(Deutsche Welle) “I was about 11 or 12 years old. Several people held me down. Then they cut me. They laid me on the table. I can still see the image. I had such horrific pain. Then they sewed me together. They tied my legs together for a month so that the wound would heal.”
Following an increase of arrivals from countries where female genital mutilation is most prevalent (FGM), the women’s rights organization Terre des Femmes estimates that 65,000 affected women are now living in Germany — an increase of 12 percent on last year.
Thirty-six-year-old Ifrah* is one of them. According to the UN’s children’s agency, UNICEF, her homeland, Somalia, has the highest prevalence of FGM of any predominantly Arab country, with an estimated 98 percent of females between 15 and 49 years having undergone the practice.
