Contents: Female Genital Mutilation (Issue 25)
Contents: Female Genital Mutilation (Issue 25)
Posts tagged ‘FGM’
May 5
4 Comments
Guest-Editorial: Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
By Rashida Murphy
All the women who tell their stories here are my sisters, cousins, daughters and nieces because they describe families like mine, speak a language like mine, have a mother like mine, a daughter like mine. They raise their collective voices in a siren call so loud that it must surely be heard, at least by the women in the Bohra community, if not its clergy.
An Anatomy of a Movement
By Masooma Ranalvi
There is a large-scale effort propelled by the United Nations to curb the practice of FGM is communities across the globe as it is perceived as a human rights violation. In December 2012, the UN General Assembly adopted a unanimous resolution for the elimination of FGM. In February 2016, the theme outlined by the UN is: Achieving new Global Goals through the elimination of Female Genital Mutilation by 2030.
The Un-Cut
By Insia Dariwala
Years passed. I never met every girl’s fate or became clean but I always wondered what it was. Like every other family, we too wore the garb of denial and went on with our lives. From that day onwards, though, things just changed, even Fatema. I was no more a part of her gang. No more blanket games. Since that day, she stopped sleeping under it. So I tucked it away, along with all my memories of that day.
The Practice of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) amongst the Dawoodi Bohra Shia Muslim Community
By Dilshad Tavawalla & Shaheeda Tavawalla-Kirtane
In November 2015, this secretive and clandestine practice attracted worldwide media attention. Three members of the Bohra 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 clergy member, illegally participated in carrying out khatna on two minor girls. News of these successful convictions was reported widely in the international media.
Zehra’s Story
By Zehra Patwa
If we want our daughters to be naik, then let’s teach them to be strong and powerful human beings. Let’s teach them that they are in control of their own minds and bodies, and that they should use them both wisely. I imagine a day when the coming-of-age ritual consists of a 7-year-old girl being taken to a room by her grandmother, only to find the room filled with other women and girls who shower her with love and reinforce that her body is beautiful, powerful, and sacred.
Shehrebanu’s Story
By Shehrebanu
As we grew up together, my sister and I have had many conversations about this but neither of us has ever spoken about it to our mother. We don’t know how to. And what purpose would it serve now, anyway? We are old enough to be grandmothers now and I never had a daughter. I’m speaking up now because I don’t want a new generation of women to ever contemplate doing this thing to their daughters.
An Interview with Sultana and Zainab
By Rashida Murphy
The people in our community are quick to judge and slow to help. They notice it when you don’t go to the mosque or you don’t wear a rida. They don’t notice when injustice is done right in front of them. They look away. Or they tell you that you are wrong. They tell you to do what everyone is doing, follow the rules blindly.
Across the shores – the story of a Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) survivor
By Zarine Hashim
On seeing my signature on a petition to the then Syedna (head clergyman of the Bohra community) to end this barbaric practice, a reporter from the ABC channel in Australia got in touch with me for an interview. It was a very daunting proposal for me to narrate my experience so openly on television. After much deliberation, I decided to go ahead with it. This was the first time ever that I had spoken about my experience of FGM and it was like reliving every single moment of that dreadful day.
Have you met your clitoris?
By Aarefa Johari
It wasn’t until two or three years ago that I understood, more specifically, what part of my clitoris had faced the blade. It was the clitoral hood, the foreskin or prepuce that covers the clitoral glans in the same way that the male foreskin covers the penis. The clitoris and penis are essentially equivalents of each other, born from the same genital tissue of a foetus as it develops into either a girl or a boy.
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in India: A Hidden Truth
By Chandni Shiyal
In India not many people are aware of the practice of FGM. Many of them do not know the term FGM. The Bohra community usually calls it khatna. A young girl in her twenties from a Bohra community innocently told me that she has undergone this practice, but does not know what exactly it is and why it was done. The fact is that millions of girls have undergone this practice. Some remember and some are afraid to answer.
My Experience with Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
By Anonymous
One of my main insecurities about sex was that I felt like I was driving without the headlights on. Often, I didn’t know where to go or how to guide my driver. I felt like a failure. To this day, I still have not experienced orgasm. While sex is enjoyable for me and I could describe what I can achieve as a “mini-climax”, I am bothered by the fact that I may never get to experience this wonderful part of life.
I survived Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)
By Fatema Kabira
I recently brought up this issue with my Bohra friends. I genuinely wanted to know their opinions on FGM without influencing them with mine. I was extremely disheartened to realize that most of them support FGM, despite not having any concrete reasons. I tried explaining to them that there were no benefits to the procedure, only damage done to girls too young to speak or fight for themselves. But they sounded convinced with this practice.
Female Genital Cutting: A Continuing Tradition
By Mariya Taher
Upon initial research, I found that reports on FGC within the US only included immigrant women from African countries where the practice was widely known to occur. Excluded from statistics were women like me, born in the US, growing up in a community whose origins were from Asia and knew FGC to be an important tradition. A few qualitative studies, depicting the stories of American women, who had knowledge of the practice within this country, existed.
If Allah sent us whole why should we cut for the sake of God?
By Saleha Paatwala
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 hurt me to an unbearable degree.
Just a Slice of Skin
By Mariya Taher & Aarefa Johari
I, Mariya Taher, and I, Aarefa Johari, at the age of seven, went through the Dawoodi Bohra tradition called khatna, known to the rest of the world as Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) or Female Genital Cutting (FGC).
Café Dissensus 