What type of FGM is commonly practiced in Iraqi Kurdistan?
Doctors in Iraqi Kurdistan have told Human Rights Watch that the most common type of FGM believed to be practiced there is partial or total removal of the clitoris and/or prepuce for non-medical reasons, also known as clitoridectomy. It is Type 1 in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) classification of four types of FGM. The health care workers interviewed by Human Rights Watch said that Type II in the WHO classification, a more invasive procedure that includes the partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, performed with or without excision of the labia majora, is also performed on adult women in hospitals. 2. What is the common terminology used for FGM? In Iraqi Kurdistan, FGM is largely known as female circumcision, or in the Kurdish language as “xatena,” which is also used to refer to the circumcision of boys. In “They Took Me and Told Me Nothing: Female Genital Mutilation in Iraqi Kurdistan,” Human Rights Watch mostly describes the practice as female genital
