Female genital mutilation is recognised as a violation of the human rights of girls and women. The WHO estimates around 200 million of our sisters and their daughters have undergone this violation; these are women and girls that are alive today. For most, it is carried out when they're aged between four years old and eight years old. This is old enough to know, in the hours and minutes before their bodies are cut and mutilated, that something bad is about to happen, old enough to experience immense fear before the excruciating pain and disfiguring act, and old enough for the memory of the mental anguish to be imprinted on their souls and remain with them for life.