Last week, officials from 27 African states, United Nations envoys and international activists assembled in Dakar, Senegal, for a conference on female circumcision. The aim of the meeting was to encourage the adoption of a universal resolution that explicitly prohibits female genital mutilation as a practice that violates human rights. According to the World Health Organisation, between 120 and 140 million girls and women in about 28 countries are the victims of female circumcision – being the partial or total removal of the external female genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs. The practice is carried out most…