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."
