The Detroit doctor arrests are an opportunity to talk about Khatna
By: Anonymous Age: 33Country: Pune, India Even though I clearly remember when ‘khatna’ was performed on me, it wasn’t until I was a teenager that I first started to question this practice within the Dawoodi Bohra community. It always felt wrong, but if my mother, sister, and seemingly everyone else in the community embraced it, […]
Thaal Pe Charcha: A Sahiyo flagship event where Bohra women bonded over food
In February, Sahiyo held an event titled Thaal Pe Charcha (loosely translated as ‘discussions over food’), in which 16 Bohra women from Mumbai came together to discuss – for the first time – the challenges of living as young girls and women in the tightly knit Dawoodi Bohra community. Invitations were sent out through word […]
I underwent Khatna but did not let it happen to my daughters
By: Anonymous Country of Current Residence: United StatesCountry of Birth: IndiaAge: 57 It was a day in June, 1966, in India. I was seven years old and sitting with my mother, listening to a story she read to me from a newspaper. Midway through reading the story, she casually mentioned to me that we were […]
My brain decides who I sleep with, not my clitoris
by Sabahat Jahan Age: 24Country: India I am sitting in a cafe and thinking about whether I would ever make my daughter go through the painful ritual of genital mutilation, the way my mother did it to me in the name of religion. I am 24 years old, studying journalism, a Muslim girl from a […]
A conversation on Khatna with Suleimani Bohras
Sahiyo co-founder Shaheeda Tavawalla-Kirtane talks to Shabnam Muqbil and her husband, Koen Van den Brande, who give us an introduction to the Suleimanis and throw light on the practice of ‘khatna’ amongst their community. Shaheeda: Please share with us the history of the Suleimanis and where they come from? Shabnam: The Suleimani Bohras (Suleimanis) are a […]
Is there only a little piece of flesh between ‘good’ and ‘bad’, asks a Suleimani Bohra
by Shabnam Muqbil Age: 52 Country: IndiaIt has happened to me too……….When I was 6 years old, I came from abroad to India with my mother to spend a two-month long summer vacation in Badr Bagh, the seat of the Suleimani community in Mumbai, where I was born.We had a lovely little cottage within the […]
Female Genital Cutting exists to preserve patriarchy: A Bohra survivor speaks out
by Mubaraka MotiwalaAge: 18Country: India (This essay was first published on the Safe City blog on January 22, 2017) Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting and female circumcision, is the ritual removal of some or all of the external female genitalia. Ever wondered why it’s done? Well I did and I found out what […]
Sahiyo blog post wins a Laadli Media Award
A Bohra woman’s personal essay about her experience of Female Genital Cutting, published on Sahiyo’s blog last year, has won the prestigious Laadli Media Award for Gender Sensitivity 2015-16. The essay, titled ‘It was a part of me…part of my womanhood‘, won the award for Best Blog in the ‘Web-blogs’ category in the eighth edition […]
Deen and Duniya (Religion and the World) a film by Alisha Bhagat
By Alisha Bhagat Country: United States & India I made Deen and Duniya in 2004 before my senior year in college. I received a Vira Heinz grant for women in leadership and thought it would be interesting to turn an anthropological lens on my own community – the Dawoodi Bohras. I am particularly interested in […]
My daughter is the joy of my life. There was no way I could have her cut.
by Ashraf Engineer Age: 41Country: 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 […]