Safia Ibrahim demonstrates for the camera the tools and techniques she uses to perform female genital mutilation (FGM), which she learned at the age of 15 and has been practising for 35 years, as her neighbours daughter looks on in the courtyard of her home in Hargeisa, Somaliland, a semi-autonomous breakaway region of Somalia, on Feb. 7, 2022. Officials and health workers say cases of female genital mutilation increased during the pandemic in parts of Africa and particularly in Somaliland where 98 percent of girls aged 5 to 11 undergo the procedure. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)
HARGEISA, Somalia (AP) — Safia Ibrahim's business was in trouble. COVID-19 had taken hold in Somaliland, in the Horn of Africa. The 50-year-old widow with 10 children to support set out door to door on the capital's outskirts, a razor at hand, taking advantage of the lockdown to seek work with a question: Have your daughters been cut?
