Editing Female genital mutilation (section)

===Red Sea slave trade===
Whatever the practice's origins, infibulation became linked to slavery. Research has indicated that linkes between the [[Red Sea slave trade]] and female genital mutilation.<ref name="ssrn.com">Corno, Lucia and La Ferrara, Eliana and Voena, Alessandra, Female Genital Cutting and the Slave Trade (December 2020). CEPR Discussion Paper No. DP15577, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3753982</ref> 
An investigation combining contemporary from data on slave shipments from 1400 to 1900 with data from 28 African countries has found that women belonging to ethnic groups historically victimized by the Red Sea slave trade were "significantly" more likely to suffer genital mutilation in the 21st-century, as well as "more in favour of continuing the practice".<ref name="ssrn.com"/><ref name="telegraph.co.uk">{{cite news | url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/women-and-girls/female-genital-mutilation-red-sea-slave-trade-route/ | title=Female genital mutilation linked to Red Sea slave trade route | newspaper=The Telegraph | date=11 September 2023 | last1=Barber | first1=Harriet }}</ref>
Women trafficked in the Red Sea slave trade were sold as [[Islamic views on concubinage|concubines (sex slaves)]] in the Islamic Middle East up until as late as in the mid 20th-century, and the practice of [[infibulation]] was used to temporarily signal the virginity of girls, increasing their value on the slave market: "According to descriptions by early travellers, infibulated female slaves had a higher price on the market because infibulation was thought to ensure chastity and loyalty to the owner and prevented undesired pregnancies".<ref name="ssrn.com"/><ref name="telegraph.co.uk"/>
Mackie cites the Portuguese missionary [[João dos Santos]], who in 1609 wrote of a group near Mogadishu who had a "custome to sew up their Females, especially their slaves being young to make them unable for conception, which makes these slaves sell dearer, both for their chastitie, and for better confidence which their Masters put in them". Thus, Mackie argues, a "practice associated with shameful female slavery came to stand for honor".{{sfn|Mackie|1996|loc=1003, 1009}}