International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics

The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has teamed with the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) to fight the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM).

Considered a cultural passage to womanhood in some societies, genital mutilation can lead to immense pain, bleeding, infection, abscesses and even death.

According to World Health Organisation estimates, between 100 and 140 million girls and women worldwide have been subjected to FGM, while in Africa alone about three million girls are at risk of FGM annually.

It is mostly carried out on young girls sometime between infancy and age 15 years.

The five-year programme being launched by the two groups will cost $43.5 million (£26 million) and is being implemented in 17 nations throughout Africa.

UNFPA country representative, Janet Jackson, told the Daily Monitor: "The focus of the joint programme is to leverage social dynamics towards the accelerated abandonment of FGM within a generation, with at least one country declared free of the practice by 2012."

Posted by Carla Mackenzie