By Ivania Inyange and Jean Sovon
She wasn’t sick. She wasn’t in danger. She was born a girl, and that was enough.
In parts of the world today, being a girl still comes with one of the most brutal rites imaginable: Female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C). It’s a practice that many believed would end decades ago. But it hasn’t. In fact, it remains deeply rooted and widely practiced across many countries.
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is a global issue that occurs in over 90 countries across Africa, South, Southeast, and Western Asia, and within diaspora communities worldwide.
According to UNICEF, FGM is concentrated in 30 countries, primarily across Africa, especially Somalia, Nigeria, and The Gambia. Asia follows, with additional cases in the Middle East, where millions of girls remain at risk.
FGM involves the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. In some cases, the vaginal opening is sealed completely — a process known as infibulation, which causes lifelong complications.
There are no health benefits — only harm.
Female genital mutilation causes intense pain, trauma, and long-term damage to a girl's body and mind and is recognized internationally as a significant human rights violation. Yet it continues today, often performed on girls as young as five because of tradition, honor, and control.
The latest data from UNICEF shows that more than 230 million girls and women alive today have been cut. Despite global outrage, international laws, and years of advocacy, millions more remain at risk — many before they’re old enough to speak up for themselves. It remains a crisis.
As activist Waris Dirie has pointed out, “It is not fair that so much abuse is going on and the world just sits back and just says: ‘It’s a culture.’” Her words highlight a painful truth: the world’s tolerance in the name of tradition allows this crime against girls to continue.
FGM is still practiced in many countries today, and understanding why it persists is essential to ending it.
Female Genital Mutilation exists worldwide, but is especially common in certain countries where it’s tied to long-standing cultural traditions. Despite legal bans and health warnings from institutions such as the World Health Organization (WHO), the practice is often viewed as a rite of passage rather than abuse.
In these regions, progress is slow, and FGM remains alarmingly widespread.
FGM is nearly universal in Somalia, affecting about 99 percent of women aged 15–49. The most extreme form, infibulation (Type III), is common. Although the Somali government's 2012 Provisional C condemns FGM, there’s no enforceable national law against it.
The delay in passing and enforcing such a law is partly due to ongoing political instability and fragmentation, including regional tensions and weak central governance, which make consistent enforcement nearly impossible.
Guinea has one of the world’s highest rates of FGM, at 97 percent, while Mali follows closely behind at 89 percent. In both countries, girls are usually cut before school age with non-medical tools. Guinea has banned FGM by law, but enforcement is inadequate.
Mali has no national ban, and efforts to criminalize it face resistance. Social pressure and deep-rooted traditions keep the practice alive.
About 75 percent of girls aged 15–19 in The Gambia have been cut, often before they understand what’s happening. A separate survey shows 56 percent of girls aged 0–14 have also undergone the procedure. A national ban was enacted in 2015, but a 2024 bill now threatens to reverse it.
With traditional beliefs still strong, activists worry that legal backtracking could undo years of progress in protecting girls.
Beyond physical suffering, FGM reflects a broader systemic failure to protect girls’ rights to health, safety, and autonomy. In high-prevalence regions, girls who are cut often face early marriage, school dropout, and lifelong exclusion from social and economic opportunity.
According to the WHO, the consequences of FGM often include serious maternal risks such as obstructed labor, postpartum hemorrhage, and even neonatal death. Survivors are more likely to leave school early and have fewer chances at economic independence.
As Phumzile Mlambo‑Ngcuka, former Executive Director of UN Women, noted:
FGM is an act that cuts away equality.
Her statement highlights the core issue: FGM isn't just cultural; instead, it’s a means to enforce gendered power structures and deny girls agency over their bodies.
Despite repeated international pledges to eradicate Female Genital Mutilation by 2030, enforcement often falls short. The gap between diplomatic commitments and absolute protection continues to grow, leaving millions of girls vulnerable not only to one act of violence but to a lifetime constrained by it.
In Nigeria and Sierra Leone, FGM remains deeply rooted in culture. It’s seen as vital for preserving a girl’s supposed chastity, marriageability, and family honor. In Nigeria, for instance, FGM is often performed to ensure social acceptance and a proper marriage, even though religion doesn’t require it.
Local voices reveal the extent to which these beliefs are ingrained. A social worker from Cross River State explains:
It is a thing of pride and recognition and a sign that the girls who are mutilated have become women.
This mindset makes progress difficult. The consequences are devastating — immediate effects such as intense pain, bleeding, shock, and infection transition into chronic health struggles like childbirth complications, infertility, urinary problems, menstrual pain, PTSD, depression, and sexual dysfunction.
Sometimes, the practice even gains legitimacy from medical professionals. In some countries, up to 25 percent of FGM is performed by health workers. This “medicalization” doesn’t reduce long-term harm — it only masks the violence behind a clinical setting.
Conflict and weak governance further stall progress in states like Somalia and Sudan, which are experiencing internal conflict. Even in places like the European Union, where 14 out of 27 member states ban FGM, enforcement is inconsistent. Families often act before laws can protect the child, showing that the issue is not limited to Africa or Asia but also affects migrant communities around the world.
Some countries are showing real progress in combating this pervasive issue. In Burkina Faso, the prevalence of FGM has fallen from 75.8 percent to 56.1 percent. In Kenya, rates among adolescent girls have sharply declined in just a decade. In Ethiopia, the practice has dropped by as much as 40 percent.
Attitudes are changing too: About two-thirds of people in high-prevalence countries now say they oppose FGM. Local leaders, religious figures, and women-led campaigns play a crucial role in changing minds.
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FGM is not a single event — it’s a lifelong sentence. Girls live with emotional and physical scars for decades. Many suffer in silence, unable to speak out due to stigma, fear, and lack of support. Despite years of international pledges, laws, and advocacy, too many girls remain unprotected, making FGM an apparent failure of global commitment to women’s and girls’ rights. As Waris Dirie, FGM survivor and activist, warned:
Female genital mutilation is still occurring because the world is turning a blind eye to a crime against children.
Her words underscore the central tragedy: this is not culture, it’s violence. And yet, inaction and indifference allow the abuse to continue unchallenged.
Despite decades of efforts, progress is uneven, and the number of survivors continues to rise due to the rapid growth of populations in affected regions.
To honestly confront this harmful rite, countries must enact bold, practical solutions that go beyond awareness alone.
Every year that passes without more decisive action is another generation of girls risking harm in the name of custom. Ending Female Genital Mutilation means investing in girls’ rights, dignity, and futures. It means demanding that culture never again be used as permission to hurt, because no child should suffer for being born female.
(GlobalVoices/NS)
This article is republished from GlobalVoices under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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