Ep. 4: Why are we still cutting our girls?
Meet Aarefa Johari, a passionate activist working to end the practise of Female Genital Cutting (FGC) in her Dawoodi Bohari community. She experienced FGC in her own childhood, being “cut” at the age of 7. And has dedicated her life to ensuring that young girls are no longer subjected to this horrific practise.
Speaking to Aarefa for Masala Podcast in her Mumbai flat was such an incredibly inspiring experience. I found Aarefa to be this quietly powerful force creating a revolution in her community, changing minds and stopping a terrible practise that has gone on for generations.
Aarefa is the co-founder of Sahiyo, an organisation working right at the forefront of changing attittudes to Female Genital Cutting in South Asian communities.
One of the primary goals of Sahiyo is to bring an end to the practice of female genital cutting (also known as female genital mutilation or female circumcision), which has been recognized as a human rights violation by the World Health Organization, United Nations Populations Fund (UNFPA) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Sahiyo also wants to create a culture in which a woman/girl’s body and female sexuality is not feared or suppressed, but embraced as normal,
Aarefa is also a feminist and journalist who writes on gender and work for Scroll.in.