Female life expectancy, maternal mortality, fertility and birth rates of female genital mutilation high prevalence countries

Abstract

Female genital mutilation/cutting FGM/C is the process of removing part or all of the female external genitalia. Twenty-nine countries are known to be FGM/C prevalent. The prevalent countries are mostly in Sub Saharan Africa, Middle East, and Asia. FGM/C prevalence countries have total high fertility rate (TFR), high maternal mortality ratio (MMR), low female life expectancy (LEF) and high birth rate (BR). This paper extracted the TFR, MMR, LEF, and BR of FGM/C prevalent countries from each metric's comprehensive databases. Correlation analysis was used to find links between FGM/C and the four health metrics. There is a significant negative correlation between TFR and the duo of LEF and BR, which implies that having more children reduces women's life expectancy and FGM/C prevalent countries. The average TFR, MMR, LEF and BR for the 29 countries are 4.44 children, 517.24 deaths per 10,000, 63.03 years, and 33.83 per 1000 population. Behavioral change and maternal education are recommended to change the religious and cultural view of female sexuality and reduce FGM/C prevalence.

Keywords

• Female genital mutilation
• Female circumcision
• Prevalence
• Female life expectancy
• Maternal mortality
• Fertility rate