As Female Genital Cutting Explodes, Tostan's Molly Melching Reports Progress

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We celebrate every step forward taken in the drive to end the genital mutilitation of women worldwide. But a new report from the UN says that the estimates of the total women affected has been very underestimated.
A new survey from Indonesia, the world’s fourth most populous country, plus population growth in other countries where the practice continues, often despite being outlawed—led to the revision.
It's believed that about half of all Indonesian females under the age of twelve have undergone female genital mutilation or cutting, as it’s formally known, even though the practice was outlawed in 2006."The new numbers bump up the worldwide total to at least two hundred million women and girls, alive today, who have undergone genital mutilation—some just a few weeks after birth, the vast majority before the age of ten."

Safa Idriss Nour Is Waris Dirie's 'Desert Flower' In the Fight To End FGM In Somalia

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Safa Idriss Nour Is Waris Dirie's 'Desert Flower' In the Fight To End FGM In Somalia

A simple Facebook share last week elicited more likes than any supermodel has achieved on my page. Meet Safa Idriss Nour, a young girl born in a slum in Dijibouti, Somalia.  Perhaps her gorgeous young-girl face soothed a world under fire in Beirut, Nigeria and Paris. Mali had not blown up yet as my FB friends fell under Safa's spell. 
On Friday I decided to look for information about this young girl, and the truth of her life amazed me. 
 A Young Somali Girl Uncut
An estimated 98% of girls and women in Dijibouti have undergone female genital mutilation, a procedure of varying severity in Somali culture. AOC has a long history of writing about FGM, the cutting off a female's clitoris and some of the labia. The procedure -- executed without anaesthetic -- is designed to protect a girl's purity and represents a sign of commitment to a future husband over a desire for sexual pleasure. In the most severe cases of FGM, a girl's labia is sewn together and only reopened after marriage. The probability of a young woman not being desirable as a bride and commanding no bride price for her family is high.