Women and girls living with FGM have experienced a harmful practice. Experience of FGM increases the short and long term health risks to women and girls and is unacceptable from a human rights and health perspective. While in general there is an increased risk of adverse health outcomes with increased severity of FGM, WHO is opposed to all forms of FGM and is emphatically against the practice being carried out by health care providers (medicalization).

Short-term health risks of FGM

Severe pain: cutting the nerve ends and sensitive genital tissue causes extreme pain. Proper anaesthesia is rarely used and, when used, is not always effective. The healing period is also painful. Type III FGM is a more extensive procedure of longer duration, hence the intensity and duration of pain may be more severe. The healing period is also prolonged and intensified accordingly.

Excessive bleeding: (haemorrhage) can result if the …

More than 200 million women and girls around the world are living with the results of the dangerous practice of female genital mutilation (FGM/C), also known as cutting, according to a report by UNICEF, the U.N. children’s agency.

In the next decade, 30 million more are at risk of being mutilated. The United Nations created the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation, observed every year on February 6, to stop the harmful practice to girls and women.

The following are some female genital mutilation facts and frequently asked questions.

What is female genital mutilation (FGM)?

Female genital mutilation is defined as the removal of part or all of the female genitalia for nonmedical reasons. It is also called female circumcision and cutting. The procedure is most often done to girls between birth and age 15.

What are the consequences of FGM?

Often carried out under primitive and …

It’s the “cutting season” — and that’s just as terrifying as it sounds.

The practice of female genital mutilation, also known as female genital cutting or FGM, is defined by the World Health Organization as any procedure that intentionally alters or causes injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons — and summer is when the practice thrives.

Young girls are out of school, giving them more time to heal before the next school session. It’s a time of year many young girls in Africa and the Middle East, where FGM is most prevalent, dread.

Though female genital mutilation is illegal in many countries, including the U.S. and the UK, some girls are sent to their countries of origin during summer vacation to be cut in what’s known as “vacation cutting.”

In 2012, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution to eliminate female genital mutilation by increasing education on …

The term female genital mutilation (FGM) includes any injury to a woman or girl’s genitalia for reasons other than medical ones, commonly religious. The practice is thought to have started before the advent of either Christianity or Islam.

FGM is sometimes called female circumcision, but the implications of female circumcision are quite different from those of male circumcision. Nowadays, more FGM operations are carried out by healthcare professionals, including up to 77 percent of cases in Egypt.

However, 4 in 5 operations worldwide are still performed by a traditional practitioner, often in unsanitary conditions, with serious health implications.

FGM is most common in the north-eastern, western, and eastern regions of Africa, and some parts of the Middle East and Asia. More than 200 million girls and women alive today are estimated to have experienced FGM in the 30 countries where it is most common.

Fast facts on female genital mutilation

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