Liberia’s Born Perfect Bus Sparks New Conversations on FGM

The Born Perfect Bus Tour has reached more than 3,000 people across communities including Totota and Palala in Bong County, with additional outreach in Margibi, Cape Mount, Bomi and Gbarpolu.

A brightly branded bus travelling through towns and villages in Liberia is giving communities a new way to talk about female genital mutilation, taking conversations that were often avoided or treated as private into markets, town halls and other public spaces where families, traditional leaders and young people can speak openly.

The Born Perfect Bus Tour has reached more than 3,000 people across communities including Totota and Palala in Bong County, with additional outreach in Margibi, Cape Mount, Bomi and Gbarpolu. The initiative is built around community dialogue, cultural sensitivity and public education, with the wider goal of helping shift attitudes, strengthen local support for ending FGM and bring community concerns into national policy discussions.

The pilot was supported by UN Women and the Embassy of Ireland in Liberia, with medica Liberia and the Community Healthcare Initiative leading the mobile outreach alongside the Global Media Campaign to End FGM and the National Campaigners Against Harmful Traditional Practices.

Public Spaces Become Places for Honest Discussion

Each stop turned familiar community spaces into venues for music, storytelling, comedy, survivor testimony and structured discussion, giving people the chance to hear about the health and social consequences of FGM in a setting that felt accessible rather than distant or technical.

Traditional leader Daniel E. Kollie said the tour was the first time, outside of radio broadcasts, that he had heard the dangers of FGM discussed directly in his community. He also noted that the involvement of senior traditional authorities helped give the message greater weight among local residents.

Campaign teams met with traditional leaders, religious representatives, youth groups, women's organisations and local authorities before arriving in each community, helping build trust and reduce the chance that the programme would be seen as an outside effort dismissing local culture.

Tradition and Social Pressure Still Drive the Practice

Research highlighted during the campaign showed that culture and tradition remain the strongest influences behind FGM in Bong County, cited by 63 per cent of respondents, while social acceptance was mentioned by 40 per cent and marriageability by 31 per cent.

These figures suggest that many families continue the practice because of the social consequences they fear if girls do not take part, including exclusion or damage to family reputation. Religious and health-related reasons were cited by fewer than 7 per cent of respondents.

The tour encouraged communities to separate cultural identity from practices that cause harm, a message echoed by youth leader Moses Nahn, who said people should understand that efforts to end FGM are focused on stopping harmful practices rather than removing tradition itself.

Early Findings Point to Changing Attitudes

An impact assessment completed two months after the tour found more frequent discussions about FGM in homes, community spaces and religious centres, with mosques among the places where the issue was increasingly being raised.

Support also grew for suspending FGM in bush schools, while fewer participants said they would send girls, including their own daughters, to those institutions. In Gbarpolu County, traditional leaders publicly supported ending FGM and said bush operations had stopped, while leaders in Bong and Cape Mount committed to continued dialogue.

Among participants surveyed in Gbarpolu, 73 per cent said they learned something new, 83 per cent reported a change in attitudes and 89 per cent said the initiative had a positive effect on their community.

Community Voices Reach Liberia's National Legislature

The bus tour ended with a stop at Liberia's National Legislature, where campaign partners shared what they had heard directly from communities with policymakers, connecting local experiences with the country's wider efforts to end FGM.

Survivors also used the campaign to call for more education and economic opportunities, particularly for young people and women whose lives are closely tied to traditional systems. Some participants said trade training, farming support and other livelihood options could help families move away from practices linked to bush schools while keeping valued parts of community life.

For organisers, the tour has shown that mobile outreach can create space for difficult conversations when it is built around trust, local leadership and repeated engagement rather than one-off messaging. The next challenge will be turning those conversations into lasting change across more communities, while ensuring women, survivors, traditional authorities and young people remain part of the process.