Female circumcision is practiced worldwide. To some, it is a religious ritual and to others, a human tragedy brought on due to male domination. These opinions relating to the practice create conflict in the world between those who hold on to the tradition of female circumcision and those who promote feminism by attempting to prohibit the practice. .
The international community must compromise. Those opposed to female circumcision must recognize that the practice is a type of religious and cultural belief. Meanwhile, participants of female circumcision must become more informed about the procedure's health risks and possible alternatives to the extreme forms of the practice.
Female circumcision is practiced in Africa to this day. Women seem to accept female circumcicision's religious origins without question. Some Christian groups promote traditional customs and support female circumcision as a link to Africa's past. Many people in female circumcision practicing societies, especially traditional rural communities, regard female circumcision as absolutely normal, and they cannot imagine a woman who has not undergone mutilation. Others are quoted as saying that only outsiders or foreigners are not genitally mutilated. A girl cannot be considered an adult in this sort of society unless she has undergone the proper procedure. This is what their society expects of them. It's a tradition, which has been practiced for 2,000 years.
Although female circumcision is a traditional practice worldwide (performed in countries such as; Bahrain, Oman, Indonesia, Malaysia, Togo, Uganda, Zaire, Sudan, Tanzania, Somalia, Ivory, Niger, Nigeria, Mauritania, Mali, Kenya, Ethiopia, Gambia, etc.) It is particularly prevalent in Africa, where circumcision occurs in approximately twenty-six countries and affects an estimated 80 to 110 million women. .
In Africa, there are four main forms of female circumcision. "The mildest form consists of a ritualized marking of the female genitalia, where the clitoris is pricked to draw a few drops of blood.