HRP pinpoints research needed to halt female genital mutilation.

After nearly three decades of efforts by countries and by the international health and development community to eradicate female genital mutilation (FGM) the practice continues virtually unabated in all but a handful of countries where it has long been an accepted tradition. Outlawing it by passing anti-FGM legislation can drive the practice underground. Emphasizing its dangers to health can lead to its "medicalization" i.e. ensuring that it is practised only by medically trained practitioners thereby reducing some of its immediate consequences but doing nothing to halt the violation of human rights and the mutilation of a womans body that the practice entails. (excerpt)