by Ashraf Engineer

Age: 41
Country: India

Picture this if you can without your heart racing and eyes welling up. A girl, let’s say she’s seven years old, is dressed up by her mother and told she’s being taken for a walk and an ice cream. She clings to her mother’s arm in glee and follows her, secure and happy. She is led to a house in the neighborhood where her mother undresses her and holds her down. A strange woman removes a razor blade and in a single, heart-stopping motion cuts the child’s clitoral hood.

The pain will ebb, the flowing blood will stanch but the scars will remain for life. A child has been damaged and her trust broken. 

I hail from the Dawoodi Bohra community where female genital cutting (FGC) is prevalent but the thought ofsubjecting my little girl to it never once entered my mind. She is the joy of my life, she gives it meaning. There was no wayI could do that to her. Among the many ugly manifestations of patriarchy, I believe FGC is perhaps the most horrific. We see everywhere how society feels the need to control every aspect of a woman's life - from whether she can live aftershe is born and whether she can get an education to whom she can marry and when. This attitude often extends to controlling her sexuality – through FGC.

FGC is one of the most serious human rights issues before us today. It is an ongoing practice rarely talked about even by those who have undergone it, and it is not part of the public consciousness. Like marital rape and abuse, it exists around us but is rarely thought about.

According to UNICEF data, there are at least 200 million girls and women across 30 countries who have been cut. If they were to form a country, it would be the sixth most populous in the world. We are looking at an alarming crime against humanity that needs our urgent attention.

FGC is illegal in many countries – a United Nations resolution against it was signed by 194 countries in 2012 – but its abandonment will require more than a law.

Since the root of the problem is patriarchy, a social system in which males are all-powerful and wield great authority over women, men must become an integral part of the solution. FGC is perpetrated on women, but I believe it’s done to satisfy the male craving for control of female sexuality. Indeed, societies in which FGC is practiced tend to be dominated by men.

It’s time for men to speak out against this harmful practice. It’s their duty, and their collective voice will matter. If they wish to, they can make a difference. Men need to stand up and be counted – primarily as fathers of girls in danger. 

This will help men too. Secure, happier women are necessary for stronger, fulfilling relationships and a progressive society.

Here are a few steps that can be taken immediately by individuals and governments:

• Pass a law that criminalizes FGC in India. The movement against this practice is gaining momentum and it’s time for the government to act.

• Start a nationwide awareness and education initiative – targeting men especially – that underscores FGC’s psychological impact as well as the danger to societal health.

• Make awareness about FGC a part of sex education in schools.

As the father of a young girl, even the thought of FGC creates a hollow feeling in the pit of my stomach. That such cruelty can be wreaked on anyone, let alone a child that has no clue of what is happening to her, breaks my heart.

As a father, your primary instinct is to protect your daughter and help her grow. You can’t do that by mutilating her body and shattering her trust.

(Ashraf Engineer, a former journalist, is a communication and marketing consultant. He recently released his first book, a Kindle-only release titled Bricks of Blood.)

(Note from Sahiyo: As an individual, another immediate step you can take to help bring an end to FGC is to sign this petition by Sahiyo and 31 international organizations. Click here.)

On January 20th, the Modern Abolitionist Global Campaign will start a two day campaign, with a kick -off event that will be a screening of movies dealing with gender violence and discrimination against women.

The following day, on January 21st, the Modern Abolitionist Global Campaign will hold the Frankfurt Women’s March on Washington.

Sahiyo will support the kick-off event, in which there will be a screening of A Pinch of Skin, a documentary produced by Sahiyo’s co-founder Priya Goswami, on the topic of female genital cutting in the Dawoodi Bohra community.

During the event, Sahiyo co-founders will be be joining via Skype for a Q&A session with audience members. The documentary, Girl Rising, about the importance of educating girls to break the cycle of poverty will also be screened. To learn more, contact the organizers here.

In December 2015, Speak Out on FGM – a collective of Bohra khatna survivors – launched a signature petition on Change.org, appealing to various ministers in the Indian government to end Female Genital Cutting (khatna) in India. It was the first time that 17 Bohra women had publicly come out, as signatories, to speak against the practice, and the petition helped break the silence on Khatna both in the community and the media. Today, the petition has amassed more than 83,000 supporters.

A year since this pioneering petition, on December 10, 2016, Speak Out on FGM launched a new petition on Change.org, this time addressed to the United Nations. The petition was launched on Human Rights Day – the last day of the global 16 Days of Activism campaign to end gender-based violence, and it has already received 544 supporters.

The new petition reflects the growing, open support for the cause of ending khatna: this time, 32 Bohra women listed their names as signatories to the petition.

This petition is an appeal by survivors of khatna, calling upon the United Nations to strengthen its recognition of India as one of the countries where FGC is practiced.

While UN agencies do acknowledge that FGC is prevalent in “certain ethnic groups in Asian countries…in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka”, Indonesia is the only one of these countries that is included in the UN’s official FGC-prevalence statistic of 200 million girls cut in 30 countries. Girls cut in India are thus excluded from these statistics of global prevalence (learn more here).

More global recognition of FGC would help spread awareness on the issue of khatna in India. More significantly, it would help Bohra women and men make official appeal to the Indian government to take policy-level steps to end FGC.

Currently, there is no law against FGC in India, and the matter is still barely recognised as prevalent in the Indian Bohra community. Since the religious and administrative headquarters of the Bohras are located in Mumbai, and since India houses approximately half the international Bohra population of 1.5 to 2 million, ending khatna in India can go a long way in ending the practice among all Bohras.

Through this petition, Speak Out on FGM hopes to speed up the process of instituting government and international mechanisms to highlight and promote measures to eradicate FGC.

To sign the petition, click here.

(This article was later published in Gujarati. Read the Gujarati version here.)

by Anonymous 

Age: 36

Country: India

I am a mental health professional and have been practicing counseling and therapy since 16 years. I learned about the practice of ‘khatna’ (Type I FGM) by chance, as my family spoke about the ceremony for a cousin of mine. I wanted to know more. I did not realize that I too had undergone it. I have no memories save a snapshot of me feeling a burning sensation and then being examined by my mom and grandmom.

I grew up learning never to talk about this subject, as this was the haram boti that was removed from my body. I was told I was now pure. As I grew older and studied psychology, I came across an article that spoke about FGM, and suddenly I understood what had happened to me on that day. I was shaken but left with no choice but to accept it, as no one understood the impact of what had happened – not even my progressive parents.  

My life proceeded from then on no differently from that of other girls. My marital life, especially the sex, was unaffected. I was able to have a satisfactory sexual life and also orgasms, and largely I felt I was not affected by the khatna. Either that or I had repressed it so as to cope with the trauma that I may have undergone at the age of seven. 

I remember at childbirth, however, I had to undergo an episiotomy. According to a study cited by the UNFPA, women who had undergone genital cutting faced a greater risk of needing a Caesarean section, an episiotomy, and an extended hospital stay after childbirth, compared with uncut women.

In peer supervision earlier this year, I processed what happened to me and dealt with it as a part of my life. I recognize in hindsight that there are effects of FGM. It scars the soul and you wonder if it is even required to be done.

The procedure of khatna may cause lasting psychological stress. Among children, it could trigger disturbances in behaviour, often because of betrayal of trust by loved ones. Adult women could also develop anxiety and depression.

As a mental health professional who understands all this, would I recommend khatna? No, I would not, as I find that at its core, it is a measure to control women’s sexuality. I would term it as intentional gender-based violence.

After she spoke to me about it, I remained in disbelief. I was sure she must be wrong. I reached out to my mom and sister, and after a few in-depth conversations with them, it settled over me. A mix of emotions – anger, frustration, humiliation – all overcame me simultaneously. I didn’t do anything at first, I just needed some time to let it all sink in. After I’d had time to process, I realized I needed to do something.

At first, most of my involvement in my personal anti-FGM campaign came through conversations with people I knew, primarily men. Even in this initial stage, I realized how essential it would be to effectively engage men as part of this movement. Over time, I became involved in a few more formal networks that were also working on this issue, and through these, I’ve had the chance to speak at the United Nations on this issue as well as be a small part of the This American Life podcast a few weeks ago. It’s been an amazing journey to be a part of.

Below, I’ve shared some of the major learnings/thoughts I’ve developed over the last 5 years. I hope it can serve as a way for some of you to help think through this topic. If you have questions, there are a ton of us here to help guide you to the answers. If you’d simply like to talk further about this, please do not hesitate to reach out. You can always contact Sahiyo at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to become connected to others working on ending FGM.

Some men don’t want to even engage in the conversation about FGM. Part of this is because they dismiss it as an unimportant issue at face value, but I believe a larger part of this may have to do with the discomfort that comes with talking about the female body and the lack of knowledge that it results in.

As men, we do not intuitively understand the female body and the biological processes that occur within it. Of course, we never will be able to truly know what being a woman feels like, but by gaining an understanding of how their bodies work, we can begin to have an idea. Naturally, we compare things that happen with a woman to its closest direct male counterpart. As such, we associate FGM, or circumcision as many people chose to incorrectly refer to it as, as the equivalent of male circumcision. This is a dangerous fallacy for men to turn to in their justification. The function of the male penis and a woman’s clitoris are not identical – not even close. Further, the benefits that come from male circumcision are simply not present in FGM. Please, please, please, do your research and understand the impact of this practice. It is terribly important for men to be aware of women’s bodies – not just specifically to be able to understand FGM, but for so many other reasons, health and otherwise.

 For the men who were willing to talk about it, one constant held true – they had never talked about it before. Creating a space to have these conversations became an important part of the larger effort to engage men. But the snowball effect definitely holds true. Individual conversations I was leading turned to group conversations I was just a part of. Soon after, conversations started happening without me there at all. Awareness of FGM in the Bohra community has increased exponentially since I started speaking about this issue, especially in the last few months. However, the conversations happening are still dominated by women. It is of course amazing that so many women have started sharing their stories and thoughts. But we still live in a patriarchal context. Religious leaders are still men. Decision-makers in families are still largely men.

We – the men – MUST start caring. We don’t have the option to be silent or ambivalent anymore. We can not keep pretending that it isn’t our problem. These are our friends, our daughters, our sisters, our mothers, and our wives. Read their stories. Understand what FGM is and how it affects them. Once you do, you’ll be as angry as I am. You won’t want it ever happening to anyone you’re close to. We can’t undo what has already happened to hundreds of thousands in our community – but we CAN prevent it from happening from this day forward.

To men everywhere – Start reading. Start talking. STOP FGM.

(First published on March 16, 2016)

Name: Alifya Sulemanji

Age: 42

Country: United States

I, Alifya Sulemanji went through the atrocity of Female Genital Mutilation. It’s been 35 years but I haven’t forgotten that day of my life even today.

One morning my mom told me we were going to visit my aunt who lives in Bhendi Bazaar in Mumbai, where many of the Bohras live. In the midst of the day my mom, aunt, and her daughter (my cousin) told me that they were taking me somewhere to remove a worm from me. I was barely 7 years old then and didn’t know what they were really talking about. I blindly followed them. We entered some building and went up the stairs and got into this lady’s house. I had no clue what was going on.

They told me to lay down on the floor assuring me that it was so they could take out a worm from my body and it was going to be very simple. My mom told me she was so devastated, she decided to leave the room and wait outside. They took off my underpants and I saw the lady remove a brand new sharp Topaz blade from the wrapper. They caught my legs and hands so I couldn’t move. I was watching them innocently, not knowing what’s going on. In a few moments, I was screaming in pain. My private part was in terrible shooting pain and I was crying.

They told me to be quiet and I would be fine. The lady dabbed some black power on my cut area to stop me bleeding. After the procedure was done I was told to keep quiet; it was a secret not to be told to anyone.

But today I am sharing my experience with the world.

My life has been different since then. Not that I am not happy and successful, but it has left some everlasting effects on me. I have two lovely daughters. Most of the time I am paranoid about their safety and protection. I keep getting bad thoughts that someone might harm them. People have judged me as an overprotective and possessive mom, but they don’t know where it’s coming from. My husband told me that sometimes at night when we are sleeping, he hears me cry in my sleep. Many times I get nightmares about my daughters being in trouble and I wake up screaming. I have unknown fears and phobias. I have seen a psychologist regarding this.

Today, I am happy and proud for standing up for myself.