2 million girls a year mutilated 
 
 Every year several million women approach childbirth knowing that the risk will be greater because some or all of their genitalia has been cut away by the traditional practice of female genital mutilation (FGM). 
 
 Approximately 2 million girls are mutilated every year. Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Somalia, and the Sudan account for 75% of all cases. In Djibouti and Somalia, 98% of girls are mutilated. 
 
 Apart from the immediate fear and pain, the consequences can include prolonged bleeding, infection, infertility, and death. For those who suffer infibulation  the severest form of FGM in which all external sexual organs are cut away  the trauma of recutting is repeated with each new birth to allow passage of the baby. Both moderate and severe forms increase the risks of childbirth. 
 
 Mutilation is not required by any religion. It is a tradition designed to preserve virginity, ensure marriageability, and contain sexuality. 
 
 As the table shows, several African governments have begun to move against the practice. So far, only Ghana has translated policy into law. The Government of Burkina Faso, which has actively campaigned against FGM since 1990 through its National Anti-Excision Committee, has escalated its work in the past three years as the result of increased national support: law cases involving deaths caused by FGM have been brought to court under existing criminal laws. 
 
 Usually inflicted on girls aged 4 to 12, FGM is one of the worst violations of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. 
 
 The 1990s have seen growing pressures against the practice from women's groups, human rights organizations, child welfare groups, and professional organizations. 
 
 Action has also been taken in some industrialized countries with significant numbers of African refugees or immigrant groups. In 1994, Australia and Norway joined Sweden and the United Kingdom in passing laws against FGM. As of December 1995, bills to make FGM a criminal offence were before the US Congress and the Canadian Parliament. 
 
 Africa: the FGM record 
 
 Estimates of the numbers and percentages of women who suffer female genital mutilation 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Estimated 
 
 % of women Estimated 
 
 number 
 
 of women 
 
 (millions) 
 
 1994 Government 
 
 has published 
 
 policy 
 
 opposing 
 
 FGM FGM prohibited under Specific 
 
 FGM law Medical code 
 
 of practice Nigeria 60 32.8 Yes No No Egypt 80 24.2 Yes No Yes Ethiopia 90 23.9 Yes No No Sudan (northern) 89 9.7 Yes * No Kenya 50 6.8 Yes No No Somalia 98 4.5 Yes** No No Mali 80 4.3 Yes No No Cote d'Ivoire 60 4.1 No No No Burkina Faso 70 3.5 Yes No No Ghana 30 2.6 Yes Yes *** Sierra Leone 90 2.0 Yes No No Chad 60 1.9 Yes No No Eritrea 90**** 1.6 Yes No No Guinea 50 1.6 Yes No No Tanzania 10 1.5 No No No Benin 50 1.3 Yes No No Cameroon 20 1.3 Yes No No Zaire 5 1.1 No No No Togo 50 1.0 Yes No No Liberia 60 0.9 Yes No No Niger 20 0.9 No No No Central African Rep. 50 0.8 Yes No No Senegal 20 0.8 Yes No No Gambia 89 0.5 Yes No No Uganda 5 0.5 No No No Djibouti 98 0.3 Yes No No Guinea-Bissau 50 0.3 No No No Mauritania 25 0.3 No No No 
 
 FGM is not practised in the three southern regions. The Sudan's 1946 law prohibited infibulation only (the severest form of FGM): the 1993 penal code does not mention FGM, leaving its current legal status unclear. 
 
 * Past government policy opposed FGM, but the policy of current ruling groups is unknown. 
 
 ** FGM is not covered by a medical code, but this may be unnecessary since the practice is illegal. 
 
 *** This estimate predates Eritrea's independence and assumes that FGM prevalence is equivalent to Ethiopia's. 
 
 SOURCES FGM: Nahid Toubia, January 1996 update from her study, Female Genital Mutilation: A Call for Global Action, Women, Ink., New York, revised edition, 1995. Population: United Nations Population Division, World Population Prospects: The 1994 Revision, 1994. 

 NAIROBI, July 20 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - A 10-year-old girl in central Somalia has died after undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM), prompting calls from campaigners to criminalise the internationally condemned practice in a country with the world’s highest rates. 
 
 The girl was taken by her mother to a traditional circumciser on July 14. The procedure left her bleeding and she died in hospital due to a haemorrhage two days later. 
 
 “The circumciser is suspected to have cut an important vein in the course of the operation,” said Hawa Aden Mohamed, director of the Galkayo Education Center for Peace and Development (GECPD), a local women’s rights group. 
 
 “The woman who performed the operation has not been arrested but even if she was, there is no law that would ensure she is punished for the act. This is just one among many cases happening on a daily basis across Somalia.” 
 
 An estimated 200 million girls and women worldwide have undergone FGM, which usually involves the partial or total removal of the female genitalia and can cause a host of serious health problems, says the United Nations. 
 
 The ancient ritual - practised in at least 27 African countries and parts of Asia and the Middle East - is usually carried out by traditional cutters, often using unsterilised blades or knives. 
 
 Health experts say FGM can cause fatal childbirth complications later in life. In some cases, girls can bleed to death or die from infections following the procedure, although it is hidden within communities and rarely reported. 
 
 Located in eastern Africa and troubled by decades of civil war, Somalia has the world’s highest rates of FGM. According to the UN, 98 percent of women between 15 and 49 have been subjected to the ritual. 
 
 Somalia’s constitution prohibits FGM, but efforts to pass legislation to punish offenders have been stalled by parliamentarians afraid of losing powerful Muslim vote banks who support FGM and view it as a part of their tradition. 
 
 Campaigners say a lot of work needs to be done to help people understand the harmful effects of FGM, and criminalising the practice could act as a strong deterrent. 
 
 “Pro-FGM lobbyists sometimes put forward the nonsensical view that it is not harmful, which is completely untrue,” said Brendan Wynne at Donor Direct Action, an international women’s groups which helps fund grassroots charities. 
 
 "We have no more time for any debate on the harms of FGM and this case, like many others, proves that. FGM will only end when governments take a hard line and protect girls at risk." (Reporting by Nita Bhalla @nitabhalla, Editing by Claire Cozens. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights, climate change and resilience. Visit news.trust.org)
– In Somalia, about 98% of girls undergo female genital mutilation, but one 10-year-old is now part of an even grimmer statistic: those who've died from it. A doctor at a Dhusamareb hospital tells Voice of America the child was brought to the ER early last week, two days after her parents say she'd had the procedure, but despite the response team's efforts to save the girl, she bled to death. She also got tetanus because the instruments used during the procedure weren't sterilized, Dr. Abdirahman Omar Hassan says. "They cut the clitoris, one side of the vulva was cut, the other side was wounded in three areas," Hassan noted. "I never saw anyone who was mutilated like that in my life." Hawa Aden Mohamed, a social activist and head of a local women's rights group, tells Reuters it's believed the person who carried out the mutilation "cut an important vein in the course of the operation." The girl's father, meanwhile, says he's "distraught" but doesn't blame anyone for her death (he says she was "taken by Allah") and stands behind the practice. "The people in the area are content with it, her mother consented to it," Dahir Nur says. "We have seen the effects, but it's a culture in the country we live in." The practice—which involves partial or total removal of the clitoris and labia—is prohibited in Somalia's constitution, but there's nothing on the books actually outlawing it, the BBC notes. Politicians have been wary of criminalizing it for fear of infuriating locals who consider it a religious ritual. "The woman who performed the operation has not been arrested, but even if she was, there is no law that would ensure she is punished," Mohamed tells Reuters. "This is just one among many cases happening on a daily basis across Somalia." (A Michigan doctor was accused of mutilating 100 girls.)