A shroud of secrecy shields the ritual, and Pakistan has no comprehensive national data on how widespread FGM is. Girls are subjected to FGM at an age when it is difficult for them to process it on their own. And the Dawoodi Bohra community does not even refer to the removal of the clitoral hood as mutilation – they call it circumcision, a rite of passage that must be gone through – that must not be questioned. Women who choose to speak out against this practice are at times threatened with excommunication from the community. “When you question an authority, you are shown the way out,” says Mariam.