. Well, that's not where most people's heads go, I think.

47:28Jordan Harbinger:I mean, not at all. It's because it's so hard to wrap our heads around this, right? Most people imagine this as men forcing women to do something. The reality, it's much more complicated. The system is maintained by women who genuinely believe that they're protecting their daughter's future in a society where marriage status and security are all tied to whether or not she's been cut.

47:54Jessica Wynn:It seems more logical that if you underwent FGM as an adult woman, you would spare the younger generation of the same horrific ordeal.

48:01Jordan Harbinger:Well, sure. But think about it from the perspective of a mother in a community where FGM is universal. If her daughter isn't cut, she may never marry. No marriage means no economic security, no social standing, maybe no future at all. So from inside that worldview, FGM doesn't feel cruel. It feels like you're protecting your daughter.

48:26Jessica Wynn:Yeah, I mean, that's incredibly depressing, though.

48:28Jordan Harbinger:This is all pretty depressing.

48:30Jessica Wynn:It is, yeah, that's true.

48:31Jordan Harbinger:You know, she's trying to protect her daughter with the very thing that's hurting her, which is heartbreaking. And that's precisely why the interventions that work are the ones that change the social calculation, not just the legal status. Laws matter, but if the social incentives stay the same, people just take the practice underground. And the communities that have made the biggest progress change the incentives, not just the laws. And that's a much more challenging project. But it's the one that actually delivers change, right? And it requires working with women, not just talking about them.

49:07Jessica Wynn:Let's return to child marriage here because I think the connection is deeper than just it sometimes happens in places where FGM exists.

49:14Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, I mean, think of FGM and child marriage as like two gears in the same machine. One prepares the girl, the other completes the transaction.

49:23Jessica Wynn:So is that the same logic behind male circumcision too?

49:27Jordan Harbinger:To some degree in some societies, but the degree of harm is categorically different. So FGM, particularly types 2 and 3, they involve the removal of functional, pleasure-producing tissue in ways that cause lifelong pain, permanently impair sexual function, and create serious complications in childbirth and just beyond. The medical evidence on male circumcision, that's genuinely mixed. There are some studies suggesting marginal protective effects against certain infections in certain contexts. I personally think that's all very questionable. But in 2026, in a Western society, those reasons, they become less and less convincing.

50:13Jordan Harbinger:the long-term harm profile for most men who undergo routine circumcision. It's considerably less severe than FGM, though, but it's not nothing.

50:24Jessica Wynn:So we're butchering boys for all the wrong reasons as well.

50:26Jordan Harbinger:I think so. And a big similarity between what girls and boys go through is consent or lack of consent. So neither the infant boy nor the infant girl asked for this. Both are having irreversible procedures performed on healthy genital tissue based on their parents' cultural preferences, religious beliefs, or just aesthetic choices. Neither boys or girls have any capacity to meaningfully participate in the decision about their own body. The question isn't whether male circumcision is as harmful as FGM. It almost certainly isn't. The question is, do we believe people have the right to decide what happens to their own bodies?

51:10Jordan Harbinger:And if so, you know, at what age does that right begin? And is our answer to those questions consistent? Or does it depend on whose culture and whose religion we happen to be evaluating? I mean, imagine taking your kid like I love tattoos. I'm not going to take a three year old to go get tattooed. It's just crazy.

51:30Jessica Wynn:Yeah, I'm not going to pretend I have a simple solution to all that. The idea of a three-year-old getting a tat is kind of funny. I think about that sometimes, too. I'm like, oh, man, I wish I had gotten a bunch of tattoos when I was younger and I could have enjoyed them. And I really like them. And then I was thinking, hey, why don't I take Jade and we'll go get some matching tats? Why not? At age six. Right. And then when he becomes an adult, he's like, that's super f***ed up. Yeah, bro. What was that all about? You got me a tribal band? You loser? Like, what a cliche is this, dad. Come on. And I bet you would be immediately prosecuted.

52:04Jessica Wynn:Oh, I would hope so. I would hope so.

52:06Jordan Harbinger:I mean, I think the honest answer here is that understanding something isn't the same as excusing it. So if you don't understand why people keep doing it, you're probably not going to stop it.

52:19Jessica Wynn:So within the anti-FGM movement, who's trying to change these practices?

52:22Jordan Harbinger:Most powerfully, it's being done by African feminist scholars and activists, and that's exactly who should be leading it.

52:31Jessica Wynn:Yeah, that definitely makes sense to me.

52:33Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, I mean, the international response to FGM has been shaped primarily by Western governments and Western headquartered UN bodies. The funding flows through Western institutions. The frameworks for defining harm, measuring progress and designing interventions are largely set in Geneva, New York and London. The problem is the people best positioned to end FGM often get the least funding, while these large international organizations get most of the money.

53:06Jessica Wynn:Of course, the money doesn't always go where the expertise actually is.

53:09Jordan Harbinger:I know, right? And there's a long history of large amounts of money going to large international organizations. And then, you know, a trickle reaching the grassroots groups that are actually doing the work. But survivor-led organizations, community-based activists, local women's movements, these groups, unfortunately, they're chronically underfunded, while these institutional machinery around them is very well-resourced. And some anti-FGM campaigns have, consciously or not, portrayed African cultures as, you know, savage and in need of civilizing from the outside. That framing's not just offensive, it's totally counterproductive because it triggers entirely rational resistance from communities that have experienced colonialism and know exactly what that civilizing rhetoric sounds like.

54:02Jessica Wynn:So the answer isn't to stop the campaigns, it's to run them differently.

54:05Jordan Harbinger:Absolutely. The answer is to fund local women's organizations, to let these communities lead, to listen to African feminists and survivor advocates who are fighting this battle from the inside. So many have lived with the consequences of FGM themselves, or they've spent their lives working in the communities where it persists. And that kind of lived experience and local credibility is something no international organization can just, you know, parachute in. So the goal is the same, ending FGM. The question is who's leading the effort? And the evidence is very clear that community led, locally owned campaigns are the ones that actually produce durable change.

54:50Jessica Wynn:Yeah, it's very easy to list medical complications and have them land as abstract data points rather than affecting real women's lives. But I'm curious, what are the consequences for FGM survivors? I mean, what is it like to have this done to you? What are you dealing with?

55:04Jordan Harbinger:God, I can't. It's so hard to think about. I know. I think the most difficult part about survivors is that not all FGM survivors identify as victims and not all of them want it to end. That's what happens in your world. And, you know, no different. I mean, there are women who have undergone FGM, including the type 3 infibulation with that most severe form, who will describe the experience as meaningful, identity affirming, and culturally central to who they are. So they express pride in having undergone it, and they want their daughters to undergo it. That can't be dismissed.

55:45Jessica Wynn:How do you contend with that without using it as a justification for the practice?

55:49Jordan Harbinger:Very carefully, I guess. I think the first thing to recognize is that the capacity to internalize and find meaning in something that was done to you without your consent is one of the most profound things human beings do. We are meaning-making creatures. You know, people find pride, identity, and community in all kinds of experiences that outsiders might categorize as harmful. That is real and it deserves respect. You know, the second thing to recognize is that this doesn't resolve the question of harm or consent. The fact that some survivors don't identify as victims, it doesn't mean the harm isn't real.

56:30Jordan Harbinger:I mean, we've established the health consequences are documented. They're objective. And so it doesn't really matter about the survivor's subjective experience of them.

56:40Jessica Wynn:But the existence of these voices matters for how we approach the campaign to end it, right?

56:45Jordan Harbinger:Oh, enormously. If the anti-FGM movement is perceived as saying to women who support the practice, you're a victim who doesn't know you're a victim, that's going to fail. I mean, that framing is both it's condescending and it's ineffective. It's condescending because it denies women the complexity of their own experience. But it's ineffective because you can't build community consensus by telling half the community their perspective doesn't count. So the goal is to create conditions in which communities choose to stop, not to lecture survivors about what their lives mean.

57:22Jessica Wynn:Yeah, you gave an overview earlier, but let's I want to slow down and walk through what actually happens to the body, because unfortunately, I don't think people really appreciate how severe this is. And the only way to do it is to get kind of gross and graphic with it, I think. Yeah, I mean, it is horrific.

57:38Jordan Harbinger:So in the immediate aftermath of FGM, and it doesn't matter which type, there is severe bleeding, sometimes fatal. There's a very high rate of infection, intense pain. It makes urinating problematic. And there's shock. I mean, your body's been through something traumatic. And it goes into shock. And girls die from this. Yeah. I mean, that's just the beginning. So chronic pain is ongoing daily for the rest of a woman's life. Cysts are very common in women who've undergone FGM. There's abnormal scarring and keloid formation. Menstrual problems occur because, you know, the outflow of blood can be obstructed if you're narrowing the vagina.

58:29Jordan Harbinger:It's really dangerous.

58:31Jessica Wynn:And this is forever.

58:32Jordan Harbinger:Oh, for many women, yes. And then it causes sexual problems. Like, you just don't get joy out of sex. I guess that's the point for a lot of people. There's a lot of pain during intercourse, significantly decreased sexual satisfaction, there's loss of a lot of function, and infertility is actually quite common. and then childbirth complications that can just be catastrophic, particularly for women who have undergone type three. So the narrowed vaginal opening that infibulation creates, you can imagine that makes labor extraordinarily dangerous.

59:10Jessica Wynn:Yeah, I think I brought that up before because it's like you're not that's already not wide enough. There's a whole process we go through to make sure that the baby can come out and it's still, you know, it doesn't exactly slide right out. I've seen two births. You still got to push pretty hard. So if that has been narrowed manually for no good reason, really, that's not going to be good at all.

59:29Jordan Harbinger:Oh, right. I mean, it's just going to cause obstructed labor. And in these communities, women are expected to have many children. So it's so problematic. Many will suffer from postpartum hemorrhage because the body's just not working like it should be. And this makes stillbirths and newborn death rates higher in places where FGM is practiced. Some of these complications are fatal to the woman herself, obviously.

1:00:00Jessica Wynn:What happens after childbirth?

1:00:02Jordan Harbinger:So this is pretty brutal.

1:00:05Jessica Wynn:Part for the course.

1:00:06Jordan Harbinger:Yeah. But OK, so you've had FGM. Now you've had a baby, which opens you back up in a way. but then they will perform what's called re-infibulation. So after a woman who has undergone type 3 infibulation gives birth, a birth that's already traumatic and dangerous, she may be re-infibulated, meaning her wound is sewn back up. And because the social and cultural logic that demanded the original closing of her body demands it again after it has been opened, it causes even more problems. So one of the most important things to understand about FGM is that for women with type 3, the harm's not just this one single event that happened in childhood, it's a recurring one, redone at some of the most vulnerable moments of their lives.

1:01:02Jessica Wynn:That is somehow so much worse than just thinking of it as an irreversible procedure, because I can't, oh gosh, I just can't even imagine this. This must cause psychological distress for these women as well. I mean, imagine you give the traumatic birth and they're like, yeah, OK, we're not just going to help you heal. We're going to do that horrific operation again where we close you back up. I mean, that's just.

1:01:22Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, absolutely. Women suffer from PTSD.

1:01:25Jessica Wynn:Sure.

1:01:25Jordan Harbinger:They have a lot of depression, anxiety. The postpartum depression rates are really high. One thing that really struck me is how many survivors talk about losing trust in the people who are supposed to protect them because the people arranging these procedures, they're often their own mothers and aunts and, you know, people they're closest with. So it can affect a woman's ability to form trusting relationships for the rest of her life. And the physical and psychological consequences of FGM, they're not separate categories. You know, they go hand in hand. A woman in chronic pain is more likely to withdraw from work and social life.

1:02:08Jordan Harbinger:That deepens isolation, which worsens mental health. It's just this system of harm. It's not like a list of independent symptoms.

1:02:18Jessica Wynn:Thank you for listening to and supporting the show. The funding goal is billions. The actual funding, though, is pocket lint and a panel discussion. Speaking of funding, I should probably get on that myself. We'll be right back. All of the advertisers are searchable and clickable on the deals page at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. Do survivors who do see themselves as victims, do they ever seek medical help outside of their communities? Because it seems like if you had this done, let's say, and you're living in the UK, you could go to a real doctor or something, right?

1:02:56Jordan Harbinger:Oh, yeah. I mean, they do. And it's often thought of by these doctors as some kind of like second wound. You know, healthcare providers in the United States, the UK, Australia, Canada, they receive no training in FGM. Like I said before, it is, I can't find it in any, mentioned in any medical school. So they may not even recognize what they're looking at anatomically. They could misdiagnose symptoms. They may ask inappropriate or re-traumatizing questions. And some survivors have reported they have to explain to their own doctors what FGM is, what's been done to their bodies, and what the clinical implications are.

1:03:40Jordan Harbinger:So think about what that asks of a person to be the expert witness on your own trauma in the moment when you're seeking care.

1:03:48Jessica Wynn:So is culturally competent FGM care available anywhere? Because if it's not available in the West, Where can you go for help?

1:03:57Jordan Harbinger:In very small pockets. The UK has developed more specialist capacity than most countries, largely because it has a sizable Somali and Sudanese community. Both Somalia and Sudan have historically had some of the highest rates of FGM in the world. So British health care providers have spent decades building specialist clinics, training midwives and nurses, and learning how to care for women who have survived FGM. Even so, those services are unevenly distributed, they're chronically underfunded, and they exist nowhere near the scale that's needed. In the United States, even more fragmented. And this connects directly to the funding gap because the money to train health care providers, to build specialist services, to support survivor-led mental health programs, it just simply isn't there at the scale required.

1:04:53Jessica Wynn:I see. So is there hope? I mean, not just what's being done, but what's actually working? Because it just sounds awful that people have to live with this.

1:05:01Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, I mean, there are concrete models of success. So Cameroon, Ghana, and Uganda have already achieved their FGM elimination targets ahead of the 2030 deadline. Budnene, the Maldives, Niger, and Togo, they're all on track to achieve zero cases by the end of the decade. I mean, these are actual results. And the pattern that emerges from every place that has succeeded is consistent. Change happens from the inside out, not the outside in.

1:05:35Jessica Wynn:Yeah. Well, some of these places are authoritarian, right? So I would imagine in a place like Cameroon, the dictator just says, hey, don't do this anymore. We'll throw your whole family in a gulag forever and kill you. And that will get to that 2030 deadline ahead of time, I suppose. Yeah. Wow.

1:05:51Jordan Harbinger:But they probably have high rates of back alley FGM, you know?

1:05:57Jessica Wynn:Sure. I was going to say that, yeah, these, they just, or they said, okay, don't report these anymore so that it looks like we hit our goal. If you've ever met anyone from Cameroon, they're always like, oh no, it's like a, it's like North Korea, but it's in Africa. It's probably a really interesting place to visit, actually.

1:06:11Jordan Harbinger:Tell me about it. I will not join you.

1:06:13Jessica Wynn:No, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll send you a postcard. What is, you said it happens from the inside out, not the outside in. What does inside out look like in practice though?

1:06:21Jordan Harbinger:The gold standard is Tostan, which is a West African NGO whose community empowerment program has helped nearly 9 ,000 communities completely abandon FGM. That's remarkable.

1:06:36Jessica Wynn:Yeah.

1:06:36Jordan Harbinger:And their approach is not to arrive and announce that FGM is wrong and demand change. They facilitate conversations about health, human rights, and what families actually want for their daughters. So this encourages communities to reach their own conclusions. And when the decision comes from inside the community, it's much more likely to last. You know, when elders and mothers and religious leaders collectively decide this is not who we are anymore, that change is durable and it holds because, you know, it belongs to them.

1:07:12Jessica Wynn:Does this kind of change take generations? Because it seems like it's going to take generations.

1:07:15Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, I mean, sometimes, sure, but not always. Somaliland is an extraordinary example. So through the UN Trust Fund to End Violence Against Women, grassroots organizations in Somaliland led a program of education, dialogue, and community engagement. And within the last 30 years, parental support for ending infibulation surged nearly 100%. And the number of religious leaders who recognized infibulation's harmful effects went from 52 to 96%. You know, those are near total community transformations. And they happen through patient, respectful, locally led conversation. Not legislation. Not external pressure.

1:08:03Just real conversation, which, as we're finding out, is really hard to have.

1:08:09Jordan Harbinger:And in 2018, they banned infibulation. Unfortunately, the other types are still practiced. But, you know, progress is progress.

1:08:18Jessica Wynn:Oh, man. You said no major religion actually requires FGM. So why are religious leaders important in ending it? Because it seems like they're not the authority on this.

1:08:28Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, well, although FGM isn't required by scripture, there are communities where it's justified using religious or traditional arguments. But there's a small village in Mali called Tongoy, and when their very respected, powerful religious leaders changed their position and publicly declared an end to FGM, the social permission structure changed with them. So these religious leaders have influence that no external organization can replicate. So working with them, equipping them with accurate information about what FGM is, and that it's not required by their faith and what the health consequences are, that's not just useful, that's often the determinative factor.

1:09:14Jordan Harbinger:You know, I mean, think of it, a community that just does everything their religious leader says, that's a powerful place for them.

1:09:21Jessica Wynn:That's true. It's ironic that it seems to be men declaring this. So it seems that the narrative around men and FGM is more complicated than men are the problem or men bad.

1:09:30Jordan Harbinger:Yeah. I mean, I really don't find that to be the case. I honestly don't think a lot of men, first of all, understand the anatomy and really don't understand what's happening. And it's just way more complicated. So one of the biggest misconceptions is that all the men in these communities support FGM. They don't. Surveys from practicing countries in Africa and the Middle East suggest that roughly 200 million boys and men, they want the practice to end. And in many communities, parents with young daughters, they don't want it to continue.

1:10:05Jessica Wynn:So why doesn't it stop? Nobody wants this. So why is it still happening?

1:10:10Jordan Harbinger:Because people aren't just responding to what they personally believe. They're responding to what they think everyone else believes. You know, one of the strongest drivers of FGM is the assumption that men will only marry girls who've been cut, that a girl who is not cut will not find a husband. So when men in a community publicly and visibly say, I will marry an uncut woman, they are directly dismantling the social math that makes FGM feel like a necessary protection for girls' futures. That can change everything.

1:10:45Jessica Wynn:So the fathers and brothers need to speak up. But do they? Would they face consequences socially for speaking out about this kind of thing?

1:10:51Jordan Harbinger:It's got to be really hard. You know, we have to take ourselves out of our lifestyle and think how difficult that probably is for them to speak up. But in many households, fathers and brothers are aware that FGM is happening to their daughters and sisters, but they stay silent, sometimes out of deference to the women in the family who are driving the decision, sometimes because speaking up feels like a violation of the gender norms that define their role. You know, the moral weight of that silence and what it costs men psychologically to carry it, that's real. And the path to male allyship runs through creating space for those men to break that silence, to name what they know is wrong, to say, not my daughter.

1:11:38So men who speak up aren't just protecting individual girls.

1:11:42Jordan Harbinger:They're fracturing the consensus that the practice depends on. But the legal picture here, that's mixed.

1:11:50Jessica Wynn:So what is the legal landscape? Is there legislation for and against FGM?

1:11:55Jordan Harbinger:I mean, it really depends on where you are. Egypt has made FGM a federal crime punishable by up to 15 years in prison, though enforcement remains kind of uneven. In 2024, the European Parliament adopted a new directive requiring all EU member states to criminalize FGM, increase public awareness and provide support to survivors. That means 27 countries. That's huge. In the United States, of course, the situation is more complicated. So a federal law banning FGM was effectively struck down in 2018 when a federal judge in Michigan ruled that criminal law on this issue should be left to individual states.

1:12:44Jordan Harbinger:He was ruling on a specific case involving this Detroit doctor who was accused of mutilating the genitals of multiple girls.

1:12:51Jessica Wynn:I'm not super surprised this happened in the United States, but it is shocking how many holes are in the law about this.

1:12:57Jordan Harbinger:I mean, it shocked a lot of people because it just shattered the assumption that this was only happening overseas. And there was no federal law here to enforce it. So it shaped the legal landscape with the result that some states have explicit bans. Others don't. Advocates are working state by state to close those gaps. I mean, it is crazy that we don't have a federal law banning this.

1:13:24Jessica Wynn:I agree. I think it's crazy that this is not banned in the United States. It makes no sense to me. And legislation without enforcement in places does absolutely nothing. Like, I kind of get the argument that it should be left to the states, but that seems more like a legal technicality to me. Like the judge said, OK, you know, this is going to cause a bunch of problems. But, yeah, it should have been fairly easy for somebody to propose a federal ban on this. I don't know. Come on, man.

1:13:49Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, it's just wild. So they just criminalize a practice, but they're not protecting anyone. You know, laws without political will and social support behind them, they tend to push these kinds of practices underground rather than end them. And the legal framework, it's necessary, but it's just not sufficient. So it has to be accompanied by training for health care workers and even teachers who can identify at risk girls. You know, there needs to be support for survivors who come forward. And crucially for diaspora communities in Western countries, immigration and asylum protections need to be happening for girls at risk.

1:14:30Jessica Wynn:Yeah, that's a pathway I hadn't considered. It's something the U.S. or the U.K. could actually act on. Like, hey, if your parents are trying to take you, trick you into a basement to get your parts cut, you can apply for asylum because they're basically going to torture you. I mean, that whole thing is just totally psycho to me.

1:14:46Jordan Harbinger:Some girls have successfully fled FGM through asylum claims. I mean, I guess they were lucky that it didn't happen when they were a baby and they had the autonomy to leave. But the argument is that they face a well-founded fear of persecution and that their home country is unable or unwilling to protect them. So courts in the US, UK, Canada, and Australia, they have all granted asylum on these grounds. There are NGOs that specifically work on FGM asylum cases and help girls and families navigate the legal process. And these organizations, they're underfunded, but they are doing life-saving work.

1:15:26Jordan Harbinger:So supporting FGM asylum legal aid organizations, that's one of the most concrete things someone can do to help.

1:15:34Jessica Wynn:So what is happening with young people? Does social media, I wonder, have campaigns against FGM that affect the younger generation? Because it seems like the more people get connected to the internet, the more they're like, yeah, this is some barbaric-ish that we're not doing anymore.

1:15:46Jordan Harbinger:I actually, once I started doing the research, was amazed and sort of pleased by how many reels and posts started popping up that were against this. So data shows that 15 to 19-year-olds in affected countries are way less supportive of FGM than older generations. But we don't really know how that shift is happening, if it's social media or other things. I think, you know, social media is definitely swaying opinion. There's youth activists in Nigeria, Kenya, and Egypt, and they're using TikTok and Instagram and YouTube, you know, to talk about FGM in ways that would have just been unthinkable a generation ago.

1:16:28Jordan Harbinger:So they're sharing their stories, they're debunking myths in local languages. They're organizing, they're building communities of solidarity for survivors and girls who are resisting. So this is young women and men in affected communities deciding on their own terms, in their own languages and cultural contexts, that this practice ends with them. And that's enormously powerful.

1:16:53Jessica Wynn:Yeah, that's the inside-out model you described is the one that actually works.

1:16:56Jordan Harbinger:Absolutely. And it's even better because it's the inside-out model running at the speed of the internet. You know, I think there is genuine reason to believe that this generation that grew up with smartphones and access to global conversations may be the one that tips it, not without all the other work, but they are a force that wasn't there 20 years ago, and it would be a mistake to underestimate them.

1:17:20Jessica Wynn:So all this requires resources. Where does the money for these anti-FGM campaigns, where's that coming from?

1:17:27Jordan Harbinger:So the funding picture is pretty alarming. I mean, by the end of this decade, an estimated$275 million will have been spent globally on addressing FGM. The amount that researchers estimate is needed to actually eliminate the practice by 2030 is$2.4 billion.

1:17:48Jessica Wynn:Okay, well, that's a huge gap. Come on.

1:17:50Jordan Harbinger:And the funding that does exist has been declining, particularly for the survivor-led organizations and local women's movements that are doing the most effective work, the gap just isn't closing.

1:18:03Jessica Wynn:Yeah, the funding gap's not just a number. It's a reflection of a set of political choices about whose safety is worth funding.

1:18:09Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, and it has a human face. You know, it's the survivor sitting in a doctor's office who has to explain her own trauma. It's the FGM asylum case that doesn't get the legal representation it needs. It's the youth activists in Nairobi who's doing extraordinary work on a mobile phone with no organizational support. So the money is the politics made concrete.

1:18:34Jessica Wynn:Yeah. Are there examples of what proper funding can actually do or is this kind of a money pit?

1:18:39Jordan Harbinger:Yeah. No, I mean, there are legitimate organizations like through the spotlight initiative. The U.N. worked with the National Traditional Council of Chiefs and Elders in Liberia to extend a national ban on FGM. 300 traditional FGM practitioners were helped to transition to new livelihoods through training for other occupations. Because for many of these women, performing FGM, that's their income. So they have no incentive to stop it, right? It's how they feed their families. You can't remove a practice that someone depends on economically without offering an alternative. And the Liberia model recognized this and addressed it directly.

1:19:23Jordan Harbinger:That's a model worth replicating.

1:19:25Jessica Wynn:FGM persists because it's surrounded by this silence, right? The silence is not accidental. It's structural, it's enforced, and the first condition, well, it's really the first condition that has to change.

1:19:36Jordan Harbinger:Yeah, I mean, I think the silence exists too because it's hard to talk about, right? I mean, in communities where FGM has been normalized for generations, some people don't really understand what FGM is and they've just never talked about it. They've never questioned the practice. That moment of recognition when the silence breaks and someone who is inside it finally sees it's not this small thing, that's how cultural change begins. So it's one conversation at a time. It's one person saying, this happened to me and it was wrong and I'm not going to pretend it didn't.

1:20:14Jessica Wynn:The question about all this, both male and female cutting, is what is the principle by which we decide? Do we believe in bodily autonomy? Do we believe that children have the right to have their bodies respected until they can decide for themselves? Because if we are serious about protecting children's bodies, the principle has to be a principle, not like a preference that we apply selectively based on cultural proximity. I obviously I don't have a clean answer. I don't think anyone does. But I think these kinds of questions are worth sitting with.

1:20:42Jordan Harbinger:I would add that the people who are living with it most honestly are the survivors. So we mentioned Jaha Dukuri cut at one week old. She spent her adult life asking the hardest version of this question from inside the community where it happened to her and where she's trying to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else. Maryam Safi lured into the basement in India at seven years old. She stood up at the UN and said, I don't fit the profile. Like, this is a bigger problem than you think, meaning we can't be protecting a practice that's happening to girls who look like the people you think are safe.

1:21:21Jordan Harbinger:So these women refused the silence. And that refusal is, you know, the engine of everything. Yeah.

1:21:28Jessica Wynn:What can someone listening to this do practically right now? Because it's again, it still seems like it happens over there, even though I know it happens in the city where I grew up.

1:21:37Jordan Harbinger:I mean, there's several things. So you can support survivor-led organizations. There's something called Safe Hands for Girls, Tostan. There's the Desert Flower Foundation. There's Integrate UK. I mean, there are these grassroots organizations that are doing the most effective work with the least resources. If you're in the United States, find out whether your state has an explicit FGM ban. I mean, do you know if California does? I don't. I have no idea. Yeah, exactly. You know, many of us don't. So contact your state legislators if you're in a state that it's legal in. And if you work in health care, push for FGM training in your institution.

1:22:21Jordan Harbinger:It's not standard and it should be. If you encounter someone who might be at risk, know that the National FGM Center and similar organizations, they can advise you on how to respond safely. And if you're in a position to support asylum seekers, know that FGM asylum cases are real and a viable pathway and that legal aid organizations working on them are chronically underfunded. and finally most basically and perhaps most powerfully have this conversation don't treat fgm is too disturbing to mention you know every conversation matters jess thank you this has

1:23:02Jessica Wynn:definitely been one of the hardest and most important conversations we've had on this show it's hard because you want to like make jokes and make it light and keep people interested but it's really really hard to do on this one um thank you for not looking away and for cutting through the noise. Yeah, I'll see myself out. We'll link to the organizations doing the work in the show notes. If this episode moved you, please share it. That's how the silence breaks. And thank you all for sticking with us and listening. Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday to me, Jordan at Jordan Harbinger dot com.

1:23:33Jessica Wynn:Advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show all at Jordan Harbinger dot com slash deals. I'm at Jordan Harbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find Jessica on her sub stacks between the lines and where Shadows Linger. We'll link to those in the show notes. Her work is also on Instagram at nevermetjessicas, plural. And this show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Tata Sidlowskis, Robert Fogarty, Ian Baird, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I might be a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer.

1:24:04Jessica Wynn:I'm certainly not a doctor. And we, of course, try to get these as right as we can. Not everything is gospel, even if it's fact-checked. So consult a qualified professional before applying anything you hear on the show, especially if it's about your health and well-being. Remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love. If you found the episode useful, please share it with somebody else who could use a good dose of the skepticism and knowledge we doled out today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn, and we'll see you next time.