Female Circumcision Rite (CONTENT WARNING: BLOOD)

Description: 

Photographed by Stephanie Welsh, graduate of Syracuse University, this set of photos depicts a female circumcision rite in Kenya. These photos won the 1996 Pulitzer Prize in Feature Photography.

 

These rites are often done without anesthetics of any kind and performed on very young women and children. Often, as depicted here, these rites are carried out by other women who have also had this done to themselves. This girl is likely somewhere between the age of 10 and 15, but female genital mutilation can be conducted anywhere from days after birth to after starting puberty; in half of the countries that provide national data, most girls are cut before the age of five.

"1996 Pulitzer Prize Winner in Feature Photography.” The Pulitzer Prizes, https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/stephanie-welsh.

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