Muslim scholars from around the world have called for female circumcision (also called ‘female genital mutilation' or FGM) to be banned. They have unequivocally claimed that Islam offers no justification for the procedure and that those who carry it out should face punishment. At the recent conference on the subject, the religious scholars went so far as to assert that governments should make and enforce legal consequences for those who continue the practice.

Just in time for International Human Rights Day, December 10th.

A little background: Female circumcision is the removal of all or part of the external female genitalia. With some of the most severe practices, a woman or a girl has all of her genitalia removed and then stitched together leaving openings for intercourse and menstruation. According to Amnesty International, an estimated 135 million girls have undergone the procedure.

Last week, the gathering of Muslim scholars claimed that the practice amounts to violence against women and Islam forbids people from inflicting harm on others. They held that those who circumcise their daughters were doing exactly that. This is a great vindication of feminist groups that have been claiming for years that the practice is not necessarily grounded in religious doctrine. Human rights organizations around the world have long advocated for an end to this practice. Though all the governments of the countries in which it is practiced have made the procedure illegal, there is little, if any, enforcement of these legal protections. As we all know, culture and tradition are strong forces in any society and changing these practices often takes a long time and a concerted effort. Women's health advocates are often debunking dangerous ideas about women's bodies by getting us to see what's really at stake. Let's hope that this new development serves as a move in just this direction.

In addition to, and all too often tied up with, issues of reproductive health are issues of violence against women. In honor of yesterday, along with the issue of female circumcision, I bring your attention to just a few, out of many, issues that we should all know and do something about.

• Thousands of girls and women have been subjected to other forms of sexual violence in Darfur. The Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court identified "high numbers of…mass rapes and other forms of extremely serious gender violence" and a U.N. Commission of Inquiry found that these abuses amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. For more information see AIUSA's Campaign.

• Despite seeming like words from another era, there still exists human trade: slave markets and the buying and selling of people – many of these being women who are sold into the sex trade. This kind of human trafficking is a global phenomenon where victims are sexually exploited, forced into labor and subjected to abuse. For more information see the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and the Coalition to Stop Slavery and Trafficking.

• In armed conflicts raging around the globe, women are terrorized with rape, sexual and other physical violence, and harassment. These tactics are tools of war, instruments of terror designed to hurt and punish women, wrench communities apart, and force women and girls to flee their homes. For more information see some of Human Rights Watch's reports.

I realize these are three out of hundreds of issues I could have listed, but hey, we have to start somewhere. And as the call to end female circumcision reminded us, change is certainly possible.