Searching the Nexus between Women Empowerment and Female Genital Cutting/Mutilation

Patrizia Farina, University Milan Bicocca
Mawa Mohamed, PhD Student
Livia Elisa Ortensi, Alma Mater Studiorum - University of Bologna
Thomas Pettinato, Researcher

FGC is considered a violation of women’s and girls’ rights rooted in gender inequality. Following this interpretation, ending female genital cutting implies to tackle the root causes of gender inequality and work for women’s social and economic empowerment, as from the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. This paper discusses and examines the relevance of women empowerment on daughters’ transmission of female genital cutting. In particular, it will be enlightened if and how the empowerment of mothers is a protective factor for the next generation of girls, according to background and socioeconomic conditions of adult women. To this purpose, it will be implemented a generalized linear mixed model approach to study FGC support. This model permits the relaxation of the unrealistic assumption that the support for FGC for women belonging to a family and to a country is conditionally independent, after controlling the included covariates.