On February 6th, International Day for the Abandonment of Female Genital Cutting (FGC), Sabine Panet, Director of Tostan France, explained how thousands of communities in Senegal, Guinea, and Burkina Faso have abandoned FGC, thanks to the new knowledge and skills learned through the Tostan Community Empowered Program  (CEP).

Panet explained that while the human rights education was deliberate, the "movement [towards FGC abandonment] was unexpected.” When abandonment began, Tostan had never addressed the topic of FGC. It was the participants in Tostan’s CEP classes that insisted on protecting the rights of women and children and abandoning the practice.

“The movement that followed was the result of grassroots activism and so it is, above all, the communities' success," Panet explained.