Monitoring and Evaluation of the FGM Initiative

Female genital mutilation (FGM) covers all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons. FGM is a severe form of violence against women and girls, and should be considered a form of child abuse.

It has been estimated that up to 103,000 women who were born in countries where FGM is practiced, lived in England and Wales in 2011. Up to 56,000 hailed from countries where the most severe form (type 3 or de-infibulation) is practiced.

The FGM Initiative was formed to strengthen the prevention of FGM among communities in the UK, and in so doing, to strengthen the voice of women and children against FGM. Options did the monitoring and evaluation of the FGM Initiative. Options worked with funded groups across the UK to develop monitoring and evaluation plans, so that they could measure the change that they wanted to achieve at the beginning and at the end of the project. Options also supported the projects to use rapid PEER (an ethnographic monitoring tool) so that they could understand how the support for FGM was shifting among affected communities, and how to best respond.

The results gained a high media profile, and demonstrated that there was widespread support among FGM affected communities for a more concerted interventionist stance from the UK government. This generated support for mainstreaming FGM prevention into child-protection procedures and was instrumental in bringing the issue of FGM to wider attention.