Female genital mutilation in India is practiced primarily within a single Muslim sub-community, the Dawoodi Bohras, who number roughly one million in the country. Unlike the more severe forms documented in parts of Africa and the Middle East, the procedure in India typically involves cutting or removing part of the clitoral hood and is performed on girls, usually before puberty. Within the community it is called khatna, khafd, or khafz, and it remains legal because India has no specific law banning the practice.
Which Communities Practice It
The Dawoodi Bohra community is the only group in India known to carry out female genital cutting on a regular basis. There have been suggestions that smaller-scale cutting may occur among Sulemani Bohras and a sub-sect of Sunni Muslims in Kerala, but no population-level surveys have been conducted in those groups, so the extent is unknown.
For Dawoodi Bohra families who observe the tradition, khafz is framed as a religious obligation tied to an Abrahamic circumcision tradition that applies to both boys and girls. Many women within the community describe the ritual as connecting them to God’s will and as an integral part of Bohra identity. A women’s association formed in 2017 specifically to defend the right to continue the practice, with members characterizing it as minimal and harmless. That framing is sharply contested by survivors and health professionals.
What the Procedure Involves
The World Health Organization classifies female genital mutilation into four types. What is practiced in India falls mostly under Type 1: partial or total removal of the clitoral hood (the fold of skin surrounding the visible part of the clitoris), sometimes including a cut to the clitoral glans itself. It is typically performed by a community elder or, increasingly, by a medical practitioner in a private clinic.
Girls are usually taken for the procedure around age seven, often without being told beforehand what will happen. The cutting is done with a blade or scissors, sometimes with local anesthesia and sometimes without. Even when the cut is described as “small” or “symbolic,” it involves removing or injuring sensitive genital tissue from a child who cannot consent.
Physical and Psychological Health Effects
Immediate risks include severe pain, heavy bleeding, and infection. Because the procedure in India is often done outside a clinical setting (or in a clinic but without proper surgical protocols), the risk of complications is difficult to predict or control.
Longer-term consequences documented across all types of FGM include menstrual difficulties, urinary tract infections, difficulty urinating, and painful sexual intercourse. A 2025 WHO study found that women who have undergone any form of FGM are more than twice as likely to experience prolonged or obstructed labor, hemorrhage during childbirth, or to require emergency cesarean sections. Their babies face higher rates of fetal distress and lower newborn survival rates.
The psychological toll is substantial. The same research found that women with FGM have nearly three times the risk of depression or anxiety compared to women without it, and a 4.4 times higher likelihood of developing post-traumatic stress disorder. For many Indian survivors, the trauma is compounded by the fact that a trusted family member, usually a mother or grandmother, brought them to the procedure. That sense of betrayal can shape relationships for decades.
India’s Legal Landscape
There is no law in India that specifically criminalizes female genital cutting. This makes India an outlier among countries where the practice is documented. However, existing laws could theoretically be used to prosecute it.
In 2017, India’s then-Minister for Women and Child Development, Maneka Gandhi, stated that FGM constituted a crime under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO). POCSO defines sexual assault to include touching a child’s genitals, and aggravated sexual assault when carried out by a relative, guardian, or someone in a position of authority like a medical professional. The law also requires anyone who knows an offense is about to occur or has occurred to report it to police. India’s Attorney General has similarly stated that FGM is already prosecutable under multiple existing statutes.
In practice, though, no prosecutions have been brought. Applying a sexual offenses law to a practice that families view as religious ritual creates legal complexity, and courts have not yet tested the question. The general criminal code provisions for causing “hurt” or “grievous hurt” could also apply, but those carry lighter penalties than POCSO. Activists argue that only a dedicated anti-FGM law would send a clear enough signal and provide an enforceable framework.
The Movement to End the Practice
Two survivor-led organizations have driven most of the public conversation in India. WeSpeakOut, co-founded by Masooma Ranalvi, focuses on legal advocacy and is currently developing a draft bill to ban FGM. The organization has held consultations with legal scholars, medical professionals, and community members to build support for legislation. Sahiyo, co-founded by journalist Aarefa Johari among others, works primarily through education and storytelling, collecting survivor accounts and producing short films and advice content aimed at reaching Bohra families in smaller towns.
Both groups share a strategic belief that law alone is not enough. Their approach prioritizes building what they call a “critical mass of dissent” within the community before pushing for a legal ban, on the theory that laws passed before communities are ready can backfire and drive practices underground. One grassroots tactic is “Thaal Pe Charcha,” community gatherings organized around shared meals where participants discuss gender norms and bodily autonomy in an intimate, non-confrontational setting.
At the international level, activists have submitted stakeholder reports to the United Nations and lobbied during India’s Universal Periodic Review process, pressuring the Indian government to enact a ban and develop a national elimination plan. The broader goal is to shift the conversation away from framing FGM in terms of religious purity or controlling female sexuality, and toward human rights, bodily autonomy, and the recognition that girls deserve to make decisions about their own bodies.
Why It Remains Difficult to Address
Several factors keep FGM in India under the radar. The Dawoodi Bohra community is relatively small and affluent, and the practice happens behind closed doors within families. Because the cutting is less physically extreme than infibulation (the most severe form, common in parts of East Africa), some community members and outside observers minimize its significance. The “it’s just a small cut” argument is one of the most persistent barriers activists face.
There is also genuine tension between respecting religious freedom and protecting children from harm. The Dawoodi Bohra Women’s Association for Religious Freedom has argued that khafz is a protected religious practice. Activists counter that no religious right extends to cutting a child’s genitals without her consent, regardless of how minor the cut is described as being. This debate plays out not just in courtrooms and op-ed pages but at kitchen tables within the community itself, where mothers who underwent the procedure wrestle with whether to subject their own daughters to it.