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The practice of female genital mutilation (also called female circumcision) has deep roots in tradition. Nonetheless, governments in many countries, such as Burkina Faso and Kenya, have enacted laws designed to eradicate this practice. In this paper we seek to assess what impact these laws have had on the attitudes of potentially affected women in Burkina Faso and Kenya. We use a difference-in-difference model in which the interaction between the year the law was passed and the degree of exposure to media provides an exogenous variation. Our results indicate that there is a negative correlation between the introduction of the law and the probability of being opposed to FGM among individuals having been exposed to media in Burkina Faso. Conversely, this correlation is positive in Kenya. These results are robust to a variety of specifications and econometric tests. This difference between the results for the two countries may be attributable to divergences in the prevalence of FGM and in the types of institutions that predominate. Funding Statement: None to declare Declaration of Interests: None to declare |
