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A scoping review of FGM in humanitarian settings: an overlooked phenomenon with lifelong consequences

BACKGROUND: Female genital mutilation (FGM) is widely recognized as a human rights violation. Little is known about FGM rates and practices in humanitarian settings, and about the impact of crisis on the drivers and consequences of FGM. This scoping review set out to investigate the current research...

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Autores principales: Elnakib, Shatha, Metzler, Janna
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9476296/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36109790
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13031-022-00479-5
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author Elnakib, Shatha
Metzler, Janna
author_facet Elnakib, Shatha
Metzler, Janna
author_sort Elnakib, Shatha
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Female genital mutilation (FGM) is widely recognized as a human rights violation. Little is known about FGM rates and practices in humanitarian settings, and about the impact of crisis on the drivers and consequences of FGM. This scoping review set out to investigate the current research landscape on FGM in humanitarian settings. METHODS: We conducted a search of electronic databases and gray literature published between 1990 and 2021. This was coupled with backward citation tracking on eligible studies and reviews. We analyzed studies that met our eligibility criteria using thematic analysis. RESULTS: We found 13 peer-reviewed and four grey literature articles. Most studies were published in the last decade between 2010 and 2021, signaling growing attention to the issue. Five of the 17 articles provided estimates of incidence based on primary data collection amongst crisis-affected populations, ten focused on drivers, ten on consequences and five on interventions. The limited studies that have examined FGM in humanitarian settings indicate that the impact of crisis on FGM is multifaceted and context-specific, depending in part on interactions with host and other displaced communities and their social norms and practices. There is evidence that the acquisition and transfer of harmful social norms may take place during migration flows, but also that social norms underlying FGM may weaken in contexts of displacement, causing the practice to decrease. The incidence of FGM may also remain unchanged, but the type of FGM practiced may shift from more harmfully perceived forms to less radical forms. We found that drivers of FGM may be exacerbated, attenuated, or unchanged by crisis and displacement. Overall, there was predominant focus on medical consequences of FGM, and limited research on the social, economic, and psychological consequences of the practice. There was also a dearth of research into intervention effectiveness. CONCLUSIONS: Despite an increase in research on FGM in humanitarian settings, there is still a notable dearth of studies investigating the impact of emergencies on FGM and the factors that propel it. More research and documentation of evidence are needed to inform interventions and policies. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13031-022-00479-5.
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spelling pubmed-94762962022-09-15 A scoping review of FGM in humanitarian settings: an overlooked phenomenon with lifelong consequences Elnakib, Shatha Metzler, Janna Confl Health Review BACKGROUND: Female genital mutilation (FGM) is widely recognized as a human rights violation. Little is known about FGM rates and practices in humanitarian settings, and about the impact of crisis on the drivers and consequences of FGM. This scoping review set out to investigate the current research landscape on FGM in humanitarian settings. METHODS: We conducted a search of electronic databases and gray literature published between 1990 and 2021. This was coupled with backward citation tracking on eligible studies and reviews. We analyzed studies that met our eligibility criteria using thematic analysis. RESULTS: We found 13 peer-reviewed and four grey literature articles. Most studies were published in the last decade between 2010 and 2021, signaling growing attention to the issue. Five of the 17 articles provided estimates of incidence based on primary data collection amongst crisis-affected populations, ten focused on drivers, ten on consequences and five on interventions. The limited studies that have examined FGM in humanitarian settings indicate that the impact of crisis on FGM is multifaceted and context-specific, depending in part on interactions with host and other displaced communities and their social norms and practices. There is evidence that the acquisition and transfer of harmful social norms may take place during migration flows, but also that social norms underlying FGM may weaken in contexts of displacement, causing the practice to decrease. The incidence of FGM may also remain unchanged, but the type of FGM practiced may shift from more harmfully perceived forms to less radical forms. We found that drivers of FGM may be exacerbated, attenuated, or unchanged by crisis and displacement. Overall, there was predominant focus on medical consequences of FGM, and limited research on the social, economic, and psychological consequences of the practice. There was also a dearth of research into intervention effectiveness. CONCLUSIONS: Despite an increase in research on FGM in humanitarian settings, there is still a notable dearth of studies investigating the impact of emergencies on FGM and the factors that propel it. More research and documentation of evidence are needed to inform interventions and policies. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13031-022-00479-5. BioMed Central 2022-09-15 /pmc/articles/PMC9476296/ /pubmed/36109790 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13031-022-00479-5 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Review
Elnakib, Shatha
Metzler, Janna
A scoping review of FGM in humanitarian settings: an overlooked phenomenon with lifelong consequences
title A scoping review of FGM in humanitarian settings: an overlooked phenomenon with lifelong consequences
title_full A scoping review of FGM in humanitarian settings: an overlooked phenomenon with lifelong consequences
title_fullStr A scoping review of FGM in humanitarian settings: an overlooked phenomenon with lifelong consequences
title_full_unstemmed A scoping review of FGM in humanitarian settings: an overlooked phenomenon with lifelong consequences
title_short A scoping review of FGM in humanitarian settings: an overlooked phenomenon with lifelong consequences
title_sort scoping review of fgm in humanitarian settings: an overlooked phenomenon with lifelong consequences
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9476296/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36109790
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13031-022-00479-5
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