The World Health Assembly met in Geneva for its sixty-first session from 19 through 24 May 2008. Female genital mutilation was one of the issues discussed by the Assembly's 2,704 participants from 190 countries. Member States committed to intensifying their efforts toward the elimination of female genital mutilation through legal, educational, and community actions. Meanwhile, the World Health Organization has produced a new fact sheet on female genital mutilation, which elaborates the types of procedures used, their health consequences, who is at risk, why FGM is practiced, and how the international community and WHO have responded to the practice.
For the full fact sheet, click here.
Compiled from: Women's U.N. Report Network; "Sixty-first World Health Assembly," World Health Organization, last accessed 2 June 2008; "Female genital mutilation," World Health Organization, Fact Sheet No. 241, May 2008.