Expanding internet access, alongside other efforts to challenge the stigmas that sustain female genital mutilation, could become an effective strategy to combat this practice.
Female genital mutilation is a deeply entrenched cultural practice that affects over 4 million girls each year. Despite international efforts to eradicate it, this practice persists, often symbolizing purity and conformity in many communities. But what happens when these traditional norms clash with rapid modernization, such as the widespread availability of fast internet?
Our study explores the impact of fast internet on the prevalence and support for female genital mutilation in Nigeria, a country where this practice is prevalent among several major ethnic groups. As Africa’s most populous nation and the largest mobile broadband market—with over 170 million mobile connections in 2019—Nigeria provides a unique setting to investigate how technology intersects with cultural practices.
Why might fast internet influence female genital mutilation? In Nigeria, it is believed to reduce sexual desire and discourage premarital and extramarital sex, behaviors that are heavily stigmatized in traditional communities. However, many of these communities, once isolated, are now exposed to global cultures and diverse forms of female identity through fast internet. This exposure helps destigmatize sexual behavior outside of marriage, weakening the perceived necessity of female genital mutilation. Furthermore, organizations like UNICEF use online platforms to conduct anti-female genital mutilation campaigns, and the spread of fast internet expands their reach.
To assess the impact of fast internet, we compared populations that had fast internet access with others that did not, taking advantage of the staggered roll-out of 3G networks in Nigeria—the primary means of accessing fast internet in sub-Saharan Africa. The results are striking: fast internet significantly reduces both the prevalence of female genital mutilation and support for the practice, especially in rural areas.
To understand the mechanisms behind this effect, we examined how fast internet influences stigmatized sexual behaviors and cultural norms. Our findings show that fast internet increases both premarital and extramarital sexual relations, as well as the number of lifetime sexual partners, particularly among women. These outcomes support the idea that fast internet is driving a broader cultural shift toward more liberal behaviors, making female genital mutilation increasingly meaningless.
We also assessed the role of online anti-female genital mutilation campaigns in contributing to its observed decline following the arrival of fast internet. Specifically, we examined the effect of a UNICEF-led campaign during the International Day of the Girl Child on October 11th, arguably the most significant online anti-female genital mutilation campaign of 2018. The campaign showed limited effects on reducing support for female genital mutilation, suggesting that its decline is primarily due to a broader cultural shift that reduces the stigma around liberal sexual behaviors, rather than the direct content of the campaign. We also ruled out income increases and migration as possible explanations for the effect of fast internet on female genital mutilation.
The implications of these findings are significant. Expanding internet access, alongside other efforts to challenge the stigmas that sustain female genital mutilation, could become an effective strategy to combat this practice. However, the increased cultural uniformity brought by the internet could have negative consequences, which future research will need to explore.
© Jorge Garcia-Hombrados, Daniel Pérez-Parra, and Ricardo Ciacci
Jorge Garcia-Hombrados is Assistant Professor (JIN Fellow) at the Department of Economic Analysis at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) and IZA Research Affiliate
Daniel Pérez-Parra is PhD student at the Université Gustave Eiffel and the Université de Tours
Ricardo Ciacci is Associate Professor of Economics at Universidad Pontificia Comillas
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