Thomson Reuters Foundation: World leaders urged to make female circumcision a priority like HIV
“Tackling female genital mutilation (FGM) should be made a global priority like HIV/AIDS, according to campaigners concerned about growing evidence that the abusive practice was more widespread than thought. … Some 200 million girls and women are impacted by FGM worldwide, according to U.N. data, but some activists said this was a ‘massive underestimate’ as it ignored the true geographic spread of FGM and omitted children and older women. … British anti-FGM charity Orchid estimated global funding for FGM was about $200 million for the period 2018 to 2021. HIV by comparison — which affects about 37 million people — attracted $20 billion in funding in 2017. … Campaigners called for data collection to be ramped up in order to fully assess the global scale of FGM and better target efforts to end it…” (Batha, 6/5).