“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 answered questions about FGM from 12-1pm ET on Tuesday 20 May.

“Jaha’s petition on Change.org and backed by congressman Joe Crowley, UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon, and the Guardian has reached over 48,000 signatures.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.”*

Ana Kasparian, Jimmy Dore (The Jimmy Dore Show) and Desi Doyen (Green News Report) break it down on The Young Turks.

*Read more here from the Guardian: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/may/19/questions-female-genital-mutilation-campaign-end-survivor-un