Jaha Dukureh, who is leading the campaign to end female genital mutilation in the US, and the head of the joint UNFPA/UNICEF project to end FGM Nafissatou Diop, and Shelby Quast, senior policy advisor at Equality Now joined Guardian readers for a discussion about female genital mutilation.

Jaha's petition on Change.org is backed by congressman Joe Crowley, UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon, and the Guardian. The petition is calling for a new study to find out just how many girls and women are affected by FGM in the US, as the first step to forming a national action plan to tackle the practice. The number of American women and girls affected or at risk is believed to have grown by 35% to at least 228,000 between 1997 and 2000.



Jaha has said she is determined to keep fighting until FGM is recognised as a real risk for American girls and policies are put in place to protect them. "I don’t want to be poster child. I want every woman who has been through this to be able to speak out," she says.

What is female genital mutilation? Find out more