… made it illegal to perform FGM on girls younger than 18 in the US.
And then, in 2013, Congress passed the Transport for Female Genital Mutilation Act – which amended the 1996 legislation to make it illegal to knowingly transport a girl out of the US for the purpose of FGM.
The CDC developed estimates for the number of women and girls at risk from the 1990 US Census.
The study estimated that 168,000 girls and women in the US in 1990 had undergone or were at risk for the procedure. The African Women’s Health Center at Bingham and Women’s Hospital and the Population Reference Bureau found that 227,887 women and girls in 2000 had undergone or were at risk for the procedure in 2000.
The report said: “This 35 percent increase in one decade was attributable to large increases in the U.S. population of women and girls born in or with ancestry from FGM-practicing countries.”
The CDC said actions must be implemented to capture that information so that the US “can more effectively move toward prevention”.