61% of Asian Americans feel hate towards them rising: Study

Story by TOI World Desk • 

61% of Asian Americans feel hate towards them rising: Study

© Provided by The Times of India

The Asian American Foundation published a report revealing a significant discrepancy between the general public's perception of hate towards Asian Americans and the reality experienced by the community itself.

The STAATUS Index 2024 is a comprehensive study that examines the evolving perceptions of Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (AANHPIs) in the United States. The survey, which included 6,272 participants from across the country, aims to identify the most pressing issues faced by the AANHPI community.

“Since its debut in 2021, the STAATUS Index has uncovered hidden perceptions and stereotypes that have given rise to racism against AANHPIs throughout our long history in the US and during the Covid-19 pandemic. Unless we understand and continue to struggle against these deeply rooted views, they

will persist and threaten the wellbeing of AANHPIs when the next crisis emerges,” said Dr Paul Watanabe, AAC Chair

Despite only one-third of Americans believing that hate towards Asian Americans has increased, the AANHPI community reports alarming instances of discrimination and violence. Over the past 12 months, 32% of Asian Americans have been called a slur, and 29% have experienced verbal harassment or abuse. These numbers are even higher for certain subgroups, such as Southeast Asian Americans, who report higher incidences of being called a racial slur (40%), verbal harassment or abuse (39%), and threats of physical assault (22%). Furthermore, a significant portion of Asian Americans fear becoming victims of physical attacks (41%) or discrimination (59%) in the near future due to their race, ethnicity, or religion.

The study also highlights the impact of discrimination, violence, and lack of representation on the AANHPI community's sense of belonging and acceptance. Only 38% of Asian Americans completely agree that they belong, and an even smaller percentage (18%) feel fully accepted for their racial identity in the US Social media (34%), workplaces, neighborhoods, and educational institutions (31%) are identified as the least welcoming environments for those who do not feel fully accepted or do not fully belong.

To address these issues, the study emphasizes the need to break the "STAATUS quo" and advocate for and celebrate AANHPI stories beyond Heritage Month. The study also revealed a trend of rising doubts about Asian Americans' loyalty to the US, with 79% of respondents being unsure or in agreement that Asian Americans are more loyal to their countries of origin than to the United States.

The lack of awareness and representation of the AANHPI community is evident in the findings, with a majority of Americans (55%) unable to name a single event or policy related to Asian Americans, and more than half (52%) unable to name a famous Asian American. When asked about their favorite movies featuring Asian American characters, half of the respondents (50%) could not name any, despite expressing a desire to see more Asian Americans in dramas (59%) and comedies (60%).

To decrease racism, the top three ideas proposed by the study include teaching the history of Asian Americans in K-12 schools and colleges (41%), increasing the visibility of Asian Americans in American society (41%), and providing more opportunities for interaction with Asian Americans (39%). By implementing these measures and raising awareness about the challenges faced by the AANHPI community, the study aims to foster a more inclusive and equitable society for all.

Axios also corroborated some of the above findings stating that their survey reveals a stark contrast in perceptions regarding hate crimes against Asian Americans. The majority of the general American population believes that such incidents are decreasing. However, the Asian American community holds a different view. The survey found that "1 in 3 reported being the subject of hate this past year."

Meanwhile, another recent study conducted by TAAF in March revealed alarming findings regarding the safety of Asian American adults in New York City. The survey, which included a representative sample of 1,000 Asian American adults aged 16 and above, found that "1 in 5 Asian American adults in New York City reported being physically assaulted in the past 12 months."

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With Shake-Up, Putin Seeks The Upper Hand In Russia’s Long, Costly War On Ukraine – Analysis

 May 14, 2024  

By RFE RL

By Robert Coalson

(RFE/RL) — Russian President Vladimir Putin has launched his fifth term with a rare shake-up of the government that analysts say is driven by the need to manage a long and increasingly costly war of aggression against Ukraine and the fallout from Moscow’s mounting confrontation with the West.

Putin on May 12 removed Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu – long seen as one of Putin’s closest confidants and mentioned periodically as a possible presidential successor — and replaced him with acting First Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov, a 65-year-old economist who formerly served as economic development minster and who aligns closely with Putin’s statist, centralizing impulses.

By moving the man who has been overseeing the entire economic bloc of ministers in the cabinet into the Defense Ministry, Putin is signaling the primacy of the war against Ukraine and his growing efforts to challenge the West among the tasks now facing the government.

It’s a message that Putin has delivered in numerous speeches since he launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and in recent months in particular.

“The proposal to name one of the key Kremlin-insider economists and the main statist in the economic bloc to the Defense Ministry could mean that Putin intends to win the war in the factories of the military-industrial complex and on international markets. This is logical, since the economic bloc has, overall, been more effective during the war than the security bloc,” Aleksandr Baunov, an analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote on Telegram.

“The strategy for victory will not be through mobilizations and military breakthroughs, but by applying slow pressure on Ukraine through the superior power of Russia’s military-industrial complex and the economy as a whole, which will apparently be pushed to work more effectively both on the front and in the rear,” he added.

Kirill Martynov, editor in chief of Novaya Gazeta Europe, said Belousov’s appointment meant that Putin intends to put the economy on a military footing — even more than it already is.

“The main idea that Belousov represents is economic mobilization in the service of Putin’s aims,” Martynov told Current Time, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with VOA.

‘100 Percent’ Putin’s Man

Far-right nationalist-imperialist ideologue Aleksandr Dugin praised Putin for the move, calling it “a decisive step toward a government of victory” in a post on Telegram. Many nationalists who avidly support the war against Ukraine have harshly criticized Shoigu for the way it has been conducted.

Belousov has been a fixture among Russia’s top economic managers for years, including a stint as Putin’s main economic adviser in 2013-20. Through the 2000s, he was seen as something of a foil to relatively liberal Finance Minister Aleksei Kudrin, opposing many of Kudrin’s privatization initiatives and leading the effort to divert much of the profits from oil and gas exports back into state coffers.

A government source told the media outlet The Bell in 2018 that Belousov was the only economist in the Russian government who supported the 2014 takeover of Ukraine’s Crimea region. The source described Belousov as a “committed statist” who believes Russia is surrounded by “a ring of enemies.”

In recent years, he has overseen the national project on “unmanned aircraft systems,” which has spearheaded boosting Russia’s production of military drones.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on May 12 explained Belousov’s appointment as defense minister by saying his main task would be “to integrate the economics of the security bloc into the economy of the country.” Peskov noted that Russia’s budget was becoming similar to that of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, when spending on the military and security agencies was 7.4 percent of GDP.

Aleksandra Prokopenko, a former Russian central bank analyst and now a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that Belousov is “well-versed in military-industrial complex matters” and “holds Orthodox Christian beliefs.” She added that he was “100 percent” Putin’s man.

“Putin is aware that this war is not likely going anywhere anytime soon,” Mark Galeotti, a Russian political and security analyst, told RFE/RL. “As he digs in for the long term — and we see this in his rhetoric, but also we’re now seeing it within the government apparatus — from his point of view, this is a war that is going to be won to a large extent on industrial production. And this is why Belousov comes in.”

Belousov’s job will be “to put the Russian economy on a war footing and to transform Russia into a country in which the military economy drives everything else,” political analyst Ivan Preobrazhensky told RFE/RL’s Russian Service.

‘Monstrously Unpopular’

Belousov’s appointment came as a surprise, but analysts have speculated that the position of Shoigu, 66, had been growing weaker ever since the Russian military failed in its attempt to secure a quick victory over Ukraine in the weeks following the February 2022 full-scale invasion.

He and General Valery Gerasimov, the 68-year-old chief of the General Staff, were the primary targets of discontent during a short-lived but dangerous mutiny by Wagner mercenary fighters headed by Yevgeny Prigozhin in June 2023. Shoigu suffered a further blow last month when a deputy, Timur Ivanov, was arrested on suspicion of corruption.

Putin named Shoigu to head the Security Council, replacing fellow Putin insider Nikolai Patrushev, whose new appointment has not been disclosed.

Shoigu is “monstrously unpopular with the troops” in Ukraine, Galeotti said.

“But, on the other hand, Shoigu is a friend, a personal friend of Putin, and Putin is strangely loyal to his own,” he added.

Shoigu’s reassignment and the appointment of a civilian economist as defense minister could mean that professional military officers will take increased control over the military side of the war on Ukraine. The moves could presage the removal of Gerasimov as well, Galeotti said.

“Gerasimov has proven to be a massively underperforming and unpopular chief of the General Staff,” he said. “He’s even more despised amongst his own men than Shoigu was…. I wouldn’t be surprised if we see a new chief of the General Staff.”

Many of the most militaristic and aggressive pro-war bloggers were elated by the developments, which they saw as a blow against corruption within the Defense Ministry and a promise of improved military effectiveness both in Ukraine and beyond.

“Finally there is a chance to wipe out the last reserve of the era of [former President Boris] Yeltsin and manage to create a military central plan on the eve of the big war with Western Europe,” blogger Dmitry Konanykhin wrote on Telegram.

Written by Robert Coalson with reporting by RFE/RL’s Russian Service and Current Time

File photo of Russia's Andrei Belousov. Photo Credit: Government.ru, Wikipedia Commons

Russia using ‘hybrid’ approach to grow Arctic presence

May 13, 2024 
By Henry Wilkins

Analysts say Russia is adopting a so-called hybrid approach to growing its strategic influence in the Arctic, through research, increased maritime activities and tourism. For the inhabitants of one remote Norwegian community, the announcement of a new boat bringing tourists from Russia means more than just a few extra visitors. Henry Wilkins reports from Svalbard, Norway.

 OPINION

Bringing the World’s Food Production in Line with Global Climate Goals

By Dan Drollettel

New technology in harvesting and preserving rain water has helped farmers in Kenya grow more and healthier crops year-round even in a changing climate. Credit: FAO/Christena Dowsett

NORTHAMPTON, Massachusetts, May 14 2024 (IPS) - Food systems—how we grow, transport, prepare, and dispose of the food we eat—are responsible for roughly one-third of all global greenhouse gas emissions. And those gases are changing the climate, which in turn is disrupting the food supply. It would seem to be a classic vicious circle.

To compound the problem, the intertwined fates of food and climate change have taken remarkably long to be recognized: It was only last December that the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) unveiled its non-binding “food systems roadmap” for bringing the world’s food production in line with global climate goals.

Why it took so long for food to be “on the table” at international conferences about climate change is something that Emile Frison delves into for the special issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. In his article “We cannot afford another lost year for food and climate action,” Frison says that part of the problem so far has been imagery: “When we think of climate change … [w]hat we almost certainly don’t think of is the burger sitting juicy on the dinner plate, the cow in the barn, or the ready-made lasagna steaming fresh from the microwave.”

Along similar lines, an interview with food systems expert Catherine Bertini focuses on the difficulties of reconciling the United Nations’ twin (and perhaps not entirely compatible) goals of eliminating global hunger and stabilizing global climate.

But while the problems involved in creating more sustainable food systems may have taken a long time to be recognized and be large in size, they are not insurmountable. In fact, there are many approaches to solving them.

One is to use the latest in high-tech genetic editing tools to make crops with increased yields, greater resiliency to extreme weather, and more resistance to the new diseases introduced as formerly temperate zones become warmer and the reach of what were formerly exclusively tropical pests and diseases expands.

“Appropriately enough in the Century of Biology, that means turning to genetic tools such as CRISPR,” write the authors of “We need to act now to ensure global food security and reduce agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.”

A whole other tack involves looking to the past and bringing back some traditional, indigenous food sources—many of which are extraordinarily well-suited to the Global South but over time fell by the agricultural wayside.

In “What if potatoes grew on trees,” Diane Ragone, founder of Hawaii’s Breadfruit Institute, describes the organization’s successful effort to bring back the low-cost, sustainable, locally grown foodstuff known as breadfruit.

She highlights the importance of several projects, years in the making, to interview people across the Pacific Islands about their traditional cultural practices regarding this food’s planting, cultivating, harvesting, and storing—and to document their knowledge in photographs, recordings, and videotapes.

This type of holistic approach is also a key part of what has come to be known as “regenerative agriculture,” which deals with not just food production but also with how agricultural practices can enrich the soil and the environment.

In “Regenerative agriculture sequesters carbon—but that’s not the only benefit and shouldn’t be the only goal,” Jessica Villat, a researcher affiliated with the Harvard University Extension School, explains how practices aimed at better sequestering carbon—including the planting of cover crops, using non-chemical fertilizers, applying integrated pest management, and not tilling cropland—can succeed.

Not only that; these practices go to the heart of efforts to increase biodiversity, better control wildfire, and improve water quality and availability, as well.

Human society faces tremendous challenges in remaking its food system in an age of climate change, but it has some powerful tools at hand and a number of different approaches to take in possibly transforming a vicious circle into a virtuous cycle.

Source: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

IPS UN Bureau

Rise of the far right: is EU stability at risk? • FRANCE 24 English

 May 13, 2024 

The past few years have seen the normalisation of far right parties across Europe. Mark Owen speaks to Dr Marta Lorimer, fellow in European politics at the European Institute at the London School of Economics. She says that the far right is here to stay and that mainstream politicians must address the root cause of the rise of the far right, rather than adopt its ideology.

#AfD #EU #FarRight

 

Pro-union ad featuring former Alabama coach Nick Saban was done without permission, he says

By The Associated Press

Posted May 13, 2024 

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. (AP) — Former University of Alabama football coach Nick Saban said a pro-union advertisement that features his past comments was done without his permission.

The ad by More Perfect Union Solidarity is airing as more than 5,000 Mercedes workers in Alabama vote this week on whether to join the United Auto Workers. The ad included comments the legendary football coach made when asked a question about the possible organization of college athletes.

“Not only were these comments taken entirely out of context, they were also being used without my knowledge or permission. I do not personally endorse the UAW or its campaign and have asked the UAW to remove any advertisements featuring me from circulation,” Saban said in a statement.

“I encourage all Team Members to exercise their right to vote in the upcoming election,” Saban added.

More Perfect Union Solidarity President Faiz Shakir maintained that “we didn’t take anything Coach said out of context.”

“We presented his public statements exactly as he made them; and we’d ask people to watch the ad and judge for themselves,” Shakir said.

Voting ends Friday in the high-stakes election that comes as the UAW is trying to crack union resistance in the Deep South.

The Associated Press

Attorney says settlement being considered in NCAA antitrust case could withstand future challenges



 NCAA signage outside the headquarters in Indianapolis, Thursday, March 12, 2020. A settlement being discussed in an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA and major college conferences could cost billions and pave the way for a new compensation model for college athletes. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)

 Referees try to break up an altercation between Alabama and Auburn during the second half of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Nov. 25, 2023, in Auburn, Ala. A settement being discussed in an antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA and major college conferences could cost billions and pave the way for a new compensation model for college athletes. (AP Photo/Vasha Hunt, File)

BY RALPH D. RUSSO
May 13, 2024

One of the lead attorneys in a class-action antitrust lawsuit against the NCAA said Monday that settlement talks are progressing as a deadline looms next week for the organization and major conferences to agree to a deal that would cost billions in damages and set up a groundbreaking revenue-sharing system with college athletes.

“I’m hearing that things are going well in terms of both sides getting ready to approve this,” Steve Berman, a Seattle-based attorney for the plaintiffs, told The Associated Press.

Berman would not confirm details of the possible agreement, but said a settlement would create a new framework for paying college athletes that he believes could withstand future antitrust challenges.

“The rules prohibiting outright restrictions on (name, image and likeness) and other compensation payments will be greatly modified such that they probably can satisfy a pro-competitive justification,” said Berman, who has won several other cases against the NCAA, including the Alston case that went before the Supreme Court.

College sports leaders have been pleading for help from Congress to regulate NIL compensation since even before the NCAA lifted its ban on athletes being permitted to earn money for sponsorship and endorsement deals in 2021.

NCAA President Charlie Baker, who was at the ACC spring meetings in Amelia Island, Florida, on Monday, said a settlement could change the conversation with federal lawmakers about athlete compensation.

“The other thing it does is create predictability and stability for schools,” Baker told reporters. “But it also creates a tremendous opportunity for student-athletes, especially with the schools that are most heavily resourced.”

The settlement being considered would have the NCAA paying about $2.9 billion in damages. Schools in the Atlantic Coast Conference, Big Ten, Big 12 and Southeastern Conference would agree to commit about $300 million each over 10 years, most of which would be redirected to current athletes.

The settlement would create a revenue-sharing system that would allow — but not require — each school to share about 22% of athletics revenue per year with all athletes, with a possible cap of about $25 million — though that number would rise as revenue increased. The plan is similar to revenue sharing in professional sports leagues, though those athletes collectively bargain through a union.

“There is a set amount that goes to the players from the broadcast revenues, it’s capped,” Berman said. “This is really going to be no different.”

The plaintiffs gave the NCAA and conferences until May 23 to agree to a deal, according to a person familiar with the negotiations who spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because details of the talks were not being made public.

The NCAA needs approval from its board of governors and each conference needs its presidential board to sign off on a deal. Baker would not commit to a deadline.

Berman is leading House vs. the NCAA, but the settlement could cover three other antitrust claims against the association and major college conferences as well. Hubbard vs. the NCAA, Carter vs. the NCAA and Fontenot vs. the NCAA all challenge rules regarding compensation of college athletes.

House is set to go to trial in the Northern District of California in January in front of Judge Claudia Wilken, who ruled on Alston and the O’Bannon name, image and likeness case.

If the parties agree to settle, it would still need preliminary approval from Wilken. Then athletes who are part of the class would be notified of the terms of the deal and given the right to challenge it.

House, brought by former Arizona State swimmer Graham House, is asking for athletes who were denied the ability to earn money off NIL deals to be awarded damages, dating to 2016. The suit also makes the case that revenue earned by conferences and the NCAA through television contracts should be deemed NIL compensation and shared with athletes.

Berman said the settlement would allow future college athlete to challenge it.

“The way we’re going to set this up is that every new NCAA athlete will get a copy of the class notice, in terms of the settlement, and there will be a yearly hearing set where anybody who wants to object can come forward and object,” Berman said.

The settlement will not resolve whether college athletes should be deemed employees and allowed to unionize. There is a separate antitrust lawsuit in Pennsylvania dealing with that. Plus, a recent ruling by a regional National Labor Relations Board director paved the way for members of the Dartmouth men’s basketball team to vote to join a union while a similar effort is being heard involving athletes at Southern California.

“This settlement doesn’t touch that,” Berman said. “But in terms of changing the rules to make it fair for student-athletes to share in the compensation, I think if this goes forward it settles that.”

How Israel Inadvertently Empowered Palestinian Media – OpEd

 May 14, 2024  

By Ramzy Baroud

By granting its 2024 World Press Freedom Prize to Palestinian journalists covering the Israeli war on Gaza, UNESCO has acknowledged a historic truth.

Even if the decision to name Gaza’s journalists as laureates of its prestigious award was partly motivated by the courage of these journalists, the truth is that no one in the world deserves such recognition as those covering the genocidal war in Gaza.

“As humanity, we have a huge debt to their courage and commitment to freedom of expression,” Mauricio Weibel, chair of the international jury of media professionals, which made the recommendation for the award, truthfully described the courage of Gaza’s journalists.

Courage is an admirable quality, especially when many journalists in Gaza knew that Israel was seeking to kill them, often along with their families, to ensure the horror of the war remains hidden from view or, at best, contested as if a matter of opinion.

Between Oct. 7, 2023, and May 6, 142 Palestinian journalists in Gaza were killed by Israeli bombardment or were assassinated or executed. This is higher than the number of journalists killed in the Second World War and the Vietnam War combined.

This number does not include many bloggers, intellectuals and writers who did not have professional media credentials. It also excludes the many family members who have been killed along with the targeted journalists.

But there is more to Gaza’s journalists than bravery.

Whenever Israel launches a war on Gaza, it almost always prevents international media professionals from entering the Strip. This go-to strategy is meant to ensure the story of the crimes that the Israeli army is about to commit goes unreported.

The strategy paid dividends in Operation Cast Lead in 2008-09. The true degree of the atrocities carried out in Gaza during that war, which resulted in the killing of more than 1,400 Palestinians, was largely known when the war was over. By then, Israel had concluded its major military operation and the corporate mainstream Western media had done a splendid job in ensuring the dominance of the Israeli political discourse on the war.

Israel’s behavior since that war has remained unchanged: barring international journalists, placing a gag order on Israeli journalists and killing the Palestinian journalists who dared to cover the story.

The August 2014 war on Gaza was one of the bloodiest for journalists. It lasted 18 days and cost the lives of 17 journalists. Palestinian journalists, however, remained committed to the story. When one fell, 10 seemed to take their place.

The Occupied Territories have always been one of the most dangerous places to be a journalist. The Palestinian Journalists’ Union reported that between 2000 — the start of the Second Intifada — and May 11, 2022, the day Israel murdered the iconic Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, 55 journalists were killed by the Israeli army.

That number might not seem too high if compared to the latest onslaught on Gaza but, as per international standards, it was terrifying. And it was based on an equally disturbing logic: killing the storyteller is the quickest way to kill the story itself.

For decades, Israel, an occupying power, has managed to depict itself as a victim in a state of self-defense. With few critical voices in the mainstream media, many around the world believed Israel’s deceptive discourse on terrorism, security and self-defense.

The only obstacle that stands between the truth and Israel’s engineered version of the truth is honest journalists — thus, the ongoing war on the media.

What Israel did not anticipate is that, by blocking international media access to Gaza, it would inadvertently empower Palestinian journalists to take charge of their own narrative.

“Interpretations depend very much on who the interpreter is, who he or she is addressing, what his or her purpose is, at what historical moment the interpretation takes place,” late Palestinian intellectual Edward Said wrote in “Covering Islam.”

Like any other form of intellectual interpretation, journalism becomes subjected to the same rule of positionality in academia, as in the relationship between the identity of the researcher and the social or political context of the subject matter.

Palestinian journalists in Gaza are both the story and the storytellers. Their success or failure to convey the story with all its factual and emotional details could make the difference between the continuation or the end of the Israeli genocide.

Though the war is yet to end, Gaza’s journalists have already proven to be deserving of all the honors and accolades, not only because of their courage but because of what we actually know about the war, despite the numerous and seemingly insurmountable obstacles created by Israel and its allies.

Most people all over the world want the war to end. But how did they acquire the information that made them realize the extent of the horror in Gaza? Certainly not through Israel’s cheerleaders in the mainstream media. Rather, it was through Palestinian journalists on the ground using every means and every available channel to tell the story.

These journalists include self-taught youngsters, like 9-year-old Lama Jamous, who wore a press vest and conveyed the details of life in displacement camps in southern Gaza, reporting from Nasser Hospital and many other places with poise and elegance.

As for the accuracy of information provided by these journalists, they were certainly professional enough to be verified by numerous human rights groups, medical and legal associations and millions of people around the world who used them to build a case against the Israeli war. Indeed, all we know about the war — the death toll, the degree of destruction, the daily human suffering, the mass graves, the famine and much more — came from these Gaza-based reporters.

The success and the sacrifices of Gaza’s journalists should serve as a model for journalists and journalism around the world, as an example of how news about war crimes, sieges and human suffering in all its forms should be conveyed.

\


Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press, London), now available on Amazon.com

PATRIRCHY IS FEMICIDE

Africa: Female Genital Mutilation Is On the Rise in Africa - Disturbing New Trends Are Driving Up the NumbersShare

ANALYSISBy Tamsin BradleyTHE CONVERSATION AFRICA (JOHANNESBURG)MAY 12, 2024

Thirteen-year-old Salamatu Jalloh had her whole future to look forward to. But in January 2023, her lifeless body was found wrapped in a pink and blue shroud on an earthen floor in a village in north-west Sierra Leone.

Salamatu and two other girls bled to death after participating in a secret Bondo society initiation into womanhood. The ceremony, which lasts for several weeks, began with a sense of excitement and anticipation - a rare occasion in this rural community to celebrate girls. But at its core was a violent act: the cutting and removal of the girls' external genitalia.

Their tragic deaths were highlighted in the latest Unicef report on female genital mutilation. According to the UN agency 230 million girls and women alive today have survived female genital mutilation, but live with the devastating consequences.

Most procedures happen in African countries, accounting for 144 million cases.

Despite campaigns to end this practice there are 30 million more women and girls globally who have undergone this form of torture than eight years ago.

As an applied social anthropologist who has researched women and violence for many years I've been studying this form of abuse, and the reasons it persists, for over two decades. Some countries are making strides in reducing the practice. In others, advancements have stalled or even been reversed due to changing ideologies as well as the fallout from instability and conflict.

Unicef calculates the rate of decline would need to be 27 times faster to eliminate this abuse by 2030.

Understanding the trends is the starting point for ending female genital mutilation. Some of the new trends are alarming. They include a backlash by conservatives against efforts to stop female genital mutilation; increasing numbers of "secret procedures" which are difficult to keep track of; and shifts towards what are termed "less severe" forms. Increased "medicalisation" of the procedure by health care professionals is another disturbing trend.

Reasons given for FGM

The types of cutting vary. In its most severe form, infibulation, the cut edges of the labia are sewn together to achieve a smoothness considered to be beautiful. The vagina must be reopened for sexual intercourse or childbirth.

Every year, over half a million girls globally undergo this extreme form of vaginal mutilation.

Most of those who support female genital mutilation believe it maintains cleanliness, increases a girl's chances of marriage, protects her virginity and discourages "female promiscuity", thus preserving the family honour. They also believe it improves fertility and prevents stillbirths.Most supporters of the practice do so for religious or cultural reasons.

In fact female genital mutilation has no health benefits, and it harms girls and women in many ways. It carries the risk of immediate complications like shock, haemorrhage, tetanus, sepsis, urine retention, ulceration of the genital region and injury to adjacent genital tissue. Long-term consequences include increased risk of maternal morbidity, recurrent bladder and urinary tract infection, cysts, infertility and adverse psychological and sexual consequences.

FGM in African countries

Countries with the highest levels of female genital mutilation are Somalia (99%), Guinea (95%) and Djibouti (90%).

In Kenya, over the last half century a remarkable transformation has occurred. Female genital mutilation was once widespread, but most of the country has now abandoned the practice.

Yet among the Somali community, concentrated in the north-eastern province of Kenya, there has been little change, and the practice remains nearly universal.

Somalia and Sudan face the challenge of addressing widespread female genital mutilation amid conflict and population growth.

Ethiopia has consistently made progress, but climate shocks, disease and food insecurity make it harder to maintain these successes.

The fragility of progress cannot be overstated.

Conservative backlashes and compliant doctors

There are some alarming trends that make eliminating this practice even more difficult.

• Backlash by conservatives: In The Gambia religious leaders have demanded that legislators revoke a 2015 law banning female genital mutilation. They reacted after three women in the northern village of Bakadagi were found guilty of mutilating eight infant girls in 2023, the first major conviction under the law. The World Health Organization has warned that a repeal in The Gambia could encourage other countries to disregard their duty to protect these rights.
• Secret procedures: In countries where the practice is banned it has often gone underground. Girls are also being cut at a younger age to avoid detection. This makes accurate rates of female genital mutilation harder to capture.
• Shifts towards "less severe" forms: One of these is sunnah, the removal of the clitoris. In countries such as Sudan and Somalia this is considered by many to be unharmful as the vagina is not sewn up. Proponents argue that this does not count as female genital mutilation.
• "Medicalised" procedures, performed by trained people like doctors, nurses and midwives: Some people consider these legitimate as they are thought to be safer. More of these are being performed in public or private clinics, chemists, homes, or elsewhere.
• Destabilisation and eroded rights: Around 4 in 10 girls and women who have undergone female genital mutilation live in countries affected by conflict or fragility. Ethiopia, Nigeria and Sudan account for the largest numbers of girls and women who have undergone female genital mutilation in conflict-affected countries.

Armed conflict and the devastating impact of climate change have led to a sudden deepening of poverty and mass displacement, driving people from their land and livelihoods. Families are plunged into deep poverty and studies have shown that the rights of girls slip away when families are faced with stark choices.

The commodification of girls through marriage practices such as bride price means that when families are stripped of all other resources daughters become an object to be sold. Female genital mutilation, as a marker of a girl's purity, becomes essential.

Progress to eliminate this horrific form of abuse needs to be a lot faster. Understanding the shifting trends is a start.

Tamsin Bradley, Professor of International Development Studies, University of Portsmouth

This article is republished from The Conversation Africa under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.