UN Chief Ban Ki-moon has urged the substitution of female genital mutilation (FGM) with new and safer rites of passage, following the disclosure that of the number of females who have to go through this brutality is much more than earlier estimated by the organization. The appeal was made by the U.N. Secretary-General at the U.N. headquarters in New York on the occasion of the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation on February 6, 2016.

“I am especially inspired by communities that find better ways to mark the rite of passage into womanhood”, said Ban. Other ways involve something like what is followed by Kenya and Tanzania, where a-week training is given to young girls for understanding life skills, and not being cut. The number of girls and women that have suffered from the FCM across the world crossed the mark of 200 million, according to the figures released by the UN's children's agency UNICEF.

However, the experts have cautioned that though the fight to terminate this brutal tradition is on rise, increase in the population of certain countries, where this custom is highly prevalent, is discouraging the measures being taken to resolve this issue. FGM has been critically criticized since it is grave violation of human rights. The data has been gathered from 30 countries and out of the total number, 50% have occurred in Egypt, Ethiopia and Indonesia.

This cruel custom involves the partial or complete eradication of the external genital parts of the females. It is practiced in several countries of Africa, certain regions in Asia and also in the Middle East. The UN member states formulated a set of development goals in 2015, and complete elimination of FGM by 2030 is one of them. Somalia has the highest FGM rate of 98%, involving the females in the age group of 15-49 years.