By Zainab Khambata
Country of Residence: India
As the blade pierced through my skin,
All I could feel was pain.
I looked into my mom’s eyes,
And she shrugged helplessly in vain.
I was yet another girl,
Subjected to female genital cutting.
As a mere child of seven,
I did not contest,
I wasn’t even aware,
That all my dignity as well as my rights,
Were stripped from me bare.
“It is done in the name of religion,” they said.
And it is this ideology I dread.
It is done to curb a woman’s desires,
To subdue her voice and her fire.
My grandmother said “It’s all right, all girls must go through this in their life.”
Why has society rendered women unaware?
To the point where they do not know and do not even care.
They torment innocent children,
With everlasting scars,
But yet this practice they refuse to stop,
Fearing from society’s eyes they will drop.
When will this age-old tradition come to an end?
So that without emotional trauma,
The rest of their lives little girls can spend.
It is time to speak up about this,
And make people aware,
It’s time to show that we care.