‘Something has been taken away’: Pakistan’s well-kept FGM secret

Pain. Betrayal. Nightmares. For thousands of Pakistani women, genital mutilation is a reality rarely talked about.

Seven-year-old Mariam was excited. Her mother had dressed her up in her favourite powder pink frock, with her hair in two pigtails held with butterfly clips, and had told her she would be going to a surprise birthday party for her cousin.

Instead, her aunt took Mariam, holding hands, to a worn-down building with layers of peeling walls and a cold metal table waiting inside.

There, a curly-haired old woman softly murmured reassurances that Mariam didn’t understand, grabbed her and restrained her on the table. Then the pain started – it was sharp, searing, unforgettable. The next 20 minutes would split her life into a “before” and “after” – and shatter her trust in the person she most believed in: her mother.

Two decades later, the 27-year-old survivor of female genital mutilation (FGM) still bears the scars from that day. “I feel like something is missing inside me. It’s as if something has been taken away, and that has turned into a negative part of my body.”

“It is an emotional deficiency. You are not able to describe your emotions when talking about sexual needs,” she says. “When looking for a mate,” she adds, “you have a deficiency in [your] emotional and sexual response”.