FGM causes problems for the rest of girls' lives | Violence against women and girls | ActionAid UK

Zeinab Hassan, Women's Rights Coordinator from ActionAid Somaliland explains how FGM causes problems for the rest of girls' lives. Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female circumcision, is the partial or full cutting of a girl’s clitoris and labia, for non-medical reasons, nearly always on minors between four and 12 years old. The procedure can cause severe bleeding, infection, infertility and even death. Afterwards, girls are usually taken out of school and forced into early child marriage. It is an excruciatingly painful practice that denies girls their basic human rights and can have devastating physical, psychological, and social consequences for the rest of their lives. ActionAid works in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somaliland, The Gambia and Uganda to end female genital mutilation. Find out more about our work on FGM: http://po.st/XqJEdY