An Analytical Approach to Female Genital Mutilation in West Africa

Female genital mutilation in different parts of the African continent isconsidered as one of the vast territory’s social problems. This social problem whichis accounted as an old tradition in different countries of the African continent hashad so many unpleasant physical and mental effects on urban and rural Africanwomen during recent centuries. Throughout recent decades, considerable effortshave been made by United Nations and its dependent organizations and privateinstitutes in order to stop or reduce the young girls circumcision rate in Africancontinent; however, most of the indigenous population insist on this wrong traditionand proclaim that this tradition is a part of their old traditions remaining from theirancestors and its safeguard is quite important for them.In this article, the way this old tradition is conducted and the reasons underlyingthe action have been studied. Furthermore, the activities taking place by organizationsrelated to United Nations and African politicians in order to confront female genitalmutilation in different countries of Western Africa and their reflection in urban andrural regions have been studied through existing documents and witnesses.