The average age of excision is 9.4 years. The most commonly employed form of excision is simple cutting (46.3 per cent), followed by the more severe form (24.4 per cent).

It also condemned equally discriminatory practices that affected the health of girls, such as excision.

When the cancer has metastasized to other sites in the body prior to surgery, complete surgical excision is usually impossible.

Religious reasons some communities practise female genital mutilation excision in the mistaken belief that the practice is a religious prescript

According to the report, excision a practice the Government is addressing with special emphasis affects 94 per cent of Malian girls and women.

The Unit against Harmful Traditional Practices Affecting the Health of Women and Children (CPTAFE) runs awareness campaigns on female excision and other degrading practices.

The treatment requires some local anaesthetic in the eye and is best done at the time of, or on the same day as the pterygium excision.

The justification for the revolution in Kenya against the English colonialists was, according to Jomo Kenyatta, that they had attempted to force the people to abandon female excision.

National surveys on female genital mutilation in Haute Guinée Moyenne Guinée and in Guinée Forestière Basse Guinée, which showed that 96.4 per cent of women surveyed had undergone excision.

Most of these countries are crafting laws with criminal effect or amending articles of their penal codes to criminalize genital mutilation directly. In these laws, excision is defined in different ways.

On the basis of the criteria established and the direct effects of the various practices on women's health and development, all members of the Working Group were persuaded to take up excision first.

In the early days of independence some African women tried to draw attention to the dangers of excision, but the time was not ripe for such a controversial question and there was a violent public reaction.

Rather than clearly stating that excision was a violation of human rights by the standards laid down in international instruments, it was wiser to let readers, in particular those most concerned, realize the seriousness of the problem by themselves.

Given the reactions in the Commission on Human Rights, the report needed above all to set out clearly the ill effects of excision on the health of children and women, without passing any kind of judgement that might give offence.

The list presented to the Working Group by the representative of WHO, who was assigned to produce it, comprised female excision, other forms of mutilation (facial scarring), the force feeding of women, early marriage, various nutritional taboos and traditional practices associated with childbirth.

Although the three countries make excision, infibulation or any other form of mutilation, involving either the labia majora or minora, or the clitoris, punishable by law, if the operation is carried out by a person legally authorized to practise medicine with a view to protecting the patient's health, the act is not punishable.

Mother and child care Vaccination programmes Health care for persons with disabilities and older persons Health care for students Health care in the event of an accident, emergency or natural disaster Prevention and eradication of infectious and contagious diseases Treatment for complex conditions, including the excision of tumours, limb transplants and treatment of kidney failure Psychiatric services.