[Music] my grandmother told me that come I'll take you out and we'll buy you some chocolates I do remember I was around 6 or 7 years old and being taken to Bindy Bazaar and I was wearing a dress that day cuz my dress was lifted something sharp I know um cut me you hear so many different reasons most common of course is that it leads to Too Much promiscuity you are pinning her down spreading her legs apart and you know doing something that she's not even aware of people believe that they're doing it for religious
reasons but not in the Quran is not mentioned in the Quran imagine being taken to a dark decrepit building imagine being pinned down on the floor imagine your underwear being taken off imagine seeing a knife being heated on the gas stove imagine the hot knife slicing your clitorus imagine young girls shrieking in pain the cruel practice of female genital cutting of of female genital mutilation is not happening only in Far Away Africa it's not just being practiced in tribal societies young girls aged six and seven are regularly being cut right here in India Mumbai abounds
with untrained midwives who continue to scar young girls from the bohora community for long FGM or katna as the boras call it remained a well-kept secret a taboo a subject never to be discussed but now some women also victims at the hands of a Bora tradition have chosen to speak out here they are speaking out on camera perhaps for the first time of how they were lured by their moms and Grandmom's only to be betrayed my grandmother told me that come I'll take you out and we'll buy you some chocolates and stuff so I went
happily went with my grandmother and she took me to borim MOA that's where a cluster of boraas stay in Bor in in Bombay and uh we went into this dark decrep building and then we went into an inside room where the curtain was drawn and she told me lie down and like an obedient child I lay and then my grandmother was holding me holding my hands and there was this other woman oldish kind of a woman and she pulled my pants down and uh I started crying and my grandmother told me don't worry it'll it's
very quick you'll just get over in a gif and that woman also told me very quick it's going to happen and she did something which was extremely painful it just I shrieked in pain I don't know what it was but what I experienced was a sharp shooting pain and then she put some black powder there just came home and I just cried and cried and cried and there was a lot of pain which was there arifa is a young articulate journalist like most women in the approximately 2 million strong Bora Community arifa 2 was cut
you hear so many different reasons from uh different women about why it's done you most common of course is that this is unwanted skin because it is the you know source of of sin or dis you know the kind of pleasure that women shouldn't be having or it leads to Too Much promiscuity but uh I mean there is no scientific basis to that it's steeped in patriarchy and it's the belief that um a woman's sexuality has to be curbed and if you want Fidelity and if you want the marriage as an institution to hold up
the woman has to be cut so that you know she is not going to go astray the sad truth to the this painful process is the fact that it is a practice being done to women by other women most women we spoke to initially blamed their mothers till they realized they too were victims of the same mindless tradition of course my first U the first Target of my anger was my mother because um you know she took me but I'm very clear now that it's it wasn't her fault as an individual because this is a
very systemic practice some women deal with the childhood trauma by just blocking it out completely psychologists told us Zara pwa an America based technology project manager found out only when she was 44 years old when the video of my um family member came out after that was when they told me that it was done to me um so I was kind of in an emotional state it is so traumatic for young girls and does not fit with our educated Community it seems like one of those things that we should just let go of and move
on shahida a public health professional was protected by her mother a child rights lawyer based in Canada she was lucky to escape being put under a knife but is struggling to understand why her community betrays its daughters I'm not able to explain to myself why it is quite quite contradictory it's just so ingrained in culture and therefore you just unquestioning unquestioningly do it just so that you can be a part of the community if you openly declare that you know I didn't do this so I'm not going to you know I'm not going to do
it to myself or my daughters then the backlash could be considerable inia darala a filmmaker and child rights activist was also lucky to escape her mother put her foot down after her older daughter was taken to one of those dark decrepit rooms by an aunt but inia still feels cut in so many different ways the fact that I had not been cut actually went against me too because I was still cut off functions uh certain ritualistic functions that happen with young girls so these are things that I was never involved in that's okay with me
I don't have a problem Boston based Maria taher is pursuing a career in social work and domestic violence because of her own personal experience would you say you're um emotionally damaged no not but it did for many years and so it's something I had to come to terms with I think all of that has mainly the person that I am are you psychologically scarred yes definitely definitely I never confronted myself with with it also female genital mutilation is recognized internationally as a violation of the human rights of girls and women in addition to the threat
it constitutes to their health and lives the United Nations has declared female genital mutilation a human rights violation but there is no such ban in India young girls are still being taken to midwives and to doctors in Boran hospitals the sna or high priest refuses to engage we tried to meet with his Representatives but failed an anonymous Bora woman petitioned the sna in 2011 but drew a blank Masuma arifa inia and many others have put their names to an online petition that is gathering steam with over 40,000 signatures in Mumbai we met nushrat barucha prominent
Bora face and Bollywood actress who at first agreed to only a tape recorded interview soon however we got a message from her saying she wants to be on camera along with her parents were you party to the decision to not have your daughter be put through the same practice I said no way I'm not insisting at all just let her grow naturally there's no need to go through all that because it lingers on it carries forward with a woman all throughout her life the fight against FGM is picking up slowly a conviction in Australia in
November where a nurse and a mother are set to go to jail has led to chatter within the community a lot of women who still support the practice call the citoral hood Haram kiboi or immoral lump of flesh but listen to the brave women and you'll know it's about deceit and betrayal and a grave form of abuse on young impression minds and bodies [Music]
