Female genital mutilation (FGM) refers to “all procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.”[1] FGM is a violation of girls’ and women’s human rights. While the exact number of girls and women worldwide who have undergone FGM remains unknown, at least 200 million girls and women have been cut in 31 countries with representative data on prevalence. However, the majority of girls and women in most countries with available data think FGM should end and there has been an overall decline in the prevalence of the practice over the last three decades, but not all countries have made progress and the pace of decline has been uneven.

The World Health Organization (WHO) classified FGM into four broad categories in 1995 and again in 2007:

Type I: Partial or total removal of the clitoris and/or the prepuce.

Type II: Partial or total removal of the clitoris and labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora.

Type III: Narrowing of the vaginal orifice by cutting and bringing together the labia minora and/or the labia majora to create a type of seal, with or without excision of the clitoris. In most instances, the cut edges of the labia are stitched together, which is referred to as ‘infibulation’.

Type IV: All other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes, for example: pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterization.

FGM is condemned by a number of international treaties and conventions, as well as by national legislation in many countries. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for health and well-being,” and this statement has been used to argue that FGM violates the right to health and bodily integrity. With FGM considered as a form of violence against women, the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women can be invoked. Similarly, defining it as a form of torture brings it under the rubric of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Moreover, since FGM is regarded as a traditional practice prejudicial to the health of children and is, in most cases, performed on minors, it violates the Convention on the Rights of the Child. An interagency statement on FGM, issued by 10 UN organizations, was issued in 2008.

Prevalence

Available data from large-scale representative surveys show that the practice of FGM is highly concentrated in a swath of countries from the Atlantic coast to the Horn of Africa, in areas of the Middle East such as Iraq and Yemen and in some countries in Asia like Indonesia and the Maldives, with wide variations in prevalence. The practice is almost universal in Somalia, Guinea and Djibouti, with levels around 90 per cent, while it affects no more than 1 per cent of adolescent girls in Cameroon, the Maldives and Uganda.

However, FGM is a human rights issue that affects girls and women worldwide. Evidence suggests that FGM exists in places including Colombia[2], India[3], Malaysia[4], Oman[5], Saudi Arabia[6] and the United Arab Emirates[7], with large variations in terms of the type performed, circumstances surrounding the practice and size of the affected population groups. In these contexts, however, the available evidence comes from (sometimes outdated) small-scale studies or anecdotal accounts, and there are no representative data as yet on prevalence. The practice is also found in pockets of Europe and in Australia and North America which, for the last several decades, have been destinations for migrants from countries where the practice still occurs[8].

Prevailing attitudes

Girls’ and women’s attitudes about FGM also vary widely across countries. The highest levels of support can be found in Mali, Sierra Leone, Guinea, Somalia and Egypt where more than half of the female population thinks the practice should continue. However, the majority of girls and women think it should end in most countries with representative data on attitudes (23 out of 30).

Is the practice changing?

Overall, the practice of FGM has been declining over the last three decades. In the 31 countries with nationally representative prevalence data, around one in three girls aged 15 to 19 today have undergone the practice versus one in two 30 years ago. However, not all countries have made progress and the pace of decline has been uneven. Fast decline among girls aged 15 to 19 has occurred both in countries where the practice was once nearly universal, such as Egypt and Sierra Leone, as well as countries in which the practice was limited to subnational populations, such as Benin and the Maldives.

References

[1] World Health Organization, Eliminating Female Genital Mutilation: An interagency statement, WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNIFEM, OHCHR, UNHCR, UNECA, UNESCO, UNDP, UNAIDS, WHO, Geneva, 2008, p. 4.

[2] United Nations Population Fund, ‘Project Embera-wera: An experience of culture change to eradicate female genital mutilation in Colombia – Latin America’, UNFPA, December 2011.

[3] Ghadially, R., ‘All for “Izzat”: The practice of female circumcision among Bohra Muslims’, Manushi, no. 66, September–October 1991, ; Ghadially, R., ‘Update on Female Genital Mutilation in India’, Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights Newsletter, January−March 1992.

[4] Dahlui, M., ‘The Practice of Female Circumcision in Malaysia’, paper presented at Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), Penang, 10 May 2012, ; Rashid, A. K., S. S. Patil and A. S. Valimalar, ‘The Practice of Female Genital Mutilation among the Rural Malays in North Malaysia’, The Internet Journal of Third World Medicine, vol. 9, no. 1, 2010.

[5] Al-Hinai, H., ‘Female Genital Mutilation in the Sultanate of Oman’, January 2014.

[6] Alsibiani, S. A. and A. A. Rouzi, ‘Sexual Function in Women with Female Genital Mutilation’, Fertility and Sterility, vol. 93, no. 3, 2010, pp. 722–24.

[7] Kvello, A. and L. Sayed, ‘Omskjering av kvinner i de forente arabiske emirater—er klitoridektomi i tradisjonell praksis et overgrep mot kvinner?’ (Concerning Female Circumcision in the United Arab Emirates: Is clitoridectomy in a traditional context an assault against women?), thesis paper, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway, 2002; Al Marzouqi, W., ‘Fatal Traditions: Female circumcision in the U.A.E.’, Desert Dawn, vol. 22, no. 1, January 2011, pp. 6–11.

[8] United Nations Children’s Fund, Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting: A statistical overview and exploration of the dynamics of change, UNICEF, New York, 2013.