Ethiopia: Fighting female circumcision at local level

The women had gathered at a school near Dukem Town, 35 km east of the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, to wait for leaders of a local NGO working with the Inter-African Committee, a pan-African NGO dedicated to fighting female genital mutilation (FGM). The NGO leaders had travelled to conduct one of their routine community-awareness training programmes on reproductive health. The 80 or so women, aged 16 to mid-30s, included three girls who had just finished high school. All but five had been circumcised and organisers of the meeting said some were infected with HIV.