Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)

Somalia’s ‘Cultural Shift’ Means Less-Severe Form of FGM

Seven-year-old Istar Mumin lies on a bed, motionless, in one of the rooms of her family home in Mogadishu’s Hamarweyne district. She has just gone through the horrifying ritual of “the cut,” which was carried out by a local Somali nurse.

Girls Take Charge in the Fight to End Female Genital Mutilation

Some girls among the Pokot community in western Kenya are bravely defying what is considered cultural and traditional by refusing to be circumcised. More and more mothers, fathers and the women whose job is to do the cutting are beginning to support these girls’ right to bodily integrity.

The Girl Who Couldn’t Herd Goats Now Saves Lives

When she was nine years old, Jane Meriwas, a Samburu from the Kipsing Plains in Kenya’s Rift Valley region, was considered of no use by her father. After all, nine of his goats had been eaten by hyenas under her watch.

Sex Educators Struggle to Break Taboos

Liberian journalist Mae Azango says she spent a year living “like a bat, going from tree to tree” with her daughter in order to escape religious fanatics who were threatening to kill her for exposing the practice of female genital mutilation in her home country last year.

Q&A: “A Pastoralist Woman Is Like a Working Machine”

"In some communities, you can’t talk about violence against women," says Agnes Leina, executive director of Il'laramatak Community Concerns (ICC), a group that promotes the human rights of pastoralist communities in northern and southern Kenya, with a special emphasis on women and girls.

Q&A: FGM Is About Culture, Not Religion

The fight against female genital mutilation and cutting (FGM/C) continues to gain traction around the world.

Kenyan Men Turning the Tide Against FGM

For the Samburu community in northern Kenya it was bad enough that Julius Lekupe had not sired a son - it was even worse that his eldest daughter refused to be “cut”.

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Q&A: It’s the Beginning of the End for FGM

Journalists can play a crucial role in helping to shift traditional attitudes within societies where the cruel practice of female genital mutilation is an everyday reality.

Alvilda Jablonko. Credit: Julia Kallas/IPS

Q&A: Global Ban Another Tool in the Fight Against FGM

For the estimated 140 million girls and women living with the consequences of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), it is already too late. But since a global ban on FGM was passed at the end of last year, activists hope many more will now escape this brutal practice.

Grandmothers Taking the Lead Against Female Genital Mutilation


In the southern Senegal village of Kael Bessel, female genital mutilation is no longer a taboo subject. Sexagenarian Fatoumata Sabaly speaks freely about female circumcision and girls' rights with her friends.

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