NPR: Petition Against Female Genital Mutilation Provokes An Angry Backlash
“…[L]ast winter, 17 Indian women from a tiny sect of Islam blew the lid off a guarded secret … They authored a petition asking the government of India to outlaw female circumcision. Until the petition went public in December, many Indians didn’t know female genital mutilation — or FGM — happens in the country at all. In India, the Dawoodi Bohra Muslims are the only community that practices female genital mutilation in the form of circumcision, a practice they call khatna that dates back 1,400 years, according to the clergy…” (Sachdev, 8/2).