A detailed story
With the expression female genital mutilation we refer to the partial or total removal of external female genitals or other changes brought on female genitals done for either cultural or therapeutic reasons.
We know of different kinds of female genitals mutilation, each of them can have a different level of seriousness, of which the most radical one is generally called infibulation. This procedure, practised mainly in Subsahariana Africa, with immigration, has become quite common also in Europe and especially in Italy. The term mutilation used to describe these procedures was adopted at the end of 1970, in substitution of the term female circumcision, to underline the permanent damage done to women. The term mutilation was adopted in the third conference on the traditional practices affecting women and ùchildren’s health. It was in Addis Abeba in 1991, the same year it was recommended as a term to be used in the United Nation by the W.H.O.