Genital mutilation victims break silence on 'demonic' practice

Clit-Hacking, It's Not Just For Muslims ...

Oh, Who Am I Kidding? Yeah It Is

From the Detroit Free Press:

It was the summer of 1990. Mariya Taher was 7 years old, vacationing in India with her family, when one day her mother took her to a run-down apartment building without explaining why. 

She remembers climbing some stairs, opening a door and seeing older women in a room. There was laughter, and the place seemed cheerful. But then came the betrayal. 

The child ended up on the floor. Her dress was lifted up. 

“I remember something sharp down there and then I remember crying,” Taher, now 34, recalls. “I remember my mom comforting me afterward and holding me in her lap.” 

A decade later, Taher would better understand what happened to her on that summer day in Mumbai. She had survived the taboo ritual of female genital mutilation, a decades-old religious tradition that millions of women worldwide continue to be subjected to, including a half million in the U.S., where a historic criminal case involving the practice is unfolding in Detroit. 

After years of suffering in silence, fearful of getting shunned by their families and communities if they denounced genital mutilation, they are speaking out and demanding change. They want the cutters punished, along with religious leaders and parents who continue to support a practice that is illegal in the U.S. and has been condemned by the World Health Organization. 

The Michigan case, they say, has emboldened them, particularly because the doctor's defense revolves around an all-too-familiar argument made by the Bohra community: that the mild, ritual "nick" or "shaving" isn't actual cutting. 

The victims disagree, they say, and they have the mental and physical scars to prove it. 

“It's taken me a long time to be as comfortable as I am," said Taher, who hopes that her Sahiyo campaign to end female genital mutilation will gain momentum from the Michigan case. 

"We can’t have this happening ... Whether it’s a tradition, for religious reasons or for sex, I see all of it as controlling someone. This is a form of gender violence. It’s a form of child abuse. It’s oppression.”