 Throughout the 1990s and 2000s governments in Africa and the Middle East passed legislation banning or restricting FGM.In 2003 the African Union ratified the Maputo Protocol on the rights of women, which supported the elimination of FGM.By 2015 laws restricting FGM had been passed in at least 23 of the 27 African countries in which it is concentrated, although several fell short of a ban.