Female Genital Mutilation (FGM/C) in Garissa and Isiolo, Kenya: Impacts on Education and Livelihoods in the Context of Cultural Norms and Food Insecurity

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper “Navigating Cultural Norms in the Fight Against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)” presents a theme that has an ethical urgency and relevance in the current scientific and social debate.

 

As recognized by the author, at various points in the text, there is no direct relationship between climate change and drought and FGM. It seems to me that this constitutes the greatest challenge and greatest weakness of the text. I think the text clearly shows that climate change and drought affect the educational process and health care. It is also clear that the lack of health care has serious consequences for women who have suffered FGM. However, it seems to me that the text needs greater ethnographic support regarding the direct causes that lead to FGM, specifically how it can constitute an economic mechanism for the survival of families in contexts of precariousness resulting from climate change and drought. It is true that the author alludes to the importance of cultural dimensions in understanding the FGM and the relevance of considering the dimensions holistically in the intervention regarding the FGM, however, a greater ethnographic density in understanding the causes of the FGM will make it possible to provide solidity to their line of argumentation.

 

In short, it seems to me that the text should be accepted for publication in “Societies”. However, it would be essential for the author to consider the suggestions previously presented, as I believe that they are essential for the main argument of the paper to gain the robustness required for a paper to be published in “Societies”.

Author Response

Comment 1, thank you for your feedback. This has been addressed through the editing of the title to show that there is no direct link between drought and FGM page 1 (marked 1a)

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Navigating Cultural Norms in the Fight Against Female Genital Mutilation (FGM): Insights from Garissa and Isiolo counties (Kenya) in the context of Drought and Food Insecurity

This is an interesting contribution to the visibility of scientific research in the fight against FGM in Kenya. Even though the article is pertinent, several aspects impede its publication in the current form:

1.        I suggest that authors merge the introduction and literature review sections and rewrite it in order to include pertinent and updated references on the topic, both general and specific to Kenya, namely in those two counties.

2.        What cultural, religious, geographical and/or socioeconomic characteristics of Garissa and Isiolo regions justify doing a study in these counties and not others?

3.        Objectives must be clearly stated.

4.        Was there an interview script? How was it created? Please include information on this, and examples of the questions asked.

5.        Being a qualitative study, authors must provide evidence that all of COREQ criteria were used, namely: Research team and reflexivity; study design; and analysis and findings.

6.        Results and discussion sections seems to be missing. Please provide the respective subtitles.

7.        Results should be better organized: please, provide a table of all themes resulting from the thematic analysis performed.

8.        The discussion section needs improvement. Please articulate your results with other studies and provide deeper social context interpretations.

9.        Must include a limitations section.

10.  Must include an implications section, especially in terms of sociopolitical implications.

Best wishes.

Author Response

See attached 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This article addresses an important social issue: female genital mutilation. More specifically, it addresses the question of how this practice worsens, in two regions of Kenya, when the material conditions of the communities become more difficult, for example due to drought or food shortages. The social mechanism behind this regression is fairly well described, although this could have been made at the beginning of the article: in times of material hardship, faced with the fear of not being able to marry nubile young girls, their families are more likely to resort to genital mutilation, which they see as facilitating, if not guaranteeing, their marriage, even though they may have been on the verge of abandoning such practices. Despite the seriousness of the issue and the value of the aggravation analysis, the proposed text cannot be published as such. It currently suffers from two flaws that are relatively easy to correct.

On the one hand, the formal structure of the text needs to be revised: the division into sections is not rigorous and undoubtedly not the right one, since it leads to too many repetitions that make reading a real pain, even for the most well-meaning reader. It is imperative that the author of the article eliminate all repetitions. In addition, at least a third of the text of the article should be removed; it is definitely too long. I suggest that there is no need to go into a detailed analysis of the interviews, which merely repeat the more general sociological analysis of the problem addressed. A few significant excerpts, placed in footnotes, would suffice. Instead of the interviews, it would be sufficient to explain better in what sense we can speak of regression. Does it mean, as I assume here, that a significant number of families were on the verge of abandoning this practice?

On the other hand, it would have been good to better inform the reader on two points: 1) Has such an effect of aggravating female genital mutilation through the deterioration of material living conditions been observed elsewhere than in Kenya, and if so, is the sociological explanation then proposed identical? 2) What measures - the article speaks evasively of educational measures - have been generally taken against female genital mutilations in Kenya or elsewhere which would be sufficiently strong to resist to the temptation of regression?3) For example, are financial aids able to diminish the pressure to regression? 4) Or do the educative measures have to be oriented towards the young men of these areas who are in fact the potential husbands?

 

The subject of the article is too important to neglect the formal quality of the presentation.

Author Response

Please see attached 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Dear authors,

thank you for implementing all the requested changes in this new version of your manuscript. I believe that the manuscript has been sufficiently improved to warrant publication in Societies.

Best wishes.