Anger from human rights organizations calling for a prosecutor's investigation
The news that a clinic in the "heart" of Moscow offers the clitoridectomy service has caused shock in Russia.
"Clinicians can submit girls, aged five to 12, to partial or total amputation of their genitals," the Russian clinic wrote in an online advertisement.
Critics of this inhumane practice have called for an investigation.
Best Clinic, a small chain of private medical centers in Moscow, advertised on the Internet the services offered by its medical staff. One is that doctors can perform clitoridectomy on girls between the ages of five and 12, according to the Russian online newspaper Meduza.
"This service is included in the list of services provided by Best Clinic because there is a demand from patients with referrals from doctors," the clinic said in a statement yesterday.
"Clitoridectomy surgery is only performed for medical reasons," the clinic added, noting that it has not performed on girls under 18 years of age.
Female genital mutilation (FGM), which involves the partial or total removal of female genitals and can be fatal, is not a crime in Russia, according to Reuters.
The United Nations aims to end the controversial practice by 2030. The "female circumcision" takes place in about 30 countries around the world, mainly in Africa.
In 2016, the Russian Justice Initiative (RJI), a Moscow-based human rights organization, said genital mutilation was widespread in remote mountain villages in Dagestan. Citing evidence, the organization claimed that tens of thousands of Muslims had been mutilated in the North Caucasus region, but investigators from the Attorney General's Office found no evidence of the practice.
The same organization has announced that it will now ask the Moscow Prosecutor General to order an investigation into the matter.
"This practice, which has become a commercial service, is being touted as a process suitable for underage girls," said Gigor Avetisyan, a lawyer with the Russian Justice Initiative (RJI).
The Attorney General's Office was not immediately available for comment, but Russia's health ministry declined to comment, saying "female circumcision" was not a medical procedure and therefore did not fall within its remit.
"For the first time, I am shocked by what is happening in Moscow," Alena Popova, co-founder of the women's rights group W, told Reuters.
"Doctors are not allowed to intentionally harm anyone's health," he said.
According to the World Health Organization, some 200 million women and girls worldwide have undergone genital mutilation, a practice that can cause chronic pain, infertility and even death from blood loss and complications of infections.