Like many teens coming up to summer break, Leyla was excited about her vacation. Born and raised in the midwest, her parents told her that for a special treat she was going to fly with them to Somalia to meet her grandparents and extended family.



“Even though I’m one of four girls I was the one they picked to go.I felt like I really was the lucky one,” she says. But when she got there, instead of practicing Somali and hanging out with her cousins, she discovered the reason for the trip was quite different.

She was driven to a remote village and told she was going to have her clitoris removed. “I just felt like she had ambushed me. I felt scared but I also felt like I had no choice [...] I felt mad and scared but I didn’t know what to do. I felt so powerless.”



Campaign groups and survivors of FGM warn that despite legislation against female genital mutilation – which involves removing part or all of a girls outer sexual organs and can result in physical complications, death in childbirth and lifelong trauma – American girls are being taken out of the country to be cut, and may be subjected to mutilation on US soil.



A lack of widespread knowledge and information about FGM put girls like Leyla at risk, says Shelby Quast, policy advisor at the campaign group Equality Now. “One of our biggest concerns is that girls are being taken out of the country for vacation cutting during school vacations,” she says. “We look at the various diaspora communities and as they grow, the number of girls at risk grows as well.”



Mariama Diallo, African community specialist at Sanctuary for Families, a New York-based nonprofit, said there was anecdotal evidence that cutters were flown over by families to cut a number of girls, often babies. “There is a big lack of knowledge about FGM. It’s seen as a cultural issue, but it is a harmful practice that amounts to child abuse and it is happening to US citizens,” she says. She has clients with children in some communities who are terrified of taking their children to their birth country, and are ostracized for refusing to get their daughters cut.



This week the Guardian backed the campaign of Jaha Dukureh, a 24-year-old personal banker from Atlanta, who has started a petition calling on the Obama administration to gather information on FGM in the US and devise a national action plan.



FGM has been illegal in the US under federal law since 1996, and “vacation cutting” has been outlawed since last year. But a lack of prosecutions and desire to hold on to what is seen as a deep-rooted cultural practice, means American girls are still being cut, according to experts. At least 228,000 American women and girls are at risk of the practice, according to research from the African Women’s Health Center of the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.



Having had a typical American upbringing, Leyla, now 23, was horrified and scared at the idea of going through surgery in a remote area. Choking back tears, she describes the moment she was taken to the house of the cutter: “They had to hold me down. There was no anaesthetic, no gloves, no pain medication after, no nurse to take care of you. It was the most painful thing I have ever experienced. They cut you like they are cutting paper. It’s like you die. I was screaming and crying.”



She was taken to another room to recover. “But you are just bleeding, with a wad of cotton wool in your underwear. You are in the middle of nowhere, and they are improvising surgery,” she says. “It took a week for it to kick in that I’d been through this. I felt like I was dreaming and that at some point I’d wake up. I felt so violated. Why didn’t they just let me decide when I got older instead of ambushing me in the middle of nowhere?”



The consequences of FGM can be life-changing and, in some cases, fatal. Lesha, a 21-year-old from a southern state describes how she and her sister were sent to Guinea when they were 11 and 9 respectively. “I went to Africa to learn about my identity just to end up being scarred for life,” she says.



She describes how she and her sister shared a room growing up, and were best friends. As a result of FGM, her sister died. “What I remember is she was blamed for not taking their herbs and everything they were doing to help her, which never included taking her to a doctor. She was blamed for not surviving, and I was praised for taking it well,” she says. “When we came back, no one asked about what happened to her. No one asked why she was just no longer there. I was told to forget it, like it never happened.”



Other complications include an increased risk of death during childbirth, recurrent infection and pain during sex. Types of FGM range from type one, which involves the removal of the clitoris, to type three, the removal of clitoris, labia and sewing up of a girl so only a small hole remains to urinate and menstruate. Lesha was subjected to type three. “Sex is painful, and I hate, hate, hate it,” she says. “I hate being touched. It feels like rape every time.”



Taina Bien Aime, director of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women and a long-time anti-FGM campaigner, says comparisons between male and female circumcision are unhelpful. “Type one FGM would be like removing a male’s testes, type three is equivalent to removing both the testes and the penis. There is no way that would be deemed acceptable.” Unlike male circumcision, FGM also inhibits sexual pleasure and can cause severe pain and sexual and reproductive health complications.



The survivors the Guardian spoke to were adamant that in their own communities in the US making sure girls were cut – and therefore kept ”pure” before marriage – was common.

“This is absolutely an American problem. We have vacation cutting, we have people sending money home so their relatives daughters can have the ceremony,” says Naima Abdullahi, 36. She went through FGM in Kenya as a nine-year-old. “It absolutely happens on US soil, but it happens in secret.”

Leyla, who has moved away from her family and is still dealing with the psychological ramifications of her ordeal, says the issue is too often ignored in America. “There needs to be more warning, more information. There needs to be a place where people can get help. My mother thought she was fulfilling her motherly duties. If there had been more resources, maybe it wouldn’t have happened,” she says. “That’s why I’m telling my story. If I can stop this happening to just one girl then it will have been worth it.”



Survivors are also often left dealing with the consequences of FGM on their own, says Mariama Diallo. “In London there are at least 15 specialist clinics, but in New York there are just a few hospitals were I can sent clients” she says. “We need real training for doctors, nurses teachers. Outreach is so important.”



Naima, now pregnant with her second child is struggling to find an OBGYN. “I hate going to the gynaecologist,” she says. “ The doctor walks in and the next thing you know there are interns coming to have a look and you think, you know what – I’m going to get dressed.”



She has called five different health centres, but failed to find a professional with the right training. “I’m looking for someone who I don’t have to educate about it. I’ve called five different health centres. Some don’t even know what FGM is.”



But the consequences of speaking out can be severe. Several of the FGM survivors the Guardian spoke to would only speak anonymously. “When someone speaks out about FGM, the whole community turns against them,” says Lesha. “Plus, we have no protection. No one understands what I go through or what it means.”



Naima, who is openly identifying herself as a survivor for the first time, hopes that with more women coming forward to tell their stories the taboo around FGM can at last be challenged. “Silence is a huge problem. Yes this is a cultural issue, but it’s a cultural problem,” she says. “ I need Americans to hear this. Because every girl that died, or ends ends up in an emergency room because of FGM – they are paying the price for that silence.”

