MUMBAI: Women activists campaigning to end female genital mutilation (FGM) in a minority Muslim community in India hailed a minister’s pledge to introduce a law to end the centuries-old custom.
FGM is secretly carried out by the close-knit Dawoodi Bohra community, a Shiite sect thought to number up to 2 million worldwide that considers the practice a religious obligation.
Maneka Gandhi, the minister for women and child development, told the Hindustan Times newspaper this weekend she would write to state governments and the Bohra spiritual leader — the Syedna — to issue an edict to end FGM because it is a crime.
“If the Syedna does not respond, then we will bring in a law to ban the practice in India,” she was quoted as saying.
Debate on the subject has long been taboo, even as a group of Bohra women subjected to FGM as girls called for the government to ban the ritual, called khatna.
“This is a huge victory for us,” said Masooma Ranalvi of Speak Out on FGM, whose change.org petition to end FGM in India has garnered more than 90,000 signatures.
“There is a deep division within the community, and even a law will not end the practice immediately. But at least the issue is out in the open now.”
A spokeswoman for Syedna Taher Fakhruddin, who leads one faction of the community, said Fakhruddin stood by an earlier statement that khatna should only be allowed after women “attain legal adulthood” and are free to make their own decisions.