10-year-old girl in Somalia bleeds to death after genital mutilation

Johannesburg — An activist says a 10-year-old girl has bled to death after undergoing female genital mutilation in Somalia.

Hawa Aden Mohamed with the Galkayo Education Center for Peace and Development says in a statement that the girl died in a hospital on Monday, two days after her mother took her to a traditional circumciser in a remote village outside Dhusamareb town in central Galmudug state.

Somalia has the world’s highest rate of female genital mutilation at 98 percent, according to the United Nations. While Somalia’s constitution prohibits the practice, Mohamed says no laws have been enacted to ensure that those who perform the circumcisions are punished.

Mohamed says lawmakers are “afraid of losing their political clout among the all-powerful conservative traditional and religious groups bent at retaining the practice.”   /vvp