Female circumcision affects American girls too

New York, May 27 (ANI): Besides being not uncommon in some areas of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, female genital cutting is traditional in some Muslim and African immigrant families in the United States.

According to 2000 Census data that was gathered by the African Women's Health Center at Brigham and Women's Hospital, an estimated 228,000 women either have undergone genital cutting or are at risk of it.

The practice is illegal in the U.S., reports The New York Daily News.

As per WHO, which defines it as a process that injures or alters a female's genital organs for no medical purpose, around 140 million women and children around the globe have been affected by circumcision. (ANI)