Facts and figures
The number of regular migrants in Italy totalled 5 million or 8.2% of the population in 2015 (ISTAT), with the majority from Albania, China, Morocco and Romania (ISTAT, 2014).
An estimated 57,000 FGM-affected girls and women (aged 15-49) lived in Italy in 2010, of which some 20,000 (35.5%) were Nigerian, 18,600 Egyptian (32.5%) and almost 15% from the Horn of Africa, notably Ethiopia (3,200 or 5.5%), Eritrea (2,800 or 4.9%) and Somalia (2,300 or 4%) (Farina, Ortensi & Menonna, 2016). More up-to-date figures are expected shortly, pending publication of research led by the Università Milano Bicocca, funded by the Daphne programme.
However, in the absence of an official system of data collection on FGM in Italy there is a lack of publicly available countrywide data, although some departments/services do collect information.
Main communities affected
The number of women from FGM-practising countries resident in Italy is 161,457 or 6.1% of the total number of foreign women in the country (ISTAT, 2015). (This figure does not include Italian citizens from FGM-practising countries of origin.) Notable other groups are irregular migrants and asylum-seekers, whose number and demographic profile are difficult to estimate. According to the UNHCR, however, the majority are from Eritrea and Somalia, as well as other countries where FGM is widespread (Gambia, Guinea, Mali, Nigeria, Senegal and Sudan) (UNHCR, 2016).
The main FGM-practising communities resident in Italy are from Egypt, Ghana, Nigeria and Senegal. Other countries of origin include Benin, Burkina Faso, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Gambia, Guinea, Indonesia, Iraq, Ivory Coast, Kenya, Liberia, Mali, Somalia, Sudan and Togo.