While the ads are certainly provocative, and fun to look at, I doubt seriously whether they will do anything at all to actually convince the practitioners of Female Genital Cutting to abandon their centuries-old cultural practice. The sad truth of FGC is that people who do it do it because they want the best for their daughters, and believe that FGC is the way to become a proper woman. If they don't do FGC, many believe, their daughters won't find good husbands. Now, I don't see how comparing people's daughters to blow-up dolls is really going convince anyone to give FGC up. It will just make Western detractors feel good about themselves. And, when it comes time to think about FGC, maybe they will be that much less sensitive to the humanity of the people who do it--they people who, ostensibly, we want to 'save'.

If you're interested in an NGO that's had fantastic success in encouraging the abandonment of FGC, I would point you to the Senegal-based Tostan (http://tostan.org). By taking a more pragmatic route than buying magazine ads, Tostan has given communities the tools to collectively abandon FGC. And it's really working. They can describe themselves better than I can, so I will let their site do the talking.

As a wider idea, I think this shows the uselessness of ad agencies trying to take on 'good works'. Advertising is not a proper medium for getting across any sort of subtle point that might make for a start of a good policy discussion. All it can do is to rile people, 'raise awareness' and comfort. But it can't start a debate.