Editing Female genital mutilation (section)

===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/>