Most girls in Somalia experience genital mutilation. The ritual just killed a 10-year-old

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In 2012, Somalia introduced a new constitution that was supposed to ban female genital mutilation. But a few years later, there had been little follow-up, and UNICEF still estimated that up to 98 percent of girls and women there had been cut.

This week, a Somali activist announced that a 10-year-old girl died in central Somalia in what she said was the direct result of an FGM procedure. Hawa Aden Mohamed, executive director of the Galkayo Education Center for Peace and Development, a Somali nongovernmental agency that advocates for women’s rights, said in a statement that “the circumciser is suspected to have cut an important vein in the course of the operation.” The girl died two days later.

“The woman who performed the operation has not been arrested, but even if she was, there is no law that would ensure she is punished for the act,” Mohamed said, according to Reuters. “This is just one among many cases happening on a daily basis across Somalia.”

Siobhán O’Grady

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