BRUSSELS - Throughout the world violence against women continues. The state of mind that generates this violence is so deeply rooted in society that all of our forces are required in the public, political, and social arenas to begin to bring about change, however slight, in the way relations between man and women are seen.

One of the most devastating forms of the violence against women committed in the name of tradition is female genital mutilation, which affects millions of women and girls.

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is the term for various traditional practices of the partial or total removal of the external female genital organs or any cutting of them. The most serious form is infibulation, which consists of the partial excision of the external female genitals and the reduction of the vaginal opening.

It is estimated that between 100 and 130 million women living today have had this procedure inflicted o­n them, with another two million girls undergoing it every year. FGM is practised in 28

African countries. The percentage of women affected in a given society varies from five percent of women in Nigeria to 98 percent in Somalia. The phenomenon has spread to Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand through waves of immigration to industrialised countries.