(Trigger Warning: The story below is a powerful account of one woman’s memory of FGC. We are grateful to her for sharing with us the details of her experience.)

By Saleha Paatwala

Country: Noida, India 

Age: 23

I was 7 years of age when one day my grandma took me to an unfamiliar place. I was informed that it would be a huge gathering and children like me would come as well. We came to the second floor where we were advised to sit by a woman as old as my grandma. It didn’t appear to be exceptionally happening, and out of sheer interest I asked her why we were there – to which she just grinned and said that everybody was en route. What happened next will continue to haunt me until the end of time.

After an hour, one more woman came in and asked us to follow her. It was a miserable room on the terrace, small and messy. My grandma and I sat on the little bed. The woman took out some cotton, blade and some harsh fabric and I just couldn’t comprehend what was occurring. She asked me to lie down, but I was very young and could never have imagined anything terrible could happen. I just couldn’t understand what was happening. I believed my grandma and sat down when she insisted. The other woman now began removing my underwear. This sickened the hellfire out of me. I began fighting back, at which every one of the women, including my grandma, held my hands and feet tight so that I could not move. I was yelling as loud as possible, but no one was listening. After she had successfully taken off my underwear, the second woman spread my legs, grabbed the blade and cut something between my legs. The pain was anguishing and intolerable and it gave me an injury. She then put some cotton on that part and put my clothing back on. My grandma and two other women began giggling and saying, “Mubarak ho, iska khatna ho gaya hai.” (Congratulations, she has been circumcised).

At that age, who has ever considered going through such an agony in the most intimate area that no youngster would even like anybody to see or touch? I didn’t really see the amount of blood that had gushed out because I had no courage to. Only after I reached home and went to pee, I saw the cotton and figured it out. I couldn’t urinate properly for three days as it tormented me that much.

All these years, I never had the boldness to open up and discuss this. My grandma told me that ladies get to be devout after completing khatna, and I accepted that. Then one day, we were shown a film on Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) at my college. It gave me goosebumps and took me all the way back to my childhood when I had been through this assault. In that film, my own community members were spreading awareness and battling this practice. It made me realise, unmistakably, that what happened wasn’t beneficial for me, wasn’t useful for anyone. That little film gave me so much courage that I can now share my dim story with everybody, even though it is still a taboo.

There is no religious aspect to this ritual. It is only a practice, a hazardous and destructive custom which is being perpetuated by individuals. It wasn’t just a little piece. It was a piece of me, my private area that no one has a right to touch without my consent. If Allah has sent us whole, why should we cut for the sake of god, to make a lady pious?

(Trigger Warning: The story below is a powerfully, vivid account of one woman’s memory of FGC. We are grateful to her for sharing with us the details of her experience)

 By Mariya Ali

 Country: United Kingdom

 I have very few memories of my childhood, but one memory in particular stands out and haunts me to this day. Unfortunately, it’s a vivid, painful memory and fills me with anger when I recall it.

I was five years old when my mother and aunt took my cousin and I on an “excursion”. I remember sitting in a car and approaching an unfamiliar block of apartments. I was confused; I didn’t know where I was and what I was doing there. Despite my seemingly endless young imagination, I could never have anticipated what happened to me next.

I walked into a small apartment with a cramped living room at the end of a very short corridor. There was a dampness in the air and a slight smell from the poor ventilation. I approached the living room and sat on the floor. It was a warm day and I watched the net curtains of the large window slowly move with the breeze. I had been greeted by an old lady, whose face I can’t remember. I didn’t recognise her and was confused as to why I was currently in her apartment. I watched as she walked out of the room. I peered inquisitively into the kitchen and caught a glimpse of her heating a knife on the stove. I was always told to stay away from sharp knives at that age. Knives were dangerous. I could hurt myself. I remember the open flame on the stove and seeing the silver of the metal and the black handle of the knife while I watched her quickly hold it over the naked flame. She approached the living room with the knife in her hand, trying to conceal it behind her. She approached me.

My mother asked me to remove my underwear. I remember saying no; I didn’t want a strange woman to see me without my underwear on. My mother assured me it would be okay; I trusted her and did as she asked. The old lady told me that she wanted to check something in my private area and asked me to open my legs. I was so young that I wasn’t scared at that time. I was confused, but not scared. I was innocently oblivious to how invasive and inappropriate this situation was and so I obediently did as I was told.

I remember a sharp pain. An agonising pain. A pain that I can still vividly remember today. So intense that I still have a lump in my throat when I recall that moment. I instantly started sobbing, from pain, shock, confusion and fear. My next memory is that of blood. More blood than I had ever seen, suddenly gushing out from my most intimate area. I still didn’t comprehend what had just happened to me. I had believed that aunty when she had told me that she was checking something. I was young and naive enough to believe that people don’t lie and this was my first encounter when I realised that, unfortunately, the world doesn’t work like that. In so many ways I was stripped of many things on that day. My rosy outlook on life, my childhood innocence, my right to dictate what happens to my body and my faith in my mother not harming me. I continued to cry, the pain was excruciating and the sight of the blood traumatised me. I was given a sweet and comforted by my mother.  The events after that are still hazy and my next clear memory is that of being back in the car and staring through teary eyes at the apartment building disappear as we drove away.

Over the years I repressed this memory. There was no need to recall it. It was never spoken about and I still remained unaware of what transpired that day. A decade later, I was amongst some of my female friends. The topic of Female Genital Mutilation came up, or as I was to discover that day, “khatna”, a bohra ritual performed on young girls. Hearing their recollections of what had happened to them, I finally realised that this is what had happened to me that day.

I was mutilated.

Thankfully for me, I had a lucky escape. The unskilled, uneducated woman who barbarically cut me did not cause me too much physical damage. Emotionally and mentally, there are many repercussions. I have a deep phobia of blood and a simmering resentment that my mother chose for this to happen to me. Although my mother believed that she was acting in my best interest, I struggle to come to terms with the fact that I was so barbarically violated.

 It may have been just a pinch of skin, but it was a part of me, a part of my femininity and a part of my womanhood.

First Online Study on Khatna Conducted by Sahiyo

In 2015, Sahiyo embarked on a mission to better understand the extent, purpose, and impact of the practice of khatna of FGC within the Dawoodi Bohras. Acknowledging that this practice is a very personal and sensitive topic within the community, and that almost no one speaks about it, Sahiyo went about gathering data in a culturally sensitive manner, and allowed for survey respondents to answer questions about khatna anonymously.

The data was  gathered in 3-month installments. It began on July 25, 2015, and concluded on January 25, 2016. Over 400 individuals, all who have grown up in the Dawoodi Bohra community, participated in the survey. The data is now being analyzed and a final report will be shared with the public in the coming months.

The sole intention of this research was to shed light on the extent of the practice within the community, and to address the misconceptions and lack of information surrounding the continuation of this age-old practice, which is not often talked about in social circles. It was not the intention of the researchers to discredit or malign any particular community, especially the Dawoodi Bohras.

Researchers hope that by gaining this information, supportive measures based on community responses can be created to help those who may have suffered as a result of khatna/FGC.

If you would like to learn more about the study please e-mail This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

(originally published on Ms. Dilshad Tavawala’s wordpress.com blog on January 17, 2016. Reposted here with permission)

By Ms. Dilshad Tavawalla, B.A., LL.M., Barrister, Solicitor, Notary Public – Toronto, Canada

Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) has been an international cause célèbre, and generated remarkable global attention for the past several decades.  At international and intergovernmental levels, there is unequivocal consensus that FGM/C represents an extreme violation of the human rights of women and children, a danger to sexual and reproductive health, a harmful practice and a form of gender-based violence, and that it must be abolished.  Nations around the world have intensified and expanded their commitment levels to FGM/C; more and more data has been collected, analysed and used; and the UN, its agencies and NGOs around the world have refined and scaled up their efforts on the ground to ban, and eradicate it.  In fact, the UNFPA-UNICEF Joint Programme on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting:  Accelerating Change is the largest global initiative to promote abandonment of the practice of FGM/C.

However, despite all this worldwide effort to end FGM/C, India in particular, has escaped much of the focus and global attention due to the fact ‘khatna‘ or FGM/C is pervasive and secretly practised amongst the members of the Dawoodi Bohra Shia Muslim community (emphasis mine).  The cultural practice of khatna is non-existent, and virtually unknown in various Muslim sects, sub-sects and communities, as well as, other religious denominations found in India, namely, the Hindus, Christians, Parsis, Jains, Buddhists, Sikhs, etc. The Dawoodi Bohra Shia Muslim community, found in large numbers in India and Pakistan, and to a smaller extent, in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are the only Muslim community in the Indian sub-continent that practises FGM/C.

In November 2015, this secretive and clandestine practice known as khatna amongst the uniquely close-knit Dawoodi Bohra Shia Muslim community, attracted worldwide media attention. Three members of the Dawoodi Bohra(DB) community were convicted in Australia’s first ground-breaking prosecution of a FGM/C case where a retired nurse, a mother of the minor girls and a Dawoodi Bohra clergy member illegally participated in carrying out khatna on two minor girls. News of these convictions was reported worldwide in the media including newspapers such as UK’s The Guardian, The Times of India, Hindustan Times, and television news channels in India, Australian and UK.

This landmark Australian prosecution of members of the Dawoodi Bohras for illegally practising khatna has prompted several DB women in India to collectively speak out against this dangerous and harmful ritual.  Unfortunately, open discussion on FGM/C remains a taboo, even in developed countries due to cultural and religious relativism which has created a reluctance to openly confront and tackle ending FGM/C.

I do not wish this post to be seen as a criticism of the Dawoodi Bohra Shia Muslim community to which I belong, but rather a voice seeking to achieve the most fundamental values that underlie all religions, traditions and cultures – “do no harm to others”, which approach, I believe, will promote the wider issues of ending violence against girl children and women, and tackling gender equality in patriarchal societies.

The aim of this post is to also offer some cultural insight and understanding of the Dawoodi Bohra Shia Muslim community, to throw light, raise public awareness and capture the underground cultural practice of khatna through the words and lens of Dawoodi Bohra women living around the world.

I was born in, and belong to the Dawoodi Bohra Shia Muslim community.  I know khatna personally and intimately because it was performed on me at the age of 7 years.  The horror, trauma, grief and sadness remain with me till today.

Photo credit: Outlook Magazine, Dec 12, 2011