Editing Female genital mutilation (section)

==Opposition and legal status==
{{Further|Female genital mutilation laws by country}}

===Colonial opposition in Kenya===
{{Paragraph break}}
{{Further|Campaign against female genital mutilation in colonial Kenya}}
{{quote box
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Little knives in their sheaths
That they may fight with the church,
The time has come.
Elders (of the church)
When [[Jomo Kenyatta|Kenyatta]] comes
You will be given women's clothes
And you will have to cook him his food.</poem>
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|source= — From the ''Muthirigu'' (1929), [[Kikuyu people|Kikuyu]] dance-songs against church opposition to FGM<ref>Kenneth Mufuka, [https://web.archive.org/web/20111123065512/http://www.irss.uoguelph.ca/article/viewFile/176/218 "Scottish Missionaries and the Circumcision Controversy in Kenya, 1900–1960"], ''International Review of Scottish Studies'', 28, 2003, 55.</ref>
}}
Protestant missionaries in [[East Africa Protectorate|British East Africa]] (present-day Kenya) began campaigning against FGM in the early 20th century, when Dr. [[John Arthur (missionary)|John Arthur]] joined the [[Church of Scotland]] Mission (CSM) in Kikuyu. An important ethnic marker, the practice was known by the [[Kikuyu people|Kikuyu]], the country's main ethnic group, as ''irua'' for both girls and boys. It involved excision (Type II) for girls and removal of the foreskin for boys. Unexcised Kikuyu women (''irugu'') were outcasts.<ref>{{harvnb|Thomas|2000|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=rhhRXiJIGEcC&pg=PA132 132]}}. For ''irua'', {{harvnb|Kenyatta|1962|loc=129}}; for ''irugu'' as outcasts, {{harvnb|Kenyatta|1962|loc=127}}. Also see {{harvnb|Zabus|2008|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=xZmWF3qxHo4C&pg=PA48 48]}}.</ref>

[[Jomo Kenyatta]], general secretary of the [[Kikuyu Central Association]] and later Kenya's first prime minister, wrote in 1938 that, for the Kikuyu, the institution of FGM was the "''[[Sine qua non|conditio sine qua non]]'' of the whole teaching of tribal law, religion and morality". No proper Kikuyu man or woman would marry or have sexual relations with someone who was not circumcised, he wrote. A woman's responsibilities toward the tribe began with her initiation. Her age and place within tribal history were traced to that day, and the group of girls with whom she was cut was named according to current events, an [[oral tradition]] that allowed the Kikuyu to track people and events going back hundreds of years.{{sfn|Kenyatta|1962|loc=127–130}}

[[File:Hulda Stumpf, Africa Inland Mission conference.jpg|thumb|left|alt=photograph|[[Hulda Stumpf]] ''(bottom left)'' was murdered in Kikuyu in 1930 after opposing FGM.]]

Beginning with the CSM in 1925, several missionary churches declared that FGM was prohibited for African Christians; the CSM announced that Africans practising it would be excommunicated, which resulted in hundreds leaving or being expelled.{{sfn|Fiedler|1996|loc=75}} In 1929 the Kenya Missionary Council began referring to FGM as the "sexual mutilation of women", and a person's stance toward the practice became a test of loyalty, either to the Christian churches or to the Kikuyu Central Association.<ref>{{harvnb|Thomas|2000|loc=132}}; for the "sexual mutilation of women", {{harvnb|Karanja|2009|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=F1ezIgyomGIC&pg=PA93 93], n.&nbsp;631}}. Also see {{harvnb|Strayer|Murray|1978|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=9kpLvKnZCR8C&pg=PA139 139ff]}}.</ref> The stand-off turned FGM into a focal point of the Kenyan independence movement; the 1929–1931 period is known in the country's historiography as the female circumcision controversy.<ref>{{harvnb|Boddy|2007|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=T77ui7IPNwkC&pg=PA241 241–245]}}; {{harvnb|Hyam|1990|loc=196}}; {{harvnb|Murray|1976|loc=92–104}}.</ref> When [[Hulda Stumpf]], an American missionary who opposed FGM in the girls' school she helped to run, was murdered in 1930, [[Edward Grigg]], the [[List of colonial governors and administrators of Kenya|governor of Kenya]], told the British [[Colonial Office]] that the killer had tried to circumcise her.<ref>{{harvnb|Boddy|2007|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=T77ui7IPNwkC&pg=PA241 241], [https://books.google.com/books?id=T77ui7IPNwkC&pg=PA241 244]}}; {{harvnb|Robert|1996|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=98eI044RjlwC&pg=PA230 230]}}.</ref>

There was some opposition from Kenyan women themselves. At the mission in Tumutumu, [[Karatina]], where [[Marion Scott Stevenson]] worked, a group calling themselves ''Ngo ya Tuiritu'' ("Shield of Young Girls"), the membership of which included Raheli Warigia (mother of [[Gakaara wa Wanjaũ]]), wrote to the Local Native Council of South Nyeri on 25 December 1931: "[W]e of the Ngo ya Tuiritu heard that there are men who talk of female circumcision, and we get astonished because they (men) do not give birth and feel the pain and even some die and even others become infertile, and the main cause is circumcision. Because of that, the issue of circumcision should not be forced. People are caught like sheep; one should be allowed to cut her own way of either agreeing to be circumcised or not without being dictated on one's own body."<ref>{{harvnb|wa Kihurani|Warigia wa Johanna|Murigo wa Meshak|2007|loc=118–120}}; {{harvnb|Peterson|2012|loc=217}}.</ref>

Elsewhere, support for the practice from women was strong. In 1956 in Meru, eastern Kenya, when the council of male elders (the ''Njuri Nchecke'') announced a ban on FGM in 1956, thousands of girls cut each other's genitals with razor blades over the next three years as a symbol of defiance. The movement came to be known as ''Ngaitana'' ("I will circumcise myself"), because to avoid naming their friends the girls said they had cut themselves. Historian Lynn Thomas described the episode as significant in the history of FGM because it made clear that its victims were also its perpetrators.<ref>{{harvnb|Thomas|2000|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=rhhRXiJIGEcC&pg=PA129 129–131] (131 for the girls as "central actors")}}; also in {{harvnb|Thomas|1996}} and {{harvnb|Thomas|2003|loc=89–91}}.</ref> FGM was eventually outlawed in Kenya in 2001, although the practice continued, reportedly driven by older women.<ref>{{cite news |last1=Topping |first1=Alexandra |title=Kenyan girls taken to remote regions to undergo FGM in secret |url=https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jul/24/kenya-girls-female-genital-mutilation-fgm-secret |work=The Guardian |date=24 July 2014 |access-date=17 January 2019 |archive-date=31 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200731055249/https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jul/24/kenya-girls-female-genital-mutilation-fgm-secret |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Growth of opposition===
{{FGM opposition timeline}}
One of the earliest campaigns against FGM began in Egypt in the 1920s, when the Egyptian Doctors' Society called for a ban.{{efn|[[#UNICEF2013|UNICEF 2013]] calls the Egyptian Doctors' Society opposition the "first known campaign" against FGM.<ref>[[#UNICEF2013|UNICEF 2013]], 10.</ref>}} There was a parallel campaign in Sudan, run by religious leaders and British women. Infibulation was banned there in 1946, but the law was unpopular and barely enforced.{{sfn|Boddy|2007|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=T77ui7IPNwkC&pg=PA202 202], 299}}{{efn|Some states in Sudan banned FGM in 2008–2009, but {{as of|2013|lc=y}}, there was no national legislation.<ref>[[#UNICEF2013|UNICEF 2013]], 2, 9.</ref> The prevalence of FGM among women aged 14–49 was 89 percent in 2014.{{cn|date=March 2025}}}} The Egyptian government banned infibulation in state-run hospitals in 1959, but allowed partial clitoridectomy if parents requested it.{{sfn|Boyle|2002|loc=92, 103}} (Egypt banned FGM entirely in 2007.)

In 1959, the UN asked the WHO to investigate FGM, but the latter responded that it was not a medical matter.{{sfn|Boyle|2002|loc=41}} Feminists took up the issue throughout the 1970s.{{sfn|Bagnol|Mariano|2011|loc=281}} The Egyptian physician and feminist [[Nawal El Saadawi]] criticized FGM in her book ''Women and Sex'' (1972); the book was banned in Egypt and El Saadawi lost her job as director-general of public health.<ref name=Khaleeli2010>{{harvnb|Gruenbaum|2001|loc=22}}; Khaleeli, Homa (15 April 2010). [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/apr/15/nawal-el-saadawi-egyptian-feminist "Nawal El Saadawi: Egypt's radical feminist"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150926003949/http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2010/apr/15/nawal-el-saadawi-egyptian-feminist |date=26 September 2015 }}, ''The Guardian''.</ref> She followed up with a chapter, "The Circumcision of Girls", in her book ''The Hidden Face of Eve: Women in the Arab World'' (1980), which described her own clitoridectomy when she was six years old:

{{blockquote|I did not know what they had cut off from my body, and I did not try to find out. I just wept, and called out to my mother for help. But the worst shock of all was when I looked around and found her standing by my side. Yes, it was her, I could not be mistaken, in flesh and blood, right in the midst of these strangers, talking to them and smiling at them, as though they had not participated in slaughtering her daughter just a few moments ago.{{sfn|El Saadawi|2007|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=u5n9zUZuVI8C&pg=PA14 14]}}}}

[[File:Edna Adan Ismail.jpg|thumb|upright|left|alt=photograph|[[Edna Adan Ismail]] raised the health consequences of FGM in 1977.]]
In 1975, Rose Oldfield Hayes, an American social scientist, became the first female academic to publish a detailed account of FGM, aided by her ability to discuss it directly with women in Sudan. Her article in ''American Ethnologist'' called it "female genital mutilation", rather than female circumcision, and brought it to wider academic attention.{{sfn|Hayes|1975|loc=21}} [[Edna Adan Ismail]], who worked at the time for the Somalia Ministry of Health, discussed the health consequences of FGM in 1977 with the [[Somali Women's Democratic Organization]].{{sfn|Abdalla|2007|loc=[https://books.google.com/books?id=8VQxt634pfcC&pg=PA201 201]}}<ref>Topping, Alexandra (23 June 2014). [https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/23/somaliland-womens-rights-gender-violence "Somaliland's leading lady for women's rights: 'It is time for men to step up'"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170101055842/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/23/somaliland-womens-rights-gender-violence |date=1 January 2017 }}, ''The Guardian''.</ref> Two years later [[Fran Hosken]], an Austrian-American feminist, published ''The Hosken Report: Genital and Sexual Mutilation of Females'' (1979),{{sfn|Hosken|1994}} the first to offer global figures. She estimated that 110,529,000 women in 20 African countries had experienced FGM.{{sfn|Yoder|Khan|2008|loc=2}} The figures were speculative but consistent with later surveys.{{sfn|Mackie|2003|loc=139}} Describing FGM as a "training ground for male violence", Hosken accused female practitioners of "participating in the destruction of their own kind".{{sfn|Hosken|1994|loc=5}} The language caused a rift between Western and African feminists; African women boycotted a session featuring Hosken during the [[World Conference on Women, 1980|UN's Mid-Decade Conference on Women]] in Copenhagen in July 1980.<ref>{{harvnb|Boyle|2002|loc=47}}; {{harvnb|Bagnol|Mariano|2011|loc=281}}.</ref>

In 1979, the WHO held a seminar, "Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children", in Khartoum, Sudan, and in 1981, also in Khartoum, 150 academics and activists signed a pledge to fight FGM after a workshop held by the [[Babikir Badri|Babiker Badri Scientific Association for Women's Studies]] (BBSAWS), "Female Circumcision Mutilates and Endangers Women&nbsp;– Combat it!" Another BBSAWS workshop in 1984 invited the international community to write a joint statement for the United Nations.<ref>Shahira Ahmed, "Babiker Badri Scientific Association for Women's Studies", in Abusharaf 2007, 176–180.</ref> It recommended that the "goal of all African women" should be the eradication of FGM and that, to sever the link between FGM and religion, clitoridectomy should no longer be referred to as ''sunna''.<ref>Ahmed 2007, 180.</ref>

The [[Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children]], founded in 1984 in Dakar, Senegal, called for an end to the practice, as did the UN's [[World Conference on Human Rights]] in Vienna in 1993. The conference listed FGM as a form of [[violence against women]], marking it as a human-rights violation, rather than a medical issue.<ref>[[Anika Rahman]] and [[Nahid Toubia]], ''Female Genital Mutilation: A Guide to Laws and Policies Worldwide'', New York: Zed Books, 2000, [https://books.google.com/books?id=kEG6GaudxQEC&pg=PA110 10–11] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801123412/https://books.google.com/books?id=kEG6GaudxQEC&pg=PA110 |date=1 August 2020 }}; for Vienna, [[#UNICEF2013|UNICEF 2013]], 8.</ref> Throughout the 1990s and 2000s governments in Africa and the Middle East passed legislation banning or restricting FGM. In 2003 the [[African Union]] ratified the [[Maputo Protocol]] on the rights of women, which supported the elimination of FGM.<ref>Emma Bonino, [https://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/opinion/15iht-edbonino_ed3_.html "A brutal custom: Join forces to banish the mutilation of women"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150531165453/http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/15/opinion/15iht-edbonino_ed3_.html |date=31 May 2015 }}, ''The New York Times'', 15 September 2004; [https://web.archive.org/web/20110409114818/http://www.africa-union.org/root/au/Documents/Treaties/Text/Protocol%20on%20the%20Rights%20of%20Women.pdf Maputo Protocol], 7–8.</ref> By 2015 laws restricting FGM had been passed in at least 23 of the 27 African countries in which it is concentrated, although several fell short of a ban.{{efn|For example, UNICEF 2013 lists Mauritania as having passed legislation against FGM, but (as of that year) it was banned only from being conducted in government facilities or by medical personnel.<ref name=UNICEF2013p8>[[#UNICEF2013|UNICEF 2013]], 8.</ref>{{pb}}The following are countries in which FGM is common and in which restrictions are in place as of 2013. An asterisk indicates a ban:{{pb}}Benin (2003), Burkina Faso (1996*), Central African Republic (1966, amended 1996), Chad (2003), Côte d'Ivoire (1998), Djibouti (1995, amended 2009*), Egypt (2008*), Eritrea (2007*), Ethiopia (2004*), Ghana (1994, amended 2007), Guinea (1965, amended 2000*), Guinea-Bissau (2011*), Iraq (2011*), Kenya (2001, amended 2011*), Mauritania (2005), Niger (2003), Nigeria (2015*), Senegal (1999*), Somalia (2012*), Sudan, some states (2008–2009), Tanzania (1998), Togo (1998), Uganda (2010*), Yemen (2001*).<ref>[[#UNICEF2013|UNICEF 2013]], 8–9.</ref><ref>[[#UNFPA–UNICEF2012|UNFPA–UNICEF Annual Report 2012]], 12.</ref>}}

{{As of|2023}}, UNICEF reported that "in most countries in Africa and the Middle East with representative data on attitudes (23 out of 30), the majority of girls and women think the practice should end", and that "even among communities that practice FGM, there is substantial opposition to its continuation".<ref name=UNICEF2023/>

===United Nations{{anchor|UN}}===
[[File:Female genital mutilation laws by country map.svg|300px|thumb|[[Female genital mutilation laws by country]]:
{{legend|#008000|Specific criminal provision or national law prohibiting FGM}}
{{legend|#00FF00|General criminal provision that might be used to prosecute FGM}}
{{legend|#EEEE00|Partial or subnational FGM criminalisation, or unclear legal status}}
{{legend|#FF0000|FGM not criminalised}}
{{legend|#C0C0C0|No data}}]]
In December 1993, the [[United Nations General Assembly]] included FGM in resolution 48/104, the [[Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women]], and from 2003 sponsored [[International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation]], held every 6 February.<ref>[http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/48/a48r104.htm "48/104. Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060202074847/http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/48/a48r104.htm |date=2 February 2006 }}, United Nations General Assembly, 20 December 1993.</ref><ref>Charlotte Feldman-Jacobs, [http://www.prb.org/Articles/2009/fgmc.aspx "Commemorating International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100213125942/http://www.prb.org/Articles/2009/fgmc.aspx |date=13 February 2010 }}, Population Reference Bureau, February 2009.</ref> UNICEF began in 2003 to promote an evidence-based [[social norms approach]], using ideas from [[game theory]] about how communities reach decisions about FGM, and building on the work of Gerry Mackie on the demise of footbinding in China.<ref>[[#UNICEF2013|UNICEF 2013]], 15; [[#UNICEF2010|UNICEF 2010]].</ref> In 2005 the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre in Florence published its first report on FGM.<ref name=UNICEF2005/> UNFPA and UNICEF launched a joint program in Africa in 2007 to reduce FGM by 40 percent within the 0–15 age group and eliminate it from at least one country by 2012, goals that were not met and which they later described as unrealistic.<ref name="UNFPA–UNICEF2013">[[#UNFPA2013|UNFPA 2013]], "Executive Summary", 4.</ref>{{efn|Fifteen countries joined the program: Djibouti, Egypt, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Kenya, Senegal and Sudan in 2008; Burkina Faso, Gambia, Uganda and Somalia in 2009; and Eritrea, Mali and Mauritania in 2011.<ref>[[#UNFPA2013|UNFPA 2013]], Volume 1, viii.</ref>}} In 2008 several UN bodies recognized FGM as a human-rights violation,<ref>[[#WHO2008|WHO 2008]], 8.</ref> and in 2010 the UN called upon healthcare providers to stop carrying out the procedures, including reinfibulation after childbirth and symbolic nicking.<ref name=UN2010Askew/> In 2012 the General Assembly passed resolution 67/146, "Intensifying global efforts for the elimination of female genital mutilations".<ref name=UN>[[#UNresolution2012|UN resolution, 20 December 2012]]; Emma Bonino, [https://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/opinion/global/banning-female-genital-mutilation.html "Banning Female Genital Mutilation"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170101060201/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/opinion/global/banning-female-genital-mutilation.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220102/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/20/opinion/global/banning-female-genital-mutilation.html |archive-date=2022-01-02 |url-access=limited |url-status=live |date=1 January 2017 }}{{cbignore}}, ''The New York Times'', 19 December 2012.</ref>

===Non-practising countries===
====Overview====
{{Further|Prevalence of female genital mutilation}}
Immigration spread the practice to Australia, [[Female genital mutilation in New Zealand|New Zealand]], Europe, and North America, all of which outlawed it entirely or restricted it to consenting adults.<ref>Australia: [http://www.ag.gov.au/Publications/Documents/ReviewofAustraliasfemalegenitalmutilationlegalframework/Review%20of%20Australias%20female%20genital%20mutilation%20legal%20framework.pdf "Review of Australia's Female Genital Mutilation Legal Framework"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160305202920/https://www.ag.gov.au/Publications/Documents/ReviewofAustraliasfemalegenitalmutilationlegalframework/Review%20of%20Australias%20female%20genital%20mutilation%20legal%20framework.pdf |date=5 March 2016 }}, Attorney General's Department, Government of Australia.{{pb}}
New Zealand: [http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1961/0043/latest/DLM329734.html#DLM329734 "Section 204A&nbsp;– Female genital mutilation&nbsp;– Crimes Act 1961"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111123061721/http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1961/0043/latest/DLM329734.html#DLM329734 |date=23 November 2011 }}, New Zealand Parliamentary Counsel Office.{{pb}}
Europe: [http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/gender-violence/eliminating-female-genital-mutilation/index_en.htm "Eliminating female genital mutilation"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140808183953/http://ec.europa.eu/justice/gender-equality/gender-violence/eliminating-female-genital-mutilation/index_en.htm |date=8 August 2014 }}, European Commission.{{pb}}
United States: [http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/116 "18 U.S. Code § 116 – Female genital mutilation"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140803012933/http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/116 |date=3 August 2014 }}, Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School.{{pb}}
Canada: [http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-268.html Section 268], Criminal Code, Justice Laws website, Government of Canada.</ref> Sweden outlawed FGM in 1982 with the ''Act Prohibiting the Genital Mutilation of Women'', the first Western country to do so.<ref name=EigeSweden>[http://eige.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/current_situation_and_trends_of_female_genital_mutilation_in_sweden_en.pdf "Current situation of female genital mutilation in Sweden"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170319112455/http://eige.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/current_situation_and_trends_of_female_genital_mutilation_in_sweden_en.pdf |date=19 March 2017 }}, European Institute for Gender Equality, European Union.</ref> Several former colonial powers, including Belgium, Britain, France, and the Netherlands, introduced new laws or made clear that it was covered by existing legislation.{{sfn|Boyle|2002|loc=97}} {{As of|2013}}, legislation banning FGM had been passed in 33 countries outside Africa and the Middle East.<ref name=UNICEF2013p8/>

====North America====
{{Further|Female genital mutilation in the United States}}
In the United States, an estimated 513,000 women and girls had experienced FGM or were at risk as of 2012.<ref name=CDC2016>[http://www.publichealthreports.org/documents/fgmutilation.pdf "Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting in the United States: Updated Estimates of Women and Girls at Risk, 2012"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171221153549/http://www.publichealthreports.org/documents/fgmutilation.pdf |date=21 December 2017 }}. ''Public Health Reports''. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. March–April 2016, 131.</ref><ref>Turkewitz, Julie (6 February 2015). [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/us/genital-cutting-cases-seen-more-as-immigration-rises.html "Effects of Ancient Custom Present New Challenge to U.S. Doctors: Genital Cutting Cases Seen More as Immigration Rises"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180131004639/https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/06/us/genital-cutting-cases-seen-more-as-immigration-rises.html |date=31 January 2018 }}. ''The New York Times''.</ref>{{efn|The Centers for Disease Control's previous estimate was 168,000 as of 1990.{{sfn|Jones|Smith|Kieke|Wilcox|1997|loc=372}}}} A Nigerian woman successfully contested deportation in March 1994, asking for "cultural asylum" on the grounds that her young daughters (who were American citizens) might be cut if she took them to Nigeria,<ref>Rudloff, Patricia Dysart (1995). [https://web.archive.org/web/20010220043053/http://www.law-lib.utoronto.ca/Diana/fulltext/rudl.htm "In Re: Oluloro: Risk of female genital mutilation as 'extreme hardship' in immigration proceedings"]. ''Saint Mary's Law Journal'', 877.{{pb}}
{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/04/us/an-ancient-ritual-and-a-mother-s-asylum-plea.html|title=An Ancient Ritual and a Mother's Asylum Plea|last=Egan|first=Timothy|date=4 March 1994|work=The New York Times|access-date=28 November 2019|archive-date=3 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200903094757/https://www.nytimes.com/1994/03/04/us/an-ancient-ritual-and-a-mother-s-asylum-plea.html|url-status=live}}</ref> and in 1996 [[Matter of Kasinga|Fauziya Kasinga]] from [[Togo]] became the first to be officially granted asylum to escape FGM.<ref>Dugger, Celia W. (16 June 1996). [https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E1DB1439F935A25755C0A960958260 "June 9–15; Asylum From Mutilation"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200621232551/https://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html%3Fres%3D9C05E1DB1439F935A25755C0A960958260 |date=21 June 2020 }}. ''The New York Times''.{{pb}}
[https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/eoir/legacy/2000/03/28/kasinga7.pdf "In re Fauziya KASINGA, file A73 476 695"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170304040921/https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/eoir/legacy/2000/03/28/kasinga7.pdf |date=4 March 2017 }}. U.S. Department of Justice. Executive Office for Immigration Review, decided 13 June 1996.</ref> In 1996 the Federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act made it illegal to perform FGM on minors for non-medical reasons, and in 2013 the Transport for Female Genital Mutilation Act prohibited transporting a minor out of the country for the purpose of FGM.<ref name=CDC2016/>{{rp|2}} The first FGM conviction in the US was in 2006, when [[Khalid Adem]], who had emigrated from Ethiopia, was sentenced to ten years for aggravated battery and cruelty to children after severing his two-year-old daughter's clitoris with a pair of scissors.<ref>[http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-01-georgia_x.htm "Man gets 10-year sentence for circumcision of 2-year-old daughter"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170902134855/http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-01-georgia_x.htm |date=2 September 2017 }}. Associated Press, 1 November 2006.</ref> A federal judge ruled in 2018 that the 1996 Act was unconstitutional, arguing that FGM is a "local criminal activity" that should be regulated by states.<ref name=Schmidt21Nov2018>Schmidt, Samantha (21 November 2018). [https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/judge-rules-that-federal-law-banning-female-genital-mutilation-is-unconstitutional/2018/11/21/a9455728-edd2-11e8-96d4-0d23f2aaad09_story.html "Judge rules that federal law banning female genital mutilation is unconstitutional"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200820223532/https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-issues/judge-rules-that-federal-law-banning-female-genital-mutilation-is-unconstitutional/2018/11/21/a9455728-edd2-11e8-96d4-0d23f2aaad09_story.html |date=20 August 2020 }}. ''The Washington Post''.</ref>{{efn|The judge made his ruling during a case against members of the [[Dawoodi Bohra]] community in Michigan accused of carrying out FGM.<ref name=Schmidt21Nov2018/>}} Twenty-four states had legislation banning FGM as of 2016,<ref name=CDC2016/>{{rp|2}} and in 2021 the STOP FGM Act of 2020 was signed into federal law.<ref>Batha, Emma (7 January 2021). [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-law-fgm/us-toughens-ban-on-abhorrent-female-genital-mutilation-idUSKBN29C2OF "U.S. toughens ban on 'abhorrent' female genital mutilation"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210108140215/https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-law-fgm/us-toughens-ban-on-abhorrent-female-genital-mutilation-idUSKBN29C2OF |date=8 January 2021 }}. Reuters.</ref> The [[American Academy of Pediatrics]] opposes all forms of the practice, including pricking the clitoral skin.{{efn|In 2010 the American Academy of Pediatrics suggested that "pricking or incising the clitoral skin" was a harmless procedure that might satisfy parents, but it withdrew the statement after complaints.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Female Genital Mutilation|journal=Pediatrics|volume=102|issue=1|date=1 July 1998|pages=153–156|doi=10.1542/peds.102.1.153|pmid=9651425|doi-access=free}}{{pb}}
Withdrawn policy: {{cite journal|title=Ritual Genital Cutting of Female Minors|journal=Pediatrics|volume=125|issue=5|date=1 May 2010|pages=1088–1093|pmid=20421257|doi=10.1542/peds.2010-0187|doi-access=free|author1=American Academy of Pediatrics Board of Directors}}{{pb}}
Pam Belluck, [https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/health/policy/07cuts.html "Group Backs Ritual 'Nick' as Female Circumcision Option"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180118095546/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/health/policy/07cuts.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220102/http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/07/health/policy/07cuts.html |archive-date=2022-01-02 |url-access=limited |url-status=live |date=18 January 2018 }}{{cbignore}}, ''The New York Times'', 6 May 2010.</ref>}}

Canada recognized FGM as a form of persecution in July 1994, when it granted refugee status to Khadra Hassan Farah, who had fled Somalia to avoid her daughter being cut.<ref name=Farnsworth1994>Farnsworth, Clyde H. (21 July 1994). [https://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/21/world/canada-gives-somali-mother-refugee-status.html "Canada Gives Somali Mother Refugee Status"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170813224305/http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/21/world/canada-gives-somali-mother-refugee-status.html |date=13 August 2017 }}. ''The New York Times''.</ref> In 1997 section 268 of its ''[[Criminal Code (Canada)|Criminal Code]]'' was amended to ban FGM, except where "the person is at least eighteen years of age and there is no resulting bodily harm".<ref>[http://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/C-46/section-268.html Section 268] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190502191321/https://www.ag.gov.au/Publications/Documents/ReviewofAustraliasfemalegenitalmutilationlegalframework/Review%20of%20Australias%20female%20genital%20mutilation%20legal%20framework.pdf |date=2 May 2019 }}. Criminal Code of Canada.</ref><ref name=UNICEF2013p8/> {{As of|2019|2}}, there had been no prosecutions. Officials have expressed concern that thousands of Canadian girls are at risk of being taken overseas to undergo the procedure, so-called "vacation cutting".<ref>Portenier, Giselle (6 February 2019). [https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-when-will-canada-take-action-for-girls-who-endure-fgm/ "When will Canada take action for girls who endure FGM?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201202074503/https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-when-will-canada-take-action-for-girls-who-endure-fgm/ |date=2 December 2020 }}. ''The Globe and Mail''.</ref>

====Europe====
{{Further|Female genital mutilation in the United Kingdom}}
According to the European Parliament, 500,000 women in Europe had undergone FGM {{as of|2009|03|lc=y}}.{{sfn|Yoder|Wang|Johansen|2013|loc=195}} In France up to 30,000 women were thought to have experienced it as of 1995. According to Colette Gallard, a family-planning counsellor, when FGM was first encountered in France, the reaction was that Westerners ought not to intervene. It took the deaths of two girls in 1982, one of them three months old, for that attitude to change.{{sfn|Gallard|1995|loc=1592}}<ref name=Rowling/> In 1991 a French court ruled that the [[Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees]] offered protection to FGM victims; the decision followed an asylum application from [[Aminata Diop]], who fled an FGM procedure in Mali.<ref>Jana Meredyth Talton, "Asylum for Genital-Mutilation Fugitives: Building a Precedent", [[Ms. (magazine)|Ms.]], January/February 1992, 17.</ref> The practice is outlawed by several provisions of France's penal code that address bodily harm causing permanent mutilation or torture.<ref>[http://eige.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/current_situation_and_trends_of_female_genital_mutilation_in_france_en.pdf "Current situation of female genital mutilation in France"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160207130739/http://eige.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/current_situation_and_trends_of_female_genital_mutilation_in_france_en.pdf |date=7 February 2016 }}, European Institute for Gender Equality, European Union.</ref><ref name=Rowling>Megan Rowling [http://news.trust.org//item/?map=france-reduces-genital-cutting-with-prevention-prosecutions-lawyer/ "France reduces genital cutting with prevention, prosecutions – lawyer"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170101055918/http://news.trust.org/item/?map=france-reduces-genital-cutting-with-prevention-prosecutions-lawyer%2F |date=1 January 2017 }}, Thomson Reuters Foundation, 27 September 2012.</ref><!--find source: All children under six who were born in France undergo medical examinations that include inspection of the genitals, and doctors are obliged to report FGM.--> The first civil suit was in 1982,{{sfn|Gallard|1995|loc=1592}} and the first criminal prosecution in 1993.<ref name=Farnsworth1994/> In 1999 a woman was given an eight-year sentence for having performed FGM on 48 girls.<ref>[[David Gollaher]], ''Circumcision: A History of the World's Most Controversial Surgery'', New York: Basic Books, 2000, 189.</ref> By 2014 over 100 parents and two practitioners had been prosecuted in over 40 criminal cases.<!--check source--><ref name=Rowling/>

Around 137,000 women and girls living in England and Wales were born in countries where FGM is practised, as of 2011.<ref>Alison Macfarlane and [[Efua Dorkenoo]], [http://www.equalitynow.org/sites/default/files/FGM%20EN%20City%20Estimates.pdf "Female Genital Mutilation in England and Wales"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150815112821/http://www.equalitynow.org/sites/default/files/FGM%20EN%20City%20Estimates.pdf |date=15 August 2015 }}, [[City University of London]] and [[Equality Now]], 21 July 2014, 3.{{pb}}
[http://eige.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/Study%20to%20map%20the%20current%20situation%20and%20trends%20on%20FGM%20-Country%20reports%20-%20MH3212540ENN.pdf "Country Report: United Kingdom"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170319112338/http://eige.europa.eu/sites/default/files/documents/Study%20to%20map%20the%20current%20situation%20and%20trends%20on%20FGM%20-Country%20reports%20-%20MH3212540ENN.pdf |date=19 March 2017 }}, ''Study to map the current situation and trends of FGM: Country reports'', European Institute for Gender Equality, Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union, 2013, 487–532.{{pb}}
For an early article on FGM in the UK, see {{harvnb|Black|Debelle|1995}}</ref> Performing FGM on children or adults was outlawed under the [[Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985]].<ref><!--add secondary source-->[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1985/38/contents ''Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985''] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170101055729/http://www.ccsenet.org/journal/index.php/ilr/article/view/36076 |date=1 January 2017 }}, legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives.</ref> This was replaced by the [[Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003]] and [[Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation (Scotland) Act 2005]], which added a prohibition on arranging FGM outside the country for British citizens or permanent residents.<ref>[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/31 Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170714134537/http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/31 |date=14 July 2017 }} and [http://www.legislation.gov.uk/asp/2005/8/contents "Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation (Scotland) Act 2005"], legislation.gov.uk.</ref>{{efn|[[Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003]]: "A person is guilty of an offence if he excises, infibulates or otherwise mutilates the whole or any part of a girl's labia majora, labia minora or clitoris", unless "necessary for her physical or mental health". Although the legislation refers to girls, it applies to women too.<ref>[http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/31 "Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170714134537/http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/31 |date=14 July 2017 }}, legislation.gov.uk, and [http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/d_to_g/female_genital_mutilation/#a02 "Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130908183829/http://www.cps.gov.uk/legal/d_to_g/female_genital_mutilation/#a02 |date=8 September 2013 }} (legal guidance), Crown Prosecution Service: "The Act refers to 'girls', though it also applies to women."</ref>}} The United Nations [[Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women|Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women]] (CEDAW) asked the government in July 2013 to "ensure the full implementation of its legislation on FGM".<ref>[[#CEDAW2013|CEDAW, July 2013]], 6, paras&nbsp;36, 37.</ref> The first charges in England and Wales were brought in 2014 against a physician and another man; the physician had stitched an infibulated woman after opening her for childbirth. Both men were acquitted in 2015.<ref>Sandra Laville, [https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/04/doctor-not-guilty-fgm-dhanuson-dharmasena "Doctor found not guilty of FGM on patient at London hospital"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180206042151/https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/feb/04/doctor-not-guilty-fgm-dhanuson-dharmasena |date=6 February 2018 }}, ''The Guardian'', 4 February 2015.</ref> The first successful conviction was that of a Ugandan mother, who was found guilty at the Central Criminal Court of England and Wales on 1 February 2019.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-47094707|title=FGM: Mother guilty of genital mutilation of daughter|publisher=BBC News|date=1 February 2019|accessdate=1 February 2019}}</ref> On 8 March 2019, she was sentenced to 11 years in prison.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47502089|title=Mother jailed for 11 years over FGM|publisher=BBC News|date=8 March 2019|accessdate=8 March 2019}}</ref> The second successful conviction was another mother, 39-year-old Amina Noor, a Kenyan woman living in [[Harrow, London|Harrow]], [[North London]], who had taken her (then) 3-year-old daughter to Kenya for mutilation in 2006, when the mother was aged 22. As of February 2024, she was sentenced to 7 years in prison. She was the first convicted person to have taken someone abroad for the act; she had herself been subjected to Female Genital Mutilation when she was 6 years old.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4ngz2redmdo.amp|title=FGM: Woman jailed for taking girl, 3, for mutilation loses appeal|date=4 July 2024|website=BBC News}}</ref>
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