In 25 countries in Africa and the Middle East, over 125 million women and girls have had FGM. This includes:
In some of these same 25 countries, FGM is very common. It is most common in these countries:
However, in other countries, FGM is not as common. For example, of the 25 countries where FGM happens most often, it is least common in these countries:
FGM can hurt women's physical and mental health throughout their lives.
The type of complications that a girl or woman might have from FGM depend on many things, like:
"Short-term complications" are health problems caused by FGM soon after the FGM happened. Common short-term complications include:
More serious short-term complications can cause symptoms that can kill a woman. They include:
Nobody knows how many girls and women die from FGM.
Late complications happen later on after FGM is done. For example:
Painful periods are common because it is very difficult for the monthly menstrual blood to get out of the tiny hole left by infibulation. Blood can fill the vagina and uterus, and stay there without moving. If the vagina gets completely blocked, the vagina and uterus can fill up completely with menstrual blood. Because women with this problem do not menstruate, and blood builds up in their abdomen (making it swell), it can be confused with pregnancy.
FGM may increase a woman's risk of having problems during pregnancy and childbirth. For example, women who had infibulations are more likely to:
FGM also raises the risk that a woman's baby will die soon after it is born. In 2008, the WHO estimated that 10–20 babies out of every 1,000 die because their mothers had FGM. All types of FGM were found to raise babies' risk of death, which was:
There is not much information about the effects of FGM on women's and girls' mental health. However, a few small studies have found that women with FGM often have anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Studies on how FGM affects women's ability to have sex have also been small. In total, in 2013, there had been 15 studies involving 12,671 women from seven countries. When all the information from these studies was put together, researchers found that:
Lightning strike
A lightning strike (or a lighting bolt) is a line of electric energy that is made during thunderstorms. It is very powerful and can kill anyone that it touches. It usually strikes tall objects such as skyscrapers, trees and mountains. A few people have survived lightning strikes.
Bruce Hubbard
Bruce Hubbard (1952–1991) was an American operatic baritone singer. He is known for appearing in several productions of "Show Boat" and "Porgy and Bess".
Hubbard was born in Indianapolis, Indiana in 1951.
Tadeusz Mazowiecki
Tadeusz Mazowiecki (18 April 1927 – 28 October 2013) was a Polish author, journalist, philanthropist and Christian-democratic politician. Mazowiecki was the first Prime Minister of Poland. His term began in 1989 and ended in 1991.
Mazowiecki was born on 18 April 1927 in Płock, Second Republic of Poland. He was married two times (became a widower twice). He had three children, Wojciech, Adam, and Michal.
He was formerly one of the leaders of the Solidarity movement. Mazowiecki was the first non-communist prime minister in the Eastern Bloc after World War II. He became Prime Minister on 24 August 1989. His term lasted for nearly 2 years when he left office on 12 January 1991.
In 2003, he was elected to the board of directors of the International Criminal Court's Trust Fund for Victims.
Mazowiecki received numerous awards. An honorary degree from the universities in: Leuven, Genoa, Giessen, Poitiers, Exeter, Warsaw University and University of Economics in Katowice.
He also received the Order of White Eagle (1995), Golden Order of Bosnia (1996), Légion d'honneur (1997), Srebrnica Award (2005), the Giant award (1995) awarded by "Gazeta Wyborcza" ("Election Gazette") in Poznań and Jan Nowak-Jezioranski Award (2004).
Mazowiecki died on 28 October 2013 in Warsaw, Poland from complications from a fever caused by pneumonia. He was 86 years old.
Heat lightning
Heat lightning is the name for lightning from thunderstorms that are far away that is not followed by thunder. This happens because the lightning is far away and the sound of the thunder stops before it reaches the person watching the thunderstorm. Although it is named heat lightning, it does not have anything to do with the heat of the lightning itself. At night, lightning can be seen from up to 100 miles away, but the thunder doesn't go that far.
Heat lightning is often seen during the summer months. In Florida, heat lightning can often been seen over the water at night from thunderstorms that formed during the day.
Stansfield Turner
Stansfield M. Turner (December 1, 1923 – January 18, 2018) was a United States Navy admiral and former Director of Central Intelligence and President of the Naval War College. He was a senior research scholar at the University of Maryland, College Park School of Public Policy.
Turner was born on December 1, 1923 in Highland Park, Illinois. He studied at Amherst College, at the United States Naval Academy, and at Exeter College, Oxford. He was a Christian Scientist. Turner died in Seattle, Washington on January 18, 2018 at the age of 94.
Bronisław Geremek
Professor Bronisław Geremek (Benjamin Lewertow; March 6, 1932 - July 13, 2008) was a Polish social historian and politician. Geremek served as Poland's Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1997 through 2000.
Geremek was born on March 6, 1932 in Warsaw, Poland. He studied at Warsaw University. Geremek was married to Hanna Geremek until his death in 2008.
Geremek died on July 13, 2008 after a car crash in Lubień, Poland. The cause of the crash was because Geremek fell asleep behind the wheel. He was 76 years old. A state funeral was granted for Geremek.
Philip Baker Hall
Philip Baker Hall (born September 10, 1931) is an American actor. He starred in Paul Thomas Anderson's movies, "Hard Eight", "Boogie Nights" and "Magnolia". Other movies included "Air Force One", "The Truman Show", "Bruce Almighty", "Rush Hour" and "The Amityville Horror".
Hall was born in Toledo, Ohio. He studied at the University of Toledo. He was married twice, both ended in divorce. Hall had two children.
Dry thunderstorm
A dry thunderstorm is a type of thunderstorm where there is lightning and thunder, but most or all of the precipitation does not reach the ground. They usually happen in deserts or areas with low water vapor. Because dry air usually absorbs liquid water, the rain is absorbed before it reaches the ground. They happen a lot during the summer months in western North America.
Dry thunderstorms are dangerous because they can cause dust storms and wildfires. Dust storms can happen because the dry soil and sand are picked up by strong winds. Wildfires can happen because the lightning can hit trees and there is no rain to put out the fires.
César Ritz
César Ritz (23 February 1850 – 24 October 1918) was a Swiss hotelier and founder of several hotels. He gave his name to the Hôtel Ritz Paris and The Ritz Hotel in London. His motto was "king of hoteliers, and hotelier to kings". His name is the origin of the word "ritzy".
At fifteen Ritz was apprenticed as a "somelier" (wine waiter) at a hotel in Brig. Dismissed after a year as an unsuitable candidate for the hotel trade, he went to Paris at the time of the 1867 Universal Exhibition.
Ritz's formative five years in Paris, including the siege of 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War, gave him sufficient polish and confidence to transform himself from a waiter and general factotum into a "maître d'hôtel", manager, and eventually hotelier.