Sudan, Somalia, Sierra Leone.

Those African nations are notoriously associated with the gruesome ritual of female genital mutilation—but it also occurs in the U.S. where an alarming number of women and girls are subjected to such torture that Immigration and Customs Enforcement pledged to stop it, according to an announcement Monday.

It’s estimated more than 500,000 women and girls in the U.S. are either victims of female genital mutilation or are at risk of being subjected to it. ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations is teaming up with the FBI’s International Human Rights Unit and the Department of Justice’s Human Rights and Special Prosecutions Section to combat the crime, which is up threefold since 1990, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Female Genital Mutilation Happening to an Alarming Number of U.S. Girls – Newsweek