Resisting World Polity Transmission: The Silence on the Globalization of anti-FGM legislation in the Parliament of Sierra Leone

The case of legislation to ban female genital mutilation (FGM) embodies the characteristics of world polity. Sierra Leone is the only country in Africa that has no formal state policy on FGM, a human rights violation that is practiced among all women initiated into the secret society, as a rite of passage ritual. Constituting a special case in the world model, the lack of anti-FGM legislation in Sierra Leone embodies the failure of the world polity's uniformity. This research uses empirical evidence to document mechanisms employed by the decision makers in a peripheral country to reproduce the international culture at the national level.;Using ethnographic data obtained on two research trips at the Parliament of Sierra Leone, the study maps out mechanisms employed by the decision makers to reproduce international culture at the national level. Conversational interviews with Parliamentarians, and observations constitute the empirical evidence that explains the reproduction of resistance against international norms. Institutionalized at the local level, FGM is a ritual of initiation into the female secret society, Bondo. I argue that institutionalization of FGM at the local level enables the members of Sierra Leonean Parliament to effectively avoid passing anti-FGM legislation. Replacing the symbol of the diamond with the Bondo mask of the female secret society as an identifier of Sierra Leonean cultural unity, decision-makers attempt to overcome the challenges of a fragmented post-conflict society by actively constructing the new national collective identity of Sierra Leone. FGM sustains a relatively conflict-free religiously and ethnically stable African nation, constructed as a powerful symbol in the post-conflict democracy. Secret Society women, agents from international non-governmental organizations and the political climate of Sierra Leone influence the ability of MPs to avoid criminalizing FGM. A cultural symbol used to recreate tradition, FGM is at the center of the much needed collective national identity actively constructed in the post-conflict state.