In a 73-page report entitled: "They Took Me and Told Me Nothing': Female Genital Mutilation in Iraqi Kurdistan," the New York-based watchdog recorded the experiences of 31 girls and women in four villages in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region.

"I remember my mother and her sister-in-law took us two girls, and there were four other girls," a 17-year-old student called Gola from the village of Plangan told the watchdog.

"We went to Sarkapkan for the procedure. They put us in the bathroom, held our legs open, and cut something," she said.

"They did it one by one with no anaesthetics... I have lots of pain in this specific area they cut when I menstruate."

The watchdog said that while there were no official figures, local research indicated that female circumcision was widespread in the region and had affected a significant number of girls and women.

"Female genital mutilation violates women's and children's rights, including their rights to life, health and bodily integrity," said the watchdog's Middle East women's rights researcher, Nadya Khalife.

HRW noted that the regional government had taken action against other forms of abuse against women, including domestic violence and so-called honour killings, but had failed to deliver on proposals to tackle female circumcision.

"We think people here took this idea from Egypt and Yemen and we would like to investigate further because nobody has documented the existence of female circumcision in Kurdistan," Khalife told AFP at the launch of the report in the Kurdish regional capital Arbil.

"We received a positive response (to proposals aimed at outlawing the practice) from the regional government and we hope our suggestions will be taken into consideration."

A 2007 regional justice ministry decree ordering the arrest and punishment of practitioners appeared never to have been implemented, and a proposed 2008 bill to outlaw the practice had never got beyond a preliminary vote of support in the regional parliament, the report said.

In early 2009, the regional health ministry drew up a strategy for eliminating the practice but later withdrew its support with the result that a public awareness campaign was "inexplicably delayed", the watchdog added.

Female circumcision has traditionally been practised in Egypt, Sudan Yemen and parts of east Africa. It has been outlawed in a number of countries, most recently Uganda.