These Brave Women Are Fighting The Archaic Practice Of Female Genital Mutilation

It all begins with a simple lure – a girl of 6 or 7 years of age is given a chocolate, taken out for shopping and then taken into a room where her pants are taken off and her clitoris is sliced up by someone in the name of religion. Blood flows and she cries out. In the days that follow, she may contract an infection and most certainly will never enjoy sex because the one part of her that was designed for pleasure has been cut off. That’s Female Genital Mutilation for you and if you and I don’t talk about it because it’s too horrific, we are letting it thrive.

Fight Against The Cut

We may have heard of female genital mutilation taking place in African countries and think that it doesn’t happen that much but 90% of females in the Ismaili Shia Muslim Bohra community of our own country undergo as part of a practice named Khatna. The practice is prevalent in various African, European, Middle Eastern, Asian and American countries too. The staggering statistics seem like a slap on the face of womanhood. The United Nations has marked February 6 as the International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation to spread awareness about the issue and eradicate it. Here's a look at all those women who are continuously working to raise awareness and ask for a ban on this horrific practice:

Masooma Ranalvi

Image Courtesy: www.wespeakout.org

Taken to a dirty apartment with the promise of an ice-cream, Masooma had to undergo khatna at the tender age of 7 to cut up her clitoral hood, also called ‘haraam ki boti’ (source of sin) because it is believed that women can derive pleasure from it and go astray in marriage or bring shame. As a Dawoodi Bohra woman, she endured the physical and mental agony from it for several years but did not want the next generations to suffer the same. She started the #EndFGM petitions on Change.org and is dedicated to raising awareness about the cause.

Women @ Sahiyo

Mariya Taher, Aarefa Johri, Priya Goswami, Insia Dariwala and Shaheeda Tavawalla-Kirtane, these are the brave women behind the NGO Sahiyo that unites women against Female Genital Cutting. They have community outreach programmes and are running a petition to end FGM by 2030 while asking for research support for the same. Shabana Feroze, a khatna survivor, who is also the Social Media Consultant at Sahiyo spoke to Her Zindagi and here’s what she had to share:

Alifya Sulemanji

Image Courtesy: www.wespeakout.org

It was not only a physical but a crippling mental agony that has scarred Alifya Sulemanji ever since she was mutilated on the pretext of taking out a worm from her body. Many years have passed but she still fears for her daughters’ safety and has ensured they never had to face the horrors of khatna just like she did.

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Leyla Hussein

One of the biggest anti-FGM activists in the world, she founded the organisation Daughters of Eve along with Nimco Ali, another FGM survivor. At present, she is part of projects spanning over 10 countries to end FGM in one generation.

Watch this Instagram post featuring yet another survivor who was a trailblazer for bringing out a ban on FGM in Gambia:

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A post shared by The Guardian (@guardian) onMar 17, 2017 at 6:17am PDT

Her Zindagi salutes the spirit of the women who are fighting the archaic practice of Female Genital Mutilation and hopes that more women can come forward with their voices, time and energy to spread information about this horrendous crime to stop it once and for all.

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