(See also CIRCUMCISION.) This is defined by the World Health Organisation as “all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the female external genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.” Its most extensive form is complete removal of the CLITORIS and LABIA with narrowing of the entrance to the vagina. It is widespread practice in many North and West African countries: UNICEF calculates, for example, that 98% of women aged 15–45 in Somalia have suffered this form of abuse and 87% in Egypt. It is estimated that, worldwide, 125 million women and girls have undergone FGM and a 2011 study showed that over 200,000 females living in the UK have either been subject to or are at risk of mutilation. Despite the practice having been illegal in the UK since 1985 (and in 2003 it became illegal to take a child abroad for FGM) there have been no successful prosecutions as of mid-2015. FGM is regarded in the West not as a religious or cultural rite but as gender-based violence, often linked to forced and early marriage.