125 million mutilated women and girls

The true extent of female genital mutilation or cutting is huge and revealed today in a big new report from Unicef. They say that a total of 125 million women and girls are now living with the consequences of FGM - and yet their report suggests that the practice continues only because of social convention, while most women and men wish it would end.

There are 29 countries in Africa where FGM is now practised but over half the girls who are cut live in just three - Egypt, Ethiopia and Nigeria. It may surprise many people to learn that cutting is highly prevalent in Egypt. The report says that 91% of girls in Egypt are cut, most of them - 77% - by a medical professional, which indicates how much of an establishment practice it is, and raises ethical questions of the doctors and nurses involved. There are 27.2 million women and girls in Egypt who have been through FGM.

In terms of the percentage of girl who are cut, Egypt is in fourth place, below Somalia on 98%. Guinea on 96% and Djibouti on 93%. At the bottom end of the scale, in Uganda and Cameroon, just 1% of girls are cut. In more than half the 29 countries studied, Unicef says FGM is becoming slightly less common - in Kenya and the United Republic of Tanzania, the older generation of 45 to 49 year-old women are three times more likely to have undergone FGM than today's 15 and 16 year-olds. But there are places where it seems still entrenched. The report says:

No significant changes in female genital mutilation/cutting prevalence among girls and women aged 15-49 can be observed in Chad, Djibouti, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Senegal, Somalia, the Sudan and Yemen.

Unicef has found there is strong support for the ending of FGM both among women and among men.

In most countries where FGM/C is practiced, the majority of girls and women think it should end. Moreover, the percentage of females who support the practice is substantially lower than the share of girls and women who have been cut, even in countries where prevalence is very high.

In 11 countries with available data, at least 10 per cent of girls and women who have been cut say they see no benefits to the practice. The proportion reaches nearly 50 per cent in Benin and Burkina Faso, and 59 per cent in Kenya. Not surprisingly, the chances that a girl will be cut are considerably higher when her mother favours the continuation of the practice.

Genital cutting is often assumed to be a manifestation of patriarchal control over women, suggesting that men would be strong supporters of the practice. In fact, a similar level of support for stopping FGM/C is found among both women and men. In Chad, Guinea and Sierra Leone, substantially more men than women want FGM/C to end.

The assumption that girls will not find a husband if they have not been cut is not borne out in the report. Except in Eritrea, relatively few women talked of girls' marriage prospects as a justification for continuing to cut them. Overall support for FGM is declining, the report says, except in Guinea, GuineaBissau, Senegal and the United Republic of Tanzania.