Female mutilation a means of male power over women - UN rights chief

U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay looks on after her address to the 26th session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva June 10, 2014. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

GENEVA (Reuters) - Female genital mutilation, the excision of the clitoris practised widely in African and many Muslim countries, is a means for men to maintain control of women and must be eradicated, U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay said on Monday.

Even if a current global campaign against the practise - dubbed FGM - continued at its current level of success, it would be 60 years until the total of well over 125 million women and girls now affected was reduced by half, she said.