cultures that practice female circumcision
In its report They Took Me and Told Me Nothing: Female Genital Mutilation in Iraqi Kurdistan, Human Rights Watch uses the term female genital mutilation or FGM. Female genital cutting (FGC) is a term that is also used by activists and health advocates to show the dangers associated with the practice. This term is sometimes also referred to as female genital mutilation/cutting or FGM/C. Female circumcision is a term used to describe the practice that does not take into consideration the harm associated with it. It is misleading because it implicitly compares the practice with male circumcision, regardless of the fact that FGM is a considerably more invasive procedure and is not conducted for medical purposes.