SELECTED STATISTICS ON WOMEN ’S STATUS

7% of women 20-24 years were married orin union before age 15

28% of women 20-24 years were married orin union before age 18

14% of women 20-24 years have given birthby age 18

37%of women 15-49 years think that ahusband/partner is justified in hittingor beating his wife under certaincircumstances

53%of women 15-49 years in unioncurrently using any contraceptivemethod

Source: MICS 2018

Female genital mutilation (FGM) refers to “all procedures involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.”1 While the exact number of girls and women worldwide who have undergone FGM remains unknown, at least 200 million girls and women have been cut in 30 countries with representative data on prevalence. FGM is a violation of girls’ and women’s human rights and is condemned by many international treaties and conventions, as well as by national legislation in many countries. Yet, where it is practised FGM is performed in line with tradition and social norms to ensure that girls are socially accepted and marriageable, and to uphold their status and honour and that of the entire family. UNICEF works with government and civil society partners towards the elimination of FGM in countries where it is still practised.

1. World Health Organization, Eliminating Female Genital Mutilation: An interagency statement, WHO, UNFPA, UNICEF, UNIFEM, OHCHR, UNHCR, UNECA, UNESCO, UNDP, UNAIDS, WHO, Geneva, 2008, p. 4.

STATISTICAL PROFILE ON FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION

IRAQ

Data and Analytics SectionDIVISION OF DATA, RESEARCH AND POLICY

© UNICEF/UNI125300/Isaac

2011 National decree/legislation banningFGM passed in Kurdistan Region

WHEN AND HOW IS FGM PERFORMED?

HOW WIDESPREAD IS THE PRACTICE?

In Iraq, the practice of FGM is concentrated in a few northern regions

Percentage of girls and women aged 15 to 49 yearswho have undergone FGM, by governate

Percentage of girls and women aged 15 to 49 years who have undergone FGM, by residence, houshold wealth quintile and region

Percentage of girls aged 0 to 14 years who have undergone FGM (as reported by their mothers), by residence, mother’s education wealth quintile and and region

Percentage of cut girls and women aged 15 to 49 years who have at least one daughter who has undergone FGM, by mothers’

attitudes about whether the practice should continue

Notes: The boundaries and the names shown and the designations used on the map do not imply official endorsement or acceptance by the United Nations. All figures from MICS 2018 are based on the Iraq MICS 2018 Snapshot, and may be subject to updates or revisions when the final datasets become available. Only categories with 25 or more unweighted cases are presented. Due to rounding, some of the data presented may not add up to 100 per cent. There is no ethnicity or religion data for Iraq. Prevalence data for girls aged 0 to 14 reflect their current, but not final, FGM status since some girls who have not been cut may still be at risk of experiencing the practice once they reach the customary age for cutting. Therefore, the data on prevalence for girls under age 15 is actually an underestimation the true extent of the practice. Since age at cutting varies among settings, the amount of underestimation also varies and this should be kept in mind when interpreting all FGM prevalence data for this age group. ‘Health personnel’ includes doctors, nurses, midwives and other health workers; ‘Traditional practitioner’ refers to ‘traditional (unlicensed) birth attendant/grandmother’; ‘Other’ refers to the combined categories ‘other’ and ‘relative/friend’.

Source for all charts on this page: MICS 2018, unless otherwise noted

Percentage distribution of girls aged 15 to 19 years who have undergone FGM, by age at which cutting occurred

Percentage distribution of girls and women aged 15 to 49 years with at least one living daughter who has

undergone FGM, according to the type of person/practitioner performing the procedure

Approximately half of adolescent girls who underwent FGM were cut after age 5, but for one in five it is unclear at what age the practice occurred

Source: MICS 2011

Source: MICS 2011Source: MICS 2011

7 87

1

22

0

10

20

30

40

50

Total Rural Urban Poorest Richest

38

0.4

Kurdistanregion

South/CentralIraq

10% - 25%

26% - 50%

51% - 80%

Less than 10%

Above 80%

34

0 20 40 60 80 100

0-4 years 5-9 years 10-14 years

43 19

15+ years Don’t know/Missing

0.1

3

14

Traditionalpractitioner

Health personnel

Don’t know/Missing

29 51

6

Other

1 15

1 0.1 0.1 3

0

10

20

30

40

50

No education

Primary complete

Secondaryand higher

4 0

Kurdistanregion

South-CentralIraq

1Daughters whose

mothers think FGM should continue

Daughters whosemothers are

unsure

Daughters whosemothers think

FGM should stop

0

20

40

60

80

100

66

48

25

WHAT ARE THE PREVAILING ATTITUDES TOWARDS FGM?

Almost all girls and women in Iraq think that FGM should stop

IS THE PRACTICE OF FGM CHANGING?

In Erbil, the region with the highest level of FGM, the prevalence has dropped significantly over time

Percentage of girls and women aged 15 to 49 years who have undergone FGM, by current age

In Erbil, the region with the highest FGM prevalence, the percentage of girls and women aged 15 to 49 years who have undergone FGM, by current age

Percentage of girls and women aged 15 to 49 years who have heard about FGM, by their attitudes about whether the practice should continue

Percentage of girls and women aged 15 to 49 years who have heard about FGM and think the practice should continue, by household wealth quintile, education, residence and age

4

Think FGM should continue Think FGM should stop Say it depends/are not sure

0 100 20 40 60 80

3 94

3 3 4 8

1 4 2 4 2

0

10

20

30

40

50

Total Upper secondaryor higher

Rural No educationor pre-primary

6

19

314

4 2

81

1 6 6

0

20

40

60

80

100

Total Poorest Richest No education Primary complete Secondaryor higher

Ethnic group with highest support

Ethnic group with lowest support

45-49 years 15-19 years

70 69 67 58 59 55

43

0

20

40

60

80

100

45-49 years 40-44 years 35-39 years 30-34 years 25-29 years 20-24 years 15-19 years

Note: There are no ethnicity data for Iraq. Source for all charts on this page: MICS 2018, unless otherwise noted.

Percentage of girls and women aged 15 to 49 years who have undergone FGM

Percentage of girls aged 0 to 14 years who have undergone FGM (as reported by their mothers)

Percentage of girls and women aged 15 to 49 years who have heard about FGM and think the practice should continue

IRAQ

INTER-COUNTRY STATISTICAL OVERVIEW

Notes: Data on attitudes for Yemen refer to ever-married girls and women. In Liberia, girls and women who have heard of the Sande society were asked whether they were members; this provides indirect information on FGM/C since it is performed during initiation into the society. Egypt data refer to girls aged 1 to 14 years and Indonesia data refer to girls aged 0 to 11 years. An older source is used to report on the prevalence of FGM among girls aged 0 to 14 years for Gambia (MICS 2010) and Uganda (DHS 2011) since the latest source did not collect these data. MICS data for Ghana (2011) could not be used to report on attitudes towards FGM due to the fact that information is missing for girls and women with no living daughters; data from MICS 2006 are used instead. In Liberia, only cut girls and women were asked about their attitudes towards FGM; since girls and women from practicing communities are more likely to support the practice, the level of support in this country as captured by DHS 2013 is higher than would be expected had all girls and women been asked their opinion. Prevalence data on FGM for girls and women aged 15 to 49 years and data on attitudes towards FGM are not available for Indonesia.

Sources: DHS, MICS, Health Issues Survey, Population and Health Survey and RISKESDAS, 2004-2018.

Updated January 2019

FOR MORE INFORMATIONData and Analytics Section - Division of Data, Research and Policy

UNICEF, 3 UN Plaza, New York, 10017Website: data.unicef.org Email: data@unicef.org

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