Female Genital Mutilation in Southeast Asia
- Genocide Watch
- Mar 23
- 3 min read
South & Southeast Asia: The Medicalization of Female Genital Mutilation
By Juliana Girotto, Genocide Watch
March 2026
The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently released a call to action surrounding the medicalization of female genital mutilation (FGM) in the Asia-Pacific region. FGM can be defined as “all procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.” As of March 2025, over 230 million women and girls across the world have undergone FGM, including around 80 million in Asia. In many communities, FGM is a deeply-rooted cultural practice performed with parental consent and based on beliefs that it is necessary for marriage and safeguarding girls’ futures. Parents feel they are acting in their daughters’ best interests by protecting morals and virginity or by conforming to community standards. However, FGM has no health benefits, lacks a scientific basis, and causes immediate and long-term harm. FGM is a violation of girls’ and women’s human rights.
Increasingly, medical professionals, doctors and midwives, are performing FGM instead of traditional practitioners, a trend known as medicalization. There is evidence that the medicalization of FGM is taking place in at least eight countries within South and Southeast Asia. Those countries include Brunei, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, and Thailand. The highest rates of medicalization are found in Singapore, Indonesia, and Malaysia. Parents often prefer medical professionals as they seek to avoid the health risks from unsterilized equipment. Yet this narrative of harm reduction legitimizes and normalizes FGM, threatening to undo decades of human rights advocacy against the practice.
Recognized as a form of gender-based oppression, FGM targets women’s right to bodily autonomy and sexual freedom. The practice functions as a mechanism of social control over female sexuality, rooted in beliefs that women’s sexual desire must be limited to preserve “purity,” marital suitability, and family honor. According to the WHO, all forms of FGM interfere with the natural functioning of women’s sexual organs, causing long-term urinary, vaginal, and menstrual problems. FGM also causes sexual problems, increased risk of childbirth complications, and a higher risk for surgeries required later in life. In addition, women who undergo FGM frequently experience psychological issues, such as depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and low self-esteem.
By restricting bodily and sexual autonomy, FGM operates as a tool that subordinates women’s bodies to cultural expectations rather than personal choice. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has affirmed that these forms of control constitute violations of the rights of women to make free and responsible decisions and choices about their sexual and reproductive health. It also concluded that they violate women’s rights to be free from violence, coercion, and discrimination regarding matters concerning one’s sexual and reproductive health.
Calls for states to eliminate the human rights violations posed by FGM have been made by several international human rights conventions, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and The Convention on the Rights of the Child. Nevertheless, national legal and policy frameworks following this standard are rare in the South and Southeast Asia region. The only country to date that has adopted such a framework is Indonesia, who in 2024 became the first Asian country to pass a specific legal provision against FGM. Though this shows progress, the existing regulations contain loopholes within wording that still allow for some forms of FGM, which must be changed to fully combat this issue.
To effectively address the medicalization of FGM and ensure the upholding of rights of women and girls to bodily autonomy, the following steps should be taken:
Strengthen professional accountability: Regulatory bodies and medical associations across the region should adopt and enforce clear codes of conduct that prohibit health workers from performing FGM. Integrating FGM-focused training for doctors, nurses, and midwives will enable them to confidently refuse requests, counsel families, and become agents for change in their communities.
Strengthen international governance and oversight mechanisms: United Nations bodies and global health agencies should push countries in South/Southeast Asia to adopt clearer standards against the medicalization of FGM, providing model legislation and technical assistance to these states’ progress in enforcing anti-FGM laws.
Promote high-quality care for women with FGM: State governments should ensure that women and girls who have undergone FGM have quality and affordable access to health and mental services that enable them to address the physical and psychological issues that arise.
Community engagement and norm changes: International organizations should mobilize community education campaigns to challenge the idea that medicalized FGM is safe and acceptable. These campaigns should involve health workers and religious/cultural leaders. So far, such efforts have primarily been focused within Sub-Saharan Africa. These efforts need to be expanded specifically to the South/Southeast Asia region and target countries like Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia.
