Thirty Million Girls Face " Female Genital Mutilation"

A study of UNICEF has found that more than 30 million girls are at risk of 'female genital mutilation' (FGM) over the next decade. The report said more than 125 million girls and women alive today had undergone a procedure now opposed by majority of the countries it was practiced. Ritual cutting of gils' genetals is practiced by some African, Middle Eastern and Asian countries in the belief it protects a woman's virginity. The report of UN Children Funds Survey which is based on the 29 yeasr data in the Africa and Middle East where FGM is still practices, revealed that girls are now less likely to be cut than they were 30 years. They were times less likely than their mothers to have been cut in Kenya and Tanzania and rates have dropped by nearly half in Benin, the Central African Republic, Iraq, Liberia and Nigeria. But FGM remaims almost universal in Somalia, Guinee, Djibouti and Egypt, and there was little discernible decline in Chad, Gambia, Mali, Sudan, Senegal and Yemen, the study found. In some communities FGM, also known as female circumcision, is seen as traditional ritual used culturally to ensure virginity and to make a woman marriageable. Thedangers of FGM include severe bleeding, problems yrinating, infections, infertility and increased risks of newborn deaths in childbirth.