FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION:

STRATEGIES FOR ERADICATION Fran P. Hosken Presented at The First International Symposium on Circumcision, Anaheim, California, March 1-2, 1989.

Female genital mutilation - the descriptive term for the different types of operations are "excision" and "infibulation" - continues to be practiced in large regions of Africa, from the Red Sea Coast to the shores of the Atlantic. According to a conservative estimate, at least 84 [110] million women and girls are mutilated today in Continental Africa and similar operations are practiced along the Persian Gulf and the southern part of the Arab Peninsula. In Indonesia and Malaysia, less drastic forms of "female circumcision" are practiced by some of the Moslem populations of this region and sporadic occurrences have been registered among other mainly Moslem groups.

With increasing mobilityof African and Middle Eastern immigrants to Europe, the U.S. and also to Australia, these mutilations are being exported all over the world. Indeed, Britain had to pass special legislation recently to prohibit the operations (which were carried out by obliging physicians for a high fee). In France, the Criminal Courts had to finally initiate proceedings against African fathers and families after three little girls died as a result of the operations performed in France. One father brought to court had "operated" on his baby daughter with a pocket knife - the child bled to death.

In most European countries and also in Australia, health services have been alerted to warn people and especially immigrants. In the U.S., immigrants from affected African countries have not been warned by immigration