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Some 230 million women are circumcised globally, say the UN

OVER 230 million women and girls have undergone female genital mutilation, most of them living in Africa, according to a report  published today by the United Nations children’s agency.

In the last eight years, some 30 million people have been subjected to the procedure, in which external genitalia are partially or fully removed, Unicef estimates in the report released on International Women’s Day.

The percentage of women and girls who suffer female genital mutilation is falling, Unicef said, but it warned that efforts to eradicate the practice are moving too slowly to keep up with fast-growing populations.

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