FGM – health, law, education and sustainable goals through upstream and downstream approaches

This chapter takes a health law and education perspective through consideration of two significant projects. Firstly, one-to-one interviews with FGM survivors as part of a PhD thesis and secondly, a community FGM education project. It is based on a collection of works by the authors where we argue that the use of law in the UK may have reached its outer limits in the ability to prevent FGM and that a combined health and law approach through a combined upstream and downstream public health strategy aimed at protecting women and girls through eradication may be a way to reach the United Nations ‘Sustainable Development Goals to eradicate FGM’ (SDG). It concludes that the health sector needs to engage as an equal partner with other sectors in national FGM abandonment strategies for a well-coordinated multi-sectoral partnership. A combined health, law and education approach with a public health model of intervention, incorporating upstream and downstream policies and initiatives, is likely to be the only realistic way of eradicating FGM within the timeframe set by the UN.