Mariya  00:00

I think we had a pretty good sized group, we had maybe 30 to 40 people there in attendance. And we showed all the videos, and then we decided to start the panel. And I can’t even remember the questions that were asked.

Amy  00:30

(That’s Mariya Taher, talking about the very first public showing of the videos that came out of the very first digital storytelling workshop we led together back in 2018. Mariya is one of the co-founders of Voices to End Female Genital Mutilation and Cutting, otherwise known as FGM/C. Voices is a storytelling project for survivors and activists. And I’m Amy Hill, the other co-founder.) 

Mariya  00:56

What I do remember from that event, though, is suddenly starting to feel very uneasy once two people walked into the room. And I immediately knew that they were from the Dawoodi Bohra community.

Amy  01:09

(Mariya is also Bohra. If you’re not familiar with the community, the Dawoodi Bohras are a minority religious denomination within the branch of Shia Islam. They trace their history to descendants of Fatima, the daughter of the Prophet Muhammad. Today, about a million Bohras live all over the world with large numbers in India, Pakistan, and the Middle East, and a large diaspora living in Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, and Australia.)

Mariya  01:35

The Bohra community has a certain type of clothing that’s distinguishable. So since I had grown up with it, I knew the people that wear that clothing all the time are generally more devout. So when they walked in, and I saw them in the clothing that they were in, I just immediately knew that these folks were here to rattle me.

Amy  01:57

(We’re going to come back to the story of what happened at that community screening later. First, welcome to the Voices Podcast. We need to let you know that it includes frank discussion about what FGM/C is and how survivors can be affected, in terms of their physical and mental health. This introductory episode also includes brief content about rape. 

If you’ve never heard of FGM/C, or if you’ve heard of it but aren’t quite sure what it is, the World Health Organization defines it as: “all procedures that involve the partial or total removal of external female genitalia or other injury to female genital organs for non-medical reasons.” We’ll go into more detail about the different forms of FGM/C in episode two. To kick off the podcast, Mariya and I wanted to talk about why we feel that storytelling is an important way to bring visibility to an issue that, frankly, a lot of people would like to pretend just doesn’t exist.)

Mariya  02:55

I think it is really important for survivors and advocates to be able to share their own personal stories for a variety of reasons. And I’ve heard so many times where someone has told their story, for instance, to a reporter, because they wanted to make it known that this happened, in hopes that they could create change, and they could prevent this harm from happening to other girls and other generations. And the article or the news clip that came out really reflects the reporter’s point of view and what they’re putting into it. And so whatever that particular person shared, might not be necessarily explained in a way that they want to be able to explain their story. They lost control because of what happened to them when they were younger. And they lose control again when their story is shared. So being able to share your own story means you’re able to gain agency. And for me, I think that’s a way of healing but also to help highlight just how global an issue FGM/C is.

Amy  04:03

I feel like it would be important to hear from you about what it was like for you, the first time that you shared your story publicly.

Mariya  04:12

It took me a very long time to get to where I am now and talk about things as openly as I do. I was in high school when I started to really understand what it was. I had a friend who was, like, really angry about what had happened. And she was the person who first used that term female genital mutilation and really connected the dots for me, and and then I started to always just kind of wonder about it, and there really wasn’t anything about it in the Bohra community. And there was nothing about it happening to people born in the U.S., and it stuck with me. 

Amy  04:51

(This was in the early 2000s. And while a number of groups overseas had for some time been working to end FGM/C, it was viewed mostly as an issue that only affected countries in Africa. Few people were talking about how it impacts the lives of survivors living here in the United States.)

Mariya  05:08

I remember writing some papers in college, and then I went to grad school for social work. And for my thesis, I decided that I wanted to do a study on understanding why it continued in the U.S. specifically, and really just build knowledge for social workers in the field. Because I knew there was a gap from personal experience, and I also had access to people who had undergone it. The way I approached it was in a very academic way. That’s why I ended up doing research. I was like, there’s no research out there, so I’ll do research. And then I decided to start writing about it afterwards. And I’m a writer, so I wrote some creative pieces about my own story and some of the interviews that I had done. I protected everybody’s identity when I was writing things about it. I felt like I had control with the writing, so I was okay with using my name and sharing my story in that way. But I wasn’t quite okay with anything more public than that.

Amy  06:08

(Over the next several years, Mariya began posting some of her writing online. Other Bohra women contacted her, and in 2015, she joined together with four of them to form an organization that would work to end khatna, which is what FGM/C is called in their community. They called the organization Sahiyo, which is the Bora Gujarati word for “female friend.” They chose this name because they understand that only through listening and connection and community building, will people’s views be transformed. Right away Sahiyo got some significant media visibility. But it emphasized something other than the issue they were trying to address.) 

Mariya  06:50

One of the first things was, ABC News was trying to do a piece on FGM/C in the US. And I decided I would talk to them, but I only agreed to talk to them anonymously. I wasn’t ready to come out. They actually didn’t even mention religion, and I was very appreciative of that, because there is a stereotype that all Muslims undergo FGM/C, and I didn’t want to perpetuate that stereotype. And I was really happy about the piece. What I wasn’t prepared for was the backlash that came, in terms of how many just mostly alt-right wing conservative news sources automatically connected it to Islam, and then connected it to immigrants. And that just made me wonder, like, was I causing more harm by talking about this?

Amy  07:41

(Mariya really wrestled with how to speak openly about FGM/C in the Bohra community in a way that wouldn’t fanned the flames of the xenophobia that Trump and his supporters had whipped up. So at first, Sahiyo mostly focused on outreach and support for survivors; they shied away from further news coverage. But then eventually, Mariya did come forward more publicly, when she decided to be part of a news segment about work she was doing to help pass a law banning FGM/C in Massachusetts. We’ll get into the legal landscape around FGM/C in the U.S. in episode four of the podcast. For now, here’s how Mariya described the experience of finally showing herself publicly on video, talking about FGM/C.) 

Mariya  08:22

I think it took me about seven years, really, from like the first moment of research, to deciding to come out publicly on video. And that was huge, because that was the first time I was, like, revealing my face, and that just felt a lot scarier than writing about it, because I was really worried about what my family would say or what would happen to my family members who were still part of the community and went actively to the to the mosque or the masjid. And I did it. And that was a few years ago. And yes, there was some controversy. And yes, I did have issues with my family members. But we did work through that, and I do feel much more comfortable now talking about it. Although I’m also at a level where I don’t necessarily share my own personal experience of FGM/C anymore, because I feel like I’ve told my story. I am in a place where I’m, like, the stories that I want to tell are different. 

Amy  09:20

(I had known most of this already, and it resonates with me, even though I’m not a member of a practicing community. I grew up in white suburbia, but when we started the Voices Project, I had already been leading storytelling workshops with survivors of violence for years, after telling my own story about the abuse that happened in my family. Sometimes I feel okay about making that story known. And sometimes I feel like doing so suggests that in order to really care about an issue, you need to have lived through it, which I don’t believe at all. But back to our conversation. Hearing Mariya reflect on her decision to publicly speak out made me wonder how that journey plays into the storytelling work we’re doing with the Voices Project. Since 2018, we’ve been bringing survivors and advocates together in workshops, to connect with each other and create short videos.) 

(Mariya), I’m curious about how it’s been for you to help lead the actual workshops. And I’m just wondering how it has made a difference that you’re a survivor yourself, just in terms of how you work with people on their stories.

Mariya  10:24

I have so many different angles that I come to this project with. Yeah, I grew up in a community that practices it, I’ve undergone it myself. I’m also a social worker, I’ve been doing advocacy on this. So I think people maybe trust me a little bit more, telling their story, I hope they trust me. With Voices, it is community led, too, and we try to really help people recognize that we understand this on multiple levels, and I think that that gives people more of an ability to be vulnerable with us, because everybody’s vulnerable, if you’re telling your story. I mean, I’ve been vulnerable when I’ve told my story, you know, whatever your story is. I think because Voices has been going on for five years, that trust has grown. So I have a question for you, Amy. Could you think of a moment really that stands out to you, in terms of what’s felt rewarding. And then also what has felt challenging about leading the Voices workshops, from your own perspective and position?

Amy  11:39

There was a moment in the very first workshop that we did, where I was sitting in the little voiceover recording room with one of our storytellers. And just going over for the final time, her script, and we were just chatting. And as sometimes happens, when I’m working with people like that in a really, you know, close way, I just felt such a lovely sense of connection with this person in that moment. She was really entrusting me with this deeply personal private story and bringing it to life for the first time in this particular way. 

(Then I told Mariya about one of the challenging moments I’ve had with Voices. It happened in one of our recent workshops, right in the middle of the story circle, when people were describing the experiences they planned to explore in their videos.)

One of the storytellers was talking about very, very early, that experience of having their ability to trust completely severed. She alluded to how that has affected her through her life, of not being able to have trusting relationship,s and it brought back for me an experience that I had when I was in high school, when I was date raped. It was actually the best friend of my boyfriend, who was at college at the time. And I was out at a small gathering, and, you know, there was a lot of alcohol, as was typical at that time. And I was pretty incapacitated, and I definitely couldn’t consent. And I hadn’t really made that connection directly, from that experience to that topic that people talk about in the Voices workshops of, my body is not my own. So it was hard in the moment, but it was also, honestly, it was like a huge sense of relief. Seeing that so clearly, and being able to feel it and being in the company of that group–  that felt so nourishing. Obviously, I wasn’t going to bring it up at that time, because everyone was sharing their stories, but it just felt for me, kind of internally, like really supportive, to just be in that space with everyone.

Mariya  14:04

Yeah, thanks for sharing that, Amy. I feel like it is just amazing sitting in the story circles each time and just what you end up learning about everybody and what they start to talk about. And you can see how after the first person, the next person feels more comfortable. It’s something that I find very beautiful to watch and yeah, you sharing what you just shared made me think about the story circle in general, just like how people are willing to open up in that way. 

Amy  14:37

It’s amazing, isn’t it? Being able to be there just feels like such a privilege because, you know, in our daily lives, when you first meet people, you don’t typically get to that level of intimacy so quickly, so I’m always just so moved and amazed that the trust is there and that people will do that with us.

You know, I’ve learned so much from you about some of the nuances of what it means to share a personal story about FGM/C, but the time when I saw firsthand what the risks can be in the real world was that first public screening some years ago. And I would just love to hear that story.

Mariya  15:28

Gosh that incident caught me so off guard. So we had done our first workshop, and that was in 2018, I think. And we decided that we wanted to do a public screening, and we set it up so that we would screen all of the stories first and then we would have a panel.

Amy  15:51

(The panel was underway. And Mariya was in the middle of answering a question, when two members of the Bohra community walked into the room.)

Mariya  16:00

I just kind of froze. And I think I remember trying to finish my last sentence, I don’t remember, again, what the question was. I remember they sat down, and I believe it was a couple, there was a man and a woman. And then the man raised his hand at some point, and then he just was like, “well, my question to you is that if this is so harmful, then where’s the evidence that this is harmful?” And I’ve heard these things before, I just hadn’t had it happen, where it was like face to face there with a person. I think usually when I’m with somebody who’s from the Bohra community, it’s somebody that I know, and I know their position, I’m ready to like, argue or have a conversation. But these were just complete strangers. 

Amy  16:44

(As she described what happened, Mariya mentioned that at the time, her activities and those of others who were speaking out against khatna in the Bohra community were being monitored.)

Mariya  16:54

So I could see how this happened. They were trolling Sahiyo social media, found out about this event, and then probably somebody was like, “you need to go and check out what this is.” Because a few years ago, particularly, there was a lot of trying to pacify or play down what this issue was amongst the Bohra community. So the man asked that question, and I did not say anything afterwards, I just honestly, I couldn’t even form a coherent sentence. And then I remember the woman, who I’m assuming was his wife, coming out, and also saying that she had undergone it. And she was talking about how like, there was no harm done, you know, defending it, like it’s no big deal. And I knew they knew who I was. And that I was from the Bohra community, because she did say something like “you’re Bohra too” or something like that. So obviously, they knew I wasn’t just a random person, they came specifically because I was there. And so that’s kind of scary in itself, and I was really afraid they were going to come up to me and talk to me more. And this is not just like a talk. I mean, it’s the attempt to rattle you more, and that’s exactly what their questions were.

Amy  17:59

(Before these two people could continue questioning Mariya, some of our colleagues who were also on the panel stepped in to protect Mariya from further harassment.)

Mariya  18:07

I just felt very supportive and fortunate in that situation, because I just, I don’t think I could have handled it at all. And that has to do with my own challenges around having grown up in the Bohra community, so that it was triggering. What pissed me off was that they came in after all the stories were shown. So they didn’t even sit down and see all the stories, and not all the stories were from the Bohra community. But they just came in and decided they were going to question. And it was discrediting all these other stories that they had not witnessed, not listened, not heard, to try to prove the point that I was wrong, essentially.

Amy  18:46

It was intense. Actually, I was frankly shocked that they would have the nerve to just come and challenge it. Like that just felt so inappropriate.

Mariya  18:57

That woman wasn’t the first person that I’ve heard that has said that, “oh it didn’t affect me. I’m okay.” And that’s not really the point. The recognition is that something is happening to a young girl in the Bohra community. It’s typically when you’re seven, without your permission and usually involves deception. A trusted figure is taking you. There could be extreme physical or mental health consequences, many times there are. My own memories are very hazy. I don’t actually remember a lot from it. But I have stories of other people who are like “we don’t remember anything.” But we get this in our Voices workshop, too, people who are like, “we don’t know if we have a right to share a story” because they don’t have all the pain or they don’t have the memory. And it’s still a violation, right? If you think about it, before anything physical happens, before a cut happens, this person is taken and told to expose themselves. Their underwear is taken off, they’re held down, usually. And that’s not something that should be happening.

Amy  20:06

(Think about that. Then think about how curious it is that for a long time, FGM/C wasn’t really even acknowledged as a form of child abuse or gender-based violence. It was, and in some cases still is, seen as this other thing, this mysterious cultural practice. Today, there are many dedicated organizations all over the world working really hard to end it. And there are also literally thousands of other groups focused on preventing violence, that turn a blind eye to cutting. But back to my conversation with Mariya.)

Mariya  20:41

It’s just … people find a way to justify all sorts of forms of harm, because, I think, a lot of people don’t want to admit they’re wrong, or they’ve caused harm, you know. So they find ways to make it acceptable in their eyes.

Amy  20:55

(I’m pretty sure that incident at our story screening affected both of us more than we realized.) 

Mariya  21:01

I was not expecting to feel that triggered, so it was, it came out of the blue for me. I was very shaken. I was fine the next day, and I felt very fortunate to have the people there who were supporting me. But I also came away with a lesson that we need to really think about when survivors share their stories publicly like this, how to build support.

Amy  21:17

(We didn’t start the Voices Project thinking that telling personal stories would necessarily be easy, or even enjoyable, for people who’ve lived through FGM/C and are still living with its aftermath. We already had a clear protocol for bringing people into a Voices workshop. And we were committed to not representing the issue in graphic or sensationalized ways that might trigger survivors, or cause the average person who doesn’t know much to just consume the pain of FGM/C while remaining at a safe remove, instead of learning how they could help. But that public screening helped us refine our approach to include more time to talk about the implications of speaking out publicly, to allow for discussions about how to handle backlash from family or community members, to provide opportunities for those storytellers who want them, to take part in story screenings and trainings, and also to offer access for Voices alumni to a trauma therapist with years of experience working with FGM/C survivors. So far, we’ve guided nearly 70 people through a creative process of sharing their stories and learning how to make them into short videos. These videos have received thousands of views on social media, and have led to meaningful conversations within families and communities. All of that feels important. But what probably feels most valuable to both Mariya and me about the work is how it lands for people who decide to come forward with a story.)

Mariya  22:49

For me, I think storytelling, and what I’ve seen happen, is that it helps create relationships with others, it helps build community in a way that they’re able to talk about this. And if you’re able to talk about it, you start to recognize that no, this shouldn’t have happened to me. Or you might recognize that it’s harmful and that you have a right to feel whatever it is you’re feeling. Telling your own story and sharing your own story allows you to understand that, but also for others to have empathy with what you’re going through. And sometimes that’s what you need. You just need someone to listen to you, to what you have to say.

Credits  23:41

To watch the stories Mariya has made and the other Voices digital stories, visit our website at voicestoendFGMC.org. 

By the way, if you’ve heard a few different terms used to refer to the cutting of female genitalia, you’re not wrong. For the Voices Project, we use FGM/C, because it’s an overarching term that’s inclusive of many different countries and communities. Sahiyo, the organization that Marya helped start to address cutting in the Bohra community, uses female genital cutting, or FGC, because they know from experience that the word “mutilation” can alienate people. And because Bohras who continue to support the practice genuinely believe they are doing so for the benefit of Bohra girls, not to harm them, and certainly not to mutilate them. FGC is also used by many other grassroots groups for the same reasons, but other institutions and activists actually prefer the term FGM because it emphasizes the disfigurement caused by cutting. 

Next on the Voices to End FGM/C podcast, a survivor and a therapist speak of anger, healing, and accountability. This episode was created by Amy Hill and Mariya Taher, with editorial and production support from Ryan Trauman and Kristel Mendoza Castillo. Featuring the music of Blue Dot Sessions. Special thanks to everyone who has told a story in a Voices to End FGM/C digital storytelling workshop.