What We Know About Female Genital Mutilation – A Summary (2025) Of The Many And Complex Aspects

Ten years ago this Autumn saw the publication of my Routledge textbook, Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation. Detailed knowledge and understandings of female genital mutilation have developed in some respects since then, but tragically the number of women and girls who have experienced this appalling cruelty has shifted only slowly, and the stark realities of FGM have not much changed.  This briefing is an effort to summarise current facts and debates about FGM as we approach 2030, the date by which the United Nations insists that FGM be abolished.

I hope the condensed resume (which follows below) of what we currently know about issues around FGM will be helpful to those – perhaps teachers, journalists, students in the health, legal and wider social care professions, policy makers and concerned community members, maybe even some activists? – seeking a quick overview.  I have also provided numerous weblinks for anyone wanting to explore particular aspects further, but summaries of this sort necessarily still miss many aspects of the matters to hand.  I welcome any further suggestions and thoughts you as readers might like to add in the Comments (Reply) box at the end of this post.  Thank you.

You can read this website in the language of your choice via Google Translate.

The notes below refer both to what we know as at 2025 about the general issues around FGM, and to specific contexts (groups / nations) and practices.

FGM is a many-sided, ever-moving phenomenon, always ‘adapting’ through a constantly shifting word-of-mouth narrative, changing formal and informal constraints, hazardous, unstable economic frameworks and, of course, the zeitgeists of patriarchal tyranny which have sustained violence against women and girls throughout history.

Whilst various facts presented here are just that – facts – other observations apply to some but by no means all FGM contexts.  It is nonetheless important to note that cessation of FGM in its ‘original’ locations would probably also quite quickly achieve its eradication in diaspora contexts.  No (wo)man is an island…

Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)

What is female genital mutilation?

• FGM is defined by the World Health Organisation as a traditional harmful practice that involves the partial or total removal of external female genitalia or other injury to female genital organs for non-medical reasons.
• FGM is classified into 4 major types, 3 of which reference the degree / extent of harm, and the fourth refers to other modes of damage. All types are seriously harmful. Around 3 million girls are at risk annually and every twelve minutes a girl dies somewhere in the world directly as a result of FGM.
• Some survivors and activists prefer to call FGM ‘female genital cutting’ (FGC) or ‘female circumcision’, but this nomenclature does not reflect all the modes by which the harm is inflicted.
• FGM is one severe form of harmful traditional practices, HTPs, and of violence against women and girls, VAWG.   It is frequently associated with child ‘marriage’.
• FGM is child abuse; the practice is illegal in the UK and most other parts of the world. It is widely recognised as a fundamental violation of human rights; children (and vulnerable women) simply cannot give informed consent to such ‘procedures’.
• Girls and women fleeing war, disease and climate change catastrophes may be at particular risk.  The absence of clean accessible water may also be a significant factor in vulnerability to FGM.
• FGM occurs in diaspora (‘western’) communities as well as in locations where it is a long tradition.  Sometimes girls are sent ‘home’ from diaspora locations to be ‘cut’; and sometimes cutters operate in the new locations.
• Increasingly it is recognised that FGM is an abuse of bodily integrity with parallels in (western) practices such as genital or other cosmetic surgeries, all of which are often sought to meet social expectations of, for instance, approved appearance.
• Observers may see FGM and other similar ‘surgeries’ all as a form of patriarchy incarnate, the imposition of powerful social expectations on female bodies.

What is the incidence of FGM?

• More than 230 million girls and women alive today have been ‘cut’. FGM has been recorded in almost 100 countries across all continents.  FGM is mostly carried out on young girls between infancy and adolescence, though it  may be performed at any age.  Statistics show an increasing tendency in some locations to inflict FGM very early, as babies, before the child is able to understand or report the action, and before she goes to school, where teachers and others are on the watch.
• The absolute number of women and girls with FGM continues to grow. This is however because the global population is expanding, with many more young people; there are now more young girls alive in traditionally ‘cutting’ communities, albeit the overall percentage of girls with FGM has fallen.
• Around 400 million people in FGM-practicing countries in Africa and the Middle East – two thirds of the population – are against FGM; opposition generally increases with more education.
• Some countries have seen much greater reductions in FGM incidence than others.  Data on individual countries is available as an interactive world prevalence map and as a ‘build your own’ customisable dataset for a given country (the link also gives country profile publications).
• National and local methodologies for data collection on the incidence of FGM in different places are complex.
• Estimates suggest that in the UK 137,000 women have undergone FGM. Individuals attending NHS provision for FGM are added to the FGM Enhanced Dataset on a quarterly basis.  Since April 2015, 37,525 individual women and girls in the UK have had an attendance where FGM was identified.

FGM is a harmful tradition

• Whilst it may be said that FGM is ‘culturally’ predicated (and thereby difficult to challenge), it is more helpful to see FGM as a ‘tradition’ which can be abandoned.
• FGM has no health benefits. There are various myths about its benefits to women and men, but none of them is true.
• In some communities girls can only gain status as adult women after they have FGM, which is (mistakenly) thought to ensure a girl’s virginity (and thus enhance her marriageability).
• FGM is not necessarily abandoned in (western) diaspora communities.  Tradition, belief and long-held identities may even be actively reinforced by some group members via continuation of the practice.

Health impacts of FGM

• FGM causes a variety of severe short and long term health problems, such as severe bleeding and difficulties urinating, and later cysts, infections and e.g. obstetric fistula. FGM is a leading cause of death in the countries where it is practiced, with over 44,000 additional women and young girls dying each year.  It also causes serious complications in and around childbirth, increasing significantly the risk of death or ill-health for both mothers and babies.
• FGM and displacement can cause significant psychological distress.
• There is increasing focus on the reconstruction of genitalia harmed by FGM, including the reconfiguration of the damaged clitoris.  In some countries such surgery is already mainstream, and a 2025 report by UK MPs calls for careful consideration of how this can also be achieved via the NHS.
•  FGM can also be the reason for marriage break up.  Women without medical treatment who develop obstetric fistula from FGM may be rejected by their husbands, unable to work or provide for their children, outcast and destitute.
• Over generations FGM may add to the risk that children will not develop well, and could become permanently stunted – an often irreversible and very serious condition which ultimately has potential to harm both the individual concerned and her / his community.
• Detailed guidance on the legal, educational and medical obligations of professionals with safeguarding responsibilities is available in various countries (such as the UK; see also the FGM Safeguarding Pathway).

Community and economic aspects of FGM

• FGM can be a prerequisite of financial transactions prior to marriage. It may be seen as demonstrating a girl / woman’s virginity and thus, in some perspectives, makes for a higher bride price paid to her father by the intended groom.  FGM is an important and embedded part of some local economies.  It is a practice which may commodify girls and women to the financial advantage of their families.
• There is a close correlation between FGM and child ‘marriage’ (in truth, ‘sanctioned’ rape). FGM normally ends a girl’s education and often results in teenage pregnancy, in each case thereby curtailing both her prospects and those of her community.
• In some parts of the world polygyny may occur, especially in societies with the custom of bride price, and in subsistence agrarian economies. Legal and ownership issues may be a particularly difficult consequence for women ejected from their marriage as a result of FGM harms.
• FGM is also a significant cost to economies, both because it causes ill-health which prevents women working effectively, and because health, legal and other services to address it are costly.

Challenges to FGM eradication (moving forward)

• Medicalization of FGM is a growing and grave concern of the WHO and other organisations.   In some countries, including where the salaries of clinicians may be insecure, this is, despite FGM being prohibited by law, the most usual mode of delivery.   Parents (wrongly) believe it makes FGM safe, and medics want the money.
• Legal and medical action when FGM occurs may be limited or not necessarily forthcoming, even in countries where FGM is strictly illegal. Resourcing / capacity may simply not be available.
• It is imperative that FGM – what it is, and how to avoid it – be incorporated into school PSHE (personal, social, health and economic) safeguarding curricula everywhere, for both girls and boys.
• Community activists must be properly supported and are absolutely core to ending FGM.
• So too is attention to the fundamental inequities, whether access to land, to water, to economic influence, which leave women and girls inescapably dependent on others for their everyday lives.
• The influence of men is critical in eradicating the abuse of FGM. This is true both at the level of families and communities – there are many practical ways for men to show respect for and support women in their communities – and at the level of politics, wider public policy and development.
• FGM is a globally significant public health challenge.  A public health perspective must be central to all efforts to eradicate FGM, recognising the many complex and inter-connected aspects, socio-economic and otherwise.
• The aim of the United Nations to eradicate FGM by 2030 is both massively ambitious and essential.

Following the work of brave and determined campaigners over many decades, in 2003 the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (IAC), under the leadership of first lady of Nigeria Stella Obasanjo, set the date of   6 February   for the annual International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation.  Crucially, this date now continues to be observed by the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the UNFPA, UNICEF and many other global, national and local organisations and groups …  hopefully yours amongst them.

Your Comments on this topic are welcome.  
Please post them in the Reply box which follows these announcements…..

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Books by Hilary Burrage on female genital mutilation

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6684-2740

Eradicating Female Genital Mutilation: A UK Perspective
Ashgate / Routledge (2015)  Reviews

A free internet version of the book Female Mutilation is available

here.

[It is hoped that putting all these global Female Mutilation narrations onto the internet will enable readers to consider them via Google Translate in whatever language they choose.]

Hilary has published widely and has also contributed two chapters to Routledge International Handbooks:

Female Genital Mutilation and Genital Surgeries: Chapter 33,
in Routledge International Handbook of Women’s Sexual and Reproductive Health (2019),
eds Jane M. Ussher, Joan C. Chrisler, Janette Perz
and
FGM Studies: Economics, Public Health, and Societal Well-Being: Chapter 12,
in The Routledge International Handbook on Harmful Cultural Practices (2023),
eds Maria Jaschok, U. H. Ruhina Jesmin, Tobe Levin von Gleichen, Comfort Momoh

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PLEASE NOTE:

The Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children, which has a primary focus on FGM, is clear that in formal discourse any term other than ‘mutilation’ concedes damagingly to the cultural relativists. ‘FGM’ is therefore the term I use here  – though the terms employed may of necessity vary in informal discussion with those who by tradition use alternative vocabulary. See the Feminist Statement on the Naming and Abolition of Female Genital Mutilation,  The Bamako Declaration: Female Genital Mutilation Terminology and the debate about Anthr/Apologists on this website.

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This article concerns approaches to the eradication specifically of FGM.  I am also categorically opposed to MGM, but that is not the focus of this particular piece, except if in any specifics as discussed above.

Anyone wishing to offer additional comment on more general considerations around male infant and juvenile genital mutilation is asked please to do so via these relevant dedicated threads.

Discussion of the general issues re M/FGM will not be published unless they are posted on these dedicated pages. Thanks.