National
Etanesh Tamerat Gebre Egzihaber stands in her daughter's apartment in Nairobi, Kenya, Oct. 17, 2016. The 70-year-old woman from Ethiopia was circumcised according to traditional custom. Her daughter has insisted that her granddaughter, shown, should not be circumcised.
Anna Mayumi Kerber
Picture-Alliance/DPA/AP Images
In this Wednesday, Nov. 5, 2014 photo, a man stands in front of the grave of 13-year-old Sohair el-Batea who died undergoing the procedure of female genital mutilation performed by Dr. Raslan Fadl, in Dierb Biqtaris village, 75 miles northeast of Cairo, Egypt. Fadl was sentenced to two years in prison for manslaughter and three months for performing FGM. Rights advocates say the outcome of this case could set a key precedent for deterring doctors and families in the future. Female genital mutilation was criminalized in 2008, but remains widespread in Egypt, where more than 90 percent of women are estimated to have undergone it.
Nariman El-Mofty
AP
Former circumciser Mariam Coulibaly displays the tools of her trade, a knife handed down to her by her mother and herbs to heal the wounds, at her home in Salemata, southeastern Senegal, Friday Jan. 31, 2003. Coulibaly says that she performed circumcisions on more than 1,000 girls during her 30-year career, but gave up the practice after surrounding villages decided the practice is dangerous.
Alexander Zavis
AP
In this Nov. 5, 2014, file photo, relatives of 13-year-old Sohair el-Batea who died undergoing the procedure of female genital mutilation performed by Dr. Raslan Fadl, walk in front of her home 75 miles northeast of Cairo, Egypt. In 2015, Fadl was sentenced to two years in prison for manslaughter and three months for performing FGM.
Nariman El-Mofty
AP
Former circumciser Mariam Coulibaly displays the tools of her trade, a knife handed down to her by her mother and herbs to heal the wounds, at her home in Salemata, southeastern Senegal, Jan. 31, 2003.
Alexander Zavis
AP
In this photo taken Feb. 16, 2014, teenage girls attend an after-school club, which the U.N. children’s agency UNICEF helps fund, one of whose subjects is discussion of the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), at the Sheik Nuur Primary School in Hargeisa, Somaliland, a breakaway region of Somalia. Child rights advocates in nearly 30 countries are fighting to reduce the number of girls subjected to the cutting of their genitalia.
Jason Straziuso
AP
In this Nov. 15, 2014 photo, Egyptian Coptic Christian Hanan Nasha El-Dabra, 34, who was forcefully subjected to female genital mutilation as an 8-year-old child, poses for a photograph in Sidfa, 210 miles south of Cairo, Egypt. "I would never want my daughters to go through what I did. This is why I decided not to do this to them," she said. El-Dabra still suffers from infections caused by the operation.
Nariman El-Mofty
AP
In this Nov. 15, 2014, photo, Hamdeya Nazmy, 43, who was forcefully subjected to female genital mutilation as a 9-year-old child, poses for a photograph with her 5-year-old daughter Demyana, in Sidfa, Egypt. Nazmy has seven daughters and only one was submitted to female genital cutting. Genital mutilation involves removing all or part of the clitoris and labia minora. It is practiced in 29 countries, most of them in East and West Africa, but also in Egypt, parts of Iraq and Yemen, as well as Indonesia.
Nariman El-Mofty
AP
In this Nov. 15, 2014, photo, Egyptian Coptic Christian Manal Nasef Fahmy, 35, poses for a photograph with her 17-year-old daughter Marina, who were both subjected to female genital mutilation in Sidfa, Egypt. "The midwife came to our home. My father took me far away so I didn't hear my older sister screaming as she underwent the operation. I was next after my sister and I will never forget it," she said. Manal had a doctor circumcise her daughter Marina without anesthesia. "I decided to have her circumcised before being educated about it. I will always regret it," Manal said.
Nariman El-Mofty
AP
In is July 7, 2014, file photo, a British police officer arrests an activist from FEMEN group as she shouts slogans against female genital mutilation during a protest opposite the Houses of Parliament in central London, England. A new law requiring professionals to report cases of female genital mutilation to police for those under 18 is being introduced in England and Wales, but some opponents of the practice warn the law could make girls reluctant to seek medical care. The law, which took effect Oct. 31, 2015, makes it a crime not to notify police when health care workers, social workers or teachers see someone under 18 who has had their genitals removed or damaged for non-medical reasons.
Lefteris Pitarakis
AP
In this Feb. 16, 2016, photo, Masooma Ranalvi, an activist who broke the silence around female genital mutilation in her Dawoodi Bohra community last year with a series of online petitions that sought to ban it, speaks during an interview with the Associated Press in New Delhi, India. Ranalvi remembers when she was seven, her grandmother promised her candy and ice cream. Instead, she was taken to a dingy room in a back alley where Khatna, circumcision of girls, was performed on her. India has no laws banning female circumcision, and Ranalvi says the letters she has sent to Dawoodi Bohra leaders have been ignored.
Saurabh Das
AP
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