What the term covers
It means any partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or any other injury to them for non-medical reasons. Four types are distinguished: removal of the clitoral hood or clitoris; removal of the labia minora; infibulation, the most severe form, which narrows the vaginal opening; and all other procedures, including pricking, incising and cauterising. The age varies enormously, from the first week of life to adolescence depending on the community.
Where it is practised
UNICEF estimated in 2024 that more than 230 million girls and women alive today have undergone genital mutilation — 30 million more than in 2016, because the population of the countries concerned is growing faster than the practice is declining. More than 144 million live in Africa, more than 80 million in Asia and more than 6 million in the Middle East. The practice is concentrated in a belt running from the Horn of Africa to the Atlantic: prevalence among women aged 15 to 49 exceeds 90% in Somalia, Guinea and Djibouti, stands between 80% and 90% in Mali, Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Sierra Leone, around 65% in Ethiopia and Mauritania, and remains high in Burkina Faso, The Gambia, Guinea-Bissau and Chad. It has become a minority practice in Senegal (about a quarter), Côte d'Ivoire (a third), Kenya and Nigeria (under a fifth), and marginal in Cameroon, Togo, Benin and Niger.
Outside Africa it exists in Indonesia and Malaysia — often in a medicalised and less extensive form, but affecting about half of Indonesian girls —, in Yemen, in Iraqi Kurdistan, in the Maldives, and in a few communities in India, Pakistan, Colombia and Peru. Through migration it also concerns Europe and North America: an estimated 137,000 women and girls in England and Wales have undergone it, more than 500,000 in the United States are affected or at risk, and the country pages below say what each national law provides to protect a child.
Why it is practised
The reasons communities give vary, but always come back to the same ideas. The first is the social norm: where almost all women are cut, a girl who is not is seen as impure, immature or unmarriageable, and her family as negligent; parents consent because refusing would cost their daughter her future. Then comes control of female sexuality: the practice is supposed to reduce desire, guarantee virginity before marriage and fidelity after it. Added to these are ideas of cleanliness, beauty and femininity (the clitoris seen as masculine, dirty or dangerous), the rite of passage into adulthood, often accompanied by celebrations and gifts, and a sincere religious belief with no basis in scripture — the practice predates Islam and Christianity, is attested in Egypt two centuries before our era, and most of the world's Muslims and Christians do not know it.
Finally, it is held in place by those who live from it or draw authority from it: traditional cutters, sometimes health workers (in Egypt more than three quarters of cutting is now done by medical personnel), elders and community leaders. That is why laws alone are not enough: the practice retreats where whole villages decide together to abandon it, which lifts the fear of unmarriageability. The relationship between this practice and female desire, what the women concerned say about it and what sexology knows about repair are developed on the page why some cultures practise female genital cutting.
The consequences, immediate and lasting
In the short term: haemorrhage, severe pain, infection, urinary retention. In the long term: chronic pain, recurrent urinary infection, cysts, menstrual difficulty, pain during sex, and above all obstetric complications — prolonged labour, tearing, higher caesarean rates and increased risk to the newborn. Lasting psychological consequences, long underestimated, come on top of all that.
Three persistent misconceptions
It is not a religious obligation: no scripture prescribes it, and the practice cuts across religions while being absent from most of the countries that profess them. It is not hygienic: there is no medical benefit, only risk. And medicalisation — having a health professional perform it — does not make it acceptable: it marginally reduces immediate risk while changing nothing about the lasting harm, which is precisely why every international medical body opposes it.
Protecting a child
The highest-risk moment is an extended trip to the country of origin, often over the school holidays. Different countries offer different tools: a preventive medical appointment before departure, a letter recording that the child is intact, a civil protection order, placing a child on an airport watch list, or removing a passport. Reporting a child at risk is possible everywhere, often anonymously, and overrides professional confidentiality.
Repair is possible
Deinfibulation — a simple surgical reopening — relieves pain and urinary and sexual difficulty, and is often done ahead of childbirth. Clitoral reconstruction is offered in several countries, sometimes fully funded. Psychological and psychosexual support is part of the pathway: outcomes are consistently better when the two are combined.
Saying what was done changes your care
Many women never mention it, and many clinicians never ask. Yet it changes everything around childbirth: it determines monitoring, whether deinfibulation is arranged in advance, and how tearing is prevented. Say it at the first antenatal appointment, even if nobody asks.
The law country by country
The legal framework, the procedure, the time limits and the costs differ from one country to another. Each country below has a detailed page: governing texts, key facts, the actual procedure, costs, where to go and the traps to avoid.
Select a country to open its detailed page.