{Police in Tanzania have arrested 38 women for carrying out illegal genital mutilation on a group of girls, a local mayor says.}<\/p>\n
The women were arrested on Sunday as they performed a traditional dance around a house where police found 21 girls, aged from three to 15, who had recently undergone excision.<\/p>\n
“As soon as I heard about it I sent the police round,” Herman Kapufi, mayor of Same district in northern Tanzania, told national television on Monday.<\/p>\n
Kapufi said some of the girls were still bleeding while others had wounds that were healing.<\/p>\n
Female genital mutilation is still performed in some parts of Tanzania, despite having been outlawed officially in 1998.<\/p>\n
Studies estimate that 15 percent of women and girls have undergone genital mutilation – removal of the clitoris in the vast majority of cases.<\/p>\n
The practice, generally carried out with a knife or a razor blade without anaesthesia and in non-sterile conditions, attracts a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.<\/p>\n
In some communities in Tanzania, women who have not undergone excision are victims of social exclusion.<\/p>\n
Observers also cite a widespread belief that a woman who has been “cut” is more faithful to her husband.<\/p>\n
Given the conditions in which the excision is done, girls often die from their injuries or from resulting infections<\/p>\n
AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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