Prevalence And Determinants Of Female Genital Cutting Among Primary School Girls In Addis Ababa Ethiopia

Background: Female Genital Cutting (FGC) is practiced throughout the world, with thernpractice concentrated most heavily in Asia and Africa. Although the magnitude of FGCrnin Ethiopia has decreased still the prevalence is high because the procedure doesn’t havernany benefit.rnObjective: The aim of this study was to assess the prevalence of FGC and its potentialrnfactors contributing to the act of FGC among primary in-school girls of Addis Ababa.rnMethods: There were approximately two hundred ten thousand girls who were enrolledrnin 656 primary schools in Addis Ababa. First the schools were stratified according torntheir ownership as government, public, private and religious schools. Then one primaryrnschool was randomly selected from each stratum. A total of 442 girls were proportionallyrnselected from the four selected schools. The association of FGC to demographic andrnother important variables was tested by chi-square test. A stepwise background logisticrnregression model was also applied to test further the significant associations observed inrnchi square tests using SPSS version 15.A p value below 0.05 was considered statisticallyrnsignificant.rnResults: The mean age of circumcision was 2.9 ranging from 1 to 5 years. Thernprevalence of FGC was significantly higher (36.6%) in government schools than publicrn(28.9%), private (5.1%) and religious (6.3%) schools. Likewise the prevalence of FGCrnwas higher in parents with lower income (19.9%) group & low educational status ofrnmothers (12.5%) and fathers (10.1%).rnvirnThe proportion of mothers deciding to perform FGC was higher (39%) than fathersrn(23.8%) and other relatives (22.9%).The vast majority (94.1%) of the girls’ parents statedrnthat FGC is harmful practice. Although most (94.6%) parents were aware of FGCrncomplication, still about a quarter (25.8%) of them have circumcised their daughters.rnFGC had significantly association with ethnicity, education, occupation, income andrncultural reasons given by the families. In the multivariate analysis, of these factors onlyrnthe reason of being FGC painful and healthy procedure was found as a predictor of thernpractice of female circumcision (AOR=0.35; 95%=0.17 to 0.72).rnConclusions: Despite a high level of knowledge regarding the complications of FGC andrna high level of awareness, FGC practice is prevalent among primary schoolgirls in AddisrnAbaba and most of these circumcisions were performed by the decision of mothers sornthat health education for women through different women’s forum and CBO (Idir,rnMahiber) is recommended in order to bring significant behavioral change

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