[MUSIC] I have discussed how people must have reasons for changing their behaviors, especially when those behaviors have lasted for a long time. Reasons include changing not only factual beliefs, but also personal normative beliefs. Let me remind you what I mean by personal normative beliefs. Personal normative beliefs are beliefs about what should be done, what I should do, what I think other people should do. They may be prudential, as when we think people should not smoke, because it is bad for their health. Yet, the shoot of personal normative beliefs can also be moral, as when we say that we should treat other people fairly. Or that a girl ought to be married at a young age for her own protection and happiness. Empirical evidence may help in changing both factual and potential normative beliefs. For example, providing good schools and good jobs for girls, as well as financial incentives for families to lighten to burden of keeping girls at home for much longer. May change the fact while in prudential assessment, of early marriage, is a good insurance for a girl's future life. As there are now other safe paths, to follow. But no amount of empirical evidence, per say, will change a moral normative belief. These are usually deeply held values such as honor, purity, fairness, justice and so on. While we cannot change a moral norm with empirical evidence, we usually can change the embodiment of these values. For example, people may come to be convinced that honor is not necessarily best protected by female genital cutting. And that the young, whole girl is as good and honorable, and possibly even more so, than a girl who has been maimed. The successful Salima campaign did exactly this. Without questioning the ideas of honor and purity, the campaign presented the image of an uncut girl as an image of value and integrity. >> In Sudan the Selima campaign started in 2008. The goals of the Selima campaign is to keep all girls and women in Sudan uncut. >> People were not practically convinced about the dangers of FGC. In fact, Salima doesn't mention the health implications or any of the dangers of FGC and anything. It set out to just play around the discourse of Selima, try to change the negative perception of the uncut girl and replace it with a very positive perspective. So the songs, the dancers, the drummer, everything focused on the message of born Selima, stay Selima. But what we see happened is that over the years, people in the community are aware of the dangers, they see girls die from FGC. So, when we start talking about the positive aspects, it just links with what they know already without us having to talk about the dangers. And it triggers the change, it triggers the discourse around change on FGC. >> There are still people who are committed to FGC in the communities, and not to raise the level of sensitivity by those who are still upholding the practice. It was a good thing to find a new path of information and of discussions, which are not negative, but positive. And in this way you can include even people with sensitivity. You can include them in the discussions. So it did not go to talk about the negative part of this and the messages, because this has taken quite a long time before. I mean, for the last 60 years, people have been talking about negative messages and talking about the badness and the harm that FGC caused. So I think because they want to include those who are sensitive to find answers from their side, of accepting a new norm which is Selima. >> I've compared this with maybe my little experience in Sierra Leon where the focus was on stressing the health benefits of FGC. And what it did was people went into hiding, and they have the female circumcisers called the [FOREIGN]. Who take the girls into the and cut them. And it was still continuing, because they didn't replace this with any positive image. All we said was that FGC is bad, it's dangerous, don't do it. And people would still go, because they would see that well if 100 girls go out to be cut, maybe one or two will die. But the others would be okay, and they thought that was fine. But now with this idea in Sudan of playing on the positives, it's more empowering. I think that's the difference. That positive messages empower communities to take action. Or else if you focus too much on the negatives, that they become like, so what's? Who die, everybody will die anyway.
