Combating female circumcision

I became an activist to stop female genital mutilation last year after reading a shocking survey from a secondary school in Rania, a town in Sulaimaniyah province. Every single one of the girls in the school reported that their genitals had been cut.

Female genital mutilation is an epidemic in northern Iraq, particularly in remote and rural areas. In villages, it is a common practice frequently carried out in unsanitary conditions by women without medical training. They slice the clitoris of a young girl, spreading ashes on the cut to numb the pain.