Mumbai: An Australian court recently convicted a Bohra family for female genital mutilation (FGM), widely practised among Bohras across the world, but nobody has been taken to court for it in India despite a rising chorus from within the community against it. A growing number of women are speaking up about the time they were circumcised at the age of seven in dark rooms in the dingy bylanes of Bhendi Bazaar. No Indian law specifically deals with ‘khatna’, the Bohra word for circumcision. But lawyers and women’s rights activists say there is no need for a new law on FGM in India, as it can be written into existing laws. An enlightened judiciary can even read it into sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that deal with grievous hurt. India is also signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women which mentions FGM. Canada-based lawyer Dilshad Tavawalla, herself a victim of khatna while growing up in Mumbai, views it as a grave form of child abuse. She says female circumcision can be written into section 9 of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, which deals with aggravated sexual assault. Another piece of legislation, the Goa Children’s Act, already includes “deliberately causing injury to the sexual organs of children” in its definition of Grave Sexual Assault. This law can be adopted nationally or state-wise in India, says Tavawalla. The judiciary can also read it into sections of the Indian Penal Code such as Section 320, which includes, in its definition of grievous hurt, “privation of any member or joint” and “destruction or permanent impairing of the powers of any member or joint”. Section 322, which deals with voluntarily causing grievous hurt, can also be used against khatna. Women’s rights lawyer Flavia Agnes says the even graver Section 326 of the IPC, which talks of voluntarily causing “grievous hurt by means of any instrument for shooting, stabbing or cutting...” can also be used for FGM. The challenge, she says, is to get somebody to file a complaint against the practice. This is hard as many families are afraid to go against the community. The problem is that many families do not see it as a crime, says Nandita Shah, co-founder of Akshara, an NGO working on women’s rights. She believes that recognizing khatna as a crime will help many in the community to stand up against the practice. Currently, even mothers who are unwilling to have their daughters circumcised are forced to do so due to community pressure. The knowledge that it violates the law can itself act as an effective deterrent.

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