Across the world, a movement is growing to stop girls and women from undergoing female genital mutilation (FGM). Many charities and campaigns are powered by survivors of the practice, which can range from piercing or pricking a girl’s genitals to removal of the clitoris, and often leads to severe medical complications and psychological trauma.

There are four major types of FGM, and all are a violation of children’s rights, according to UNICEF. It is carried out by different cultures around the world and is sometimes incorrectly described as a Muslim practice, but FGM is not sanctioned by any religion. Statistics from UNICEF estimate that 200 million women and girls in 30 countries have experienced some form of it.

Today, women are speaking up about their own experiences in their communities. In Somalia, where an estimated 96% of women have undergone FGM, survivors like Ifrah Ahmed are taking on the country’s politicians. Campaigners like London's Hibo Wadere share their efforts with the #EndFGM hashtag. People like Muna Hassan, a young campaigner from the UK, say the narrative is now being reclaimed by a new wave of feminism.

Rebecca Hendin/ BuzzFeed News

And their efforts are working. Many countries are taking a tougher legislative approach – in Kenya, for example, many "cutters" who carry out the procedure have been taken to court and the rate of girls undergoing FGM has fallen by two-thirds over the last three decades.

Since 2008, more than 15,000 communities in 20 countries have publicly declared that they are abandoning the practice.

Countries where FGM is practised

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Countries where FGM is banned by law

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But there is still a way to go. If population growth continues at its current rate, 63 million more girls could be "cut" by 2050, according to UNICEF. Activists have voiced concern about the way FGM is covered in the media, calling out a Sky News report that included footage of a girl being mutilated. “Would you show any other type of child abuse happening?” asked Wardere.

BuzzFeed News spoke to campaigners around the globe to hear what challenges they face in 2017. Our map isn’t comprehensive, but it does serve as a sample of the growing variety of anti-FGM work being carried out by hundreds of groups and activists.

Explore the map to hear from campaigners around the world

UK

Muna Hassan, Integrate UK

Integrate UK

Muna Hassan, a 22-year-old postgraduate student, is the lead outreach worker for and cofounder of Integrate UK, a charity that campaigns against FGM around the country. In an interview on BBC Newsnight in 2012, she told David Cameron to “grow a pair” and “do something” about the practice.

She told BuzzFeed News she was first drawn to campaigning at 13 years old, after finding out about FGM. She started asking her school in Bristol to raise awareness of it. “I didn’t know what it was," she said. "The more I read it, the more it becomes mortifying. Do I know anyone who have gone through it? I told my school to raise awareness to these hidden abuses. Why did I have to google to find out?” Hassan and her peers began campaigning at school, and in 2014 they took a petition urging the then education secretary, Michael Gove, to ensure the issue of FGM was addressed in primary and secondary schools.

FGM has been illegal in the UK since 1985, and the Home Office estimates that 137,000 women and girls in the UK are living with its aftereffects. Those who perform the procedure can face up to 14 years in prison, and anyone who fails to protect a girl from FGM faces up to seven years.

However, although there has been one trial, there have been no successful prosecutions for FGM. The first ever annual statistics for FGM showed that health services in England alone came into contact with 5,700 undocumented cases of FGM in 2015–16. Eighteen had taken place in the UK.

Integrate UK uses art, videos, and poetry in its work. Hassan’s favourite among its projects is a music video called “Use Your Head” that stars its young campaigners performing an uplifting song on Bristol’s streets to celebrate the fact that more people are speaking out against FGM. Hassan said: “I want to use film to show this is someone from everywhere. Music is universal. People were sad and traumatised by the FGM narrative, and this was more upbeat.

“It’s something I’m passionate about. … Art is a medium, it is your platform. It’s up to you to express what you want to do; a lot of people use it for frustration and anger.”

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Her proudest moment was watching crowds sing along when the video was played at the 2014 Girl Summit, held by the UK government and UNICEF.

Hassan has received mixed responses to her work, but says women have been her best allies, with many telling her: “We don’t want this for our daughters.” But she’s also been told to stop campaigning, including by a woman who told her: “It doesn’t happen in this country.”

Hassan praised the way women are using social media to discuss their own experiences and said she’s seen more interest from people wanting to get involved in their work over the last few years. “There’s a whole new wave of feminism reclaiming the narrative ... like a globalised feminism,” she said, comparing it with the Everyday Sexism campaign to call out sexism around Britain.

In December 2016 Integrate’s team created another music video, titled "My Clitoris", which caught the attention of celebrities like Lily Allen. In the film, young people "reclaim" their clitorises by dressing in pink and singing lines like, “Trying to change me, shame me, tame me, shape me every day / You can’t touch my dignity in any way,” and, “They say it’s OK for a little bit / To be taken away from my clit / No thank you / No thank you.”

Lisa Zimmerman, fellow cofounder of Integrate UK, said the song was a response to news coverage such as an article published in The Economist that claimed governments should ban the worst forms of FGM. The magazine's editorial, titled “An Agonising Choice”, said that a "symbolic nick" would be better. In contrast, UNICEF says all forms of FGM are a violation of a child’s rights.

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Leyla Hussein, cofounder of Daughters of Eve

Leyla Hussein was one of the first people to openly speak about FGM in the UK. She said she chose to do so because the voices of British survivors were missing from the narrative.

Stuart C. Wilson / Getty Images for Baileys

Hussein, a psychotherapist, offers counselling for women who have experienced sexual violence. She said in her clinic she's seen children of white English parents who have had FGM, and that it's important to tackle the perception that it only happens in non-white communities.

Hussein doesn’t think specific laws against FGM are particularly useful. “There is a system out there that’s meant to protect children already," she said, "there are child abuse laws and laws for violence against women and sexual assault, so I’m more interested in prevention." She welcomes people being arrested for arranging for FGM for their children, but adds: “But what child out there is going to turn in their parent?”

She said FGM needs to be taught about in schools alongside other forms of sexual abuse, and praised the NSPCC’s "PANTS" advertising campaign, which “taught children to not let anyone underneath their pants. … That was great because it could be about anything.”

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Hibo Wardere

Hibo Wardere

Hibo Wardere still lives with the trauma she suffered as a result of being cut. “I never overcame the trauma," she said. "I learnt my way to cope, which is knowing through speaking out that there are 200 million girls who are still being cut, it might help somebody.”

Wardere spoke to BuzzFeed News after returning from a trip to Canada with the Orchid Project, which campaigns against FGM. On the trip it held presentations on how the UK tackles the practice. Wardere said Canada is currently in the position the UK was around eight years ago: “They were asking questions like how the UK is handling FGM, … how do we use it in schools, … because they have never done anything like that.”

Wardere was cut when she was 6 years old, in Mogadishu, Somalia. She underwent type 3 FGM – the most severe form. She had been begging her mother to be cut, as her peers had been taunting her for not having had it done. The cutters told her she was brave, but when it took place it was “a scene from a horror movie”, she said, and she pleaded with her mother to save her. She said she was angry at her mum for years afterwards, until she was pregnant and saw an ultrasound photo of the baby. She was filled with an immense feeling to protect her child, and said, “I know she didn’t do it out of hate.”

Hibo Wardere

Wardere said she has seen a vast improvement in the specialist FGM services offered by the NHS. She said the government has done a lot of work but still needs to include FGM education in the national curriculum, which she points out could also save money: “The NHS always likes to look at costs, and [FGM treatment] is going to cost the NHS quite a lot of money, and they need to think of ways to reduce that. This will come from giving the youth a chance to learn about FGM in the schools.”

Wardere gets invited to schools to teach staff and pupils about FGM, and says children are open to learning about the difficult subject. “Make it part of PSHE [personal, social, health, and economic education]," she said. "They absorb it, they relate to it. We have a duty to protect our youth and that comes in the form of education.”

Sweden

Fana Habteab

In Sweden, the first country to specifically ban FGM that didn’t traditionally practise it, FGM has been prohibited since 1982. Various child protection laws have also been used to safeguard girls and women.

Fana Habteab is one of the founders of RISK, a national association for ending FGM that's based in Uppsala, a city near Stockholm. She told BuzzFeed News that it is important to campaign and to spread information about the health problems that come with the procedure, including problems urinating, severe bleeding, cysts, and childbirth complications. She stressed that FGM is a human rights violation.

The charity works within communities by training people who live in suburbs mainly populated by immigrants, to spread information in local people’s own languages. Habteab said the places they work in include family centres, pre-schools, and maternal and child health centres.

The number of FGM victims in Sweden is thought to be relatively low – around 40,000 women from at-risk countries live in the country – and there is high public awareness. Habteab praised the government for being supportive. “The Swedish government is always behind us," she said. "I think there is nothing missing from the Swedish government.”

She said people find out about their centre through word of mouth. RISK provides sessions to women in groups or one-on-one if they require it. She said some women are afraid of using showers in public facilities because they're ashamed of their FGM. “The main thing is that they shouldn’t be ashamed of it," she said. "There’s nothing to be ashamed of."

Somalia

Ifrah Ahmed

Ifrah Ahmed is one of the women behind a groundbreaking petition to get an act passed that would make FGM illegal. A million people signed it, including the then prime minister, Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke, in 2016.

Although the positive news was shown on media around the world, some remained skeptical that the practice would end. Somalia is the country most affected by FGM, according to UNICEF, with 98% of the population aged between 15 and 49 having been cut.

Ahmed underwent the procedure in Somalia when she was 8. She said she has not blamed her family for what happened to her: “It’s a cultural thing and I never got upset with my family or had any hard feelings.”

Ifrah Ahmed

She first began campaigning in 2006, when she moved to Dublin. After people suffering the effects of FGM approached her for support, she set up an Irish charity called the Ifrah Foundation, and runs workshops and events for organisations to educate them about FGM. She also works closely with communities in Ireland, where she lives, to educate people about its dangers.

Ahmed said some people doubt the effectiveness her work. “Some people would come up to me and say, ‘There are hundreds of girls being cut, how will this make any difference?’” Many people found her talking about FGM “embarrassing” at first, she said, but attitudes have changed.

Ahmed said she's found that many people are convinced that FGM is a religious requirement. “FGM is not a religious practice – it is a harmful cultural practice with no connection to religion that needs to stop,” she said.

Ahmed also campaigns to include FGM in the Somali education system as a means of protecting children from the peer pressure that many face. Despite the ongoing civil war in Somalia, she is hopeful: “Realistically, Somalia is at war and the situation is not good, but once we inform enough people and have a zero-tolerance law against FGM, I believe we can end it.”