International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics

An Indian woman from an Ismaili Shia Muslim sect called the Bohras is leading a petition against the practice of female genital mutilation, which still exists in her community, it has been reported.

News provider IPS spoke to the campaigner, who goes under the name Tasleem, about her fight to have the procedure outlawed.

"Initially, only the non-Bohras were signing, but once the media got into the act, many women from the community openly began talking about their painful experience," she stated.

Her petition is to the local high priest Dr Syedna Mohammad Burhanuddin and the campaigner recently told Indian news provider Outlook she thought as many as 90 per cent of Bohra people practise the ritual.

IPS said there are an estimated two million individuals in this community around the world.

Research from analysis and mapping company Maplecroft recently revealed in its Women's and Girls' Rights Index of 197 nations that up to nine out of ten teenage girls experience female genital mutilation in Somalia.

Posted by Carla Mackenzie