Disclaimer: This story contains graphic descriptions of female genital cutting practices. It is based on a real survivor's account and her mother's testimony, shared with full consent. Names have been changed to protect their identity.
Politicians promise accountability. Law enforcement vows to crack down on violence. The media reports on every arrest, every investigation, every step showing the country is finally taking wrongdoing seriously. But there’s an unspoken injustice happening every single day that no one wants to name, investigate, or stop. You may want to read this from a mother’s voice: "A lady comes and takes the baby to the room and comes out and gives something wrapped in a piece of paper." This is a text message I received just a month ago from a Sri Lankan mother describing the genital mutilation of her daughter, a violation so normalized that even her own mother didn’t recognize it as abuse. Female children are undergoing genital mutilation in homes across the country. Their screams are ignored. Evidence is buried. Perpetrators walk free. This is child abuse. This is an atrocity. And the refusal of authorities to call it what it is makes every person in power complicit. Here’s why.
The Anatomy of a Crime Scene
Let's be clear about what happened to Anam*. A woman, not a medical professional, arrived at the family home carrying a blade. She took the baby from the mother's arms and into a closed room. No one but the two of them. The door opens after a while. The woman hands severed tissue wrapped in paper to the grandmother for disposal. The baby's screams filled the house. Everyone heard them. Everyone ignored them. Is it tradition? Is it cultural? A religious obligation? None. This is assault. A deadly weapon on a defenceless child. It is serious bodily harm. It is torture. In Sri Lanka, it’s called kathnaa. By any legal definition that matters, this is criminal. "I wasn't aware of what was going on!" the mother told me, with belated rage. She watched her daughter being mutilated and was told it was normal, necessary. This is what institutionalized abuse looks like - embedded in social structures that victims don't recognize, witnesses don't understand they're allowing violence, and perpetrators operate with complete impunity.
The Cover-Up
When I pressed the mother about what was wrapped in that paper, her answer hinted at the lengths of the cover-up: "They gave it to the elder person. It was given to my mother; it is supposed to be buried! Honestly, I don’t know what was in it!" This wasn’t about tradition. It was about making sure no one saw. Making sure the truth could be hidden, safely out of sight. For years, she had no idea that a part of her own daughter was buried in her backyard.
Think about that. If FGC were truly necessary, truly harmless, truly what its defenders claim it is, why hide it at all? Why wrap it in secrecy? Why bury it such that the mother would never see? The act of concealment says more than any argument ever could. Everyone involved knew deep down they were doing something wrong. The careful wrapping, the hidden burial, it was acknowledgment. A silent confession that this was something shameful, something that could not survive daylight.
The Multiple Criminal Acts
Violence against Anam* didn’t end with genital cutting. Her mother recounted another horrifying ritual: "Another custom they follow is squeezing the baby's breast to extract some liquid. The baby cries out in agony, yet no one pays attention." This is torture. There is no other word for deliberately inflicting pain on a baby in the name of extraction. The justification? "To reduce the growth of the breast at a young age". Medically baseless folklore used to rationalize child abuse. "They do it for baby boys as well, but I didn’t allow it for my sons." By the time her boys were born, she had learned enough to fight back. She protected them from the same violence inflicted on her daughter. Children of all genders are at risk, and Anam* endured suffering that could have been stopped if anyone had called it what it is. The move from blind compliance to deliberate resistance proves one thing: acts of violence on children persist only because we pretend to look away.
The Criminal Network
Every crime needs enablers. In Sri Lanka, FGC operates through a sophisticated network that would make even the most notorious criminal syndicate envious.
- The Perpetrators: Women like the one who cut Anam*, operating without medical training, legal authorization, or any accountability. They carry blades, mutilate children, and collect payment for their services.
- The Facilitators: Family members who arrange the cutting, provide the location, hold down the victims, and ensure this happens on schedule.
- The Cover-up Artists: The grandmothers and elders who dispose of evidence, ensuring that what was removed from the child's body is buried and forgotten.
- The Institutional Enablers: Religious leaders who provide ideological cover, medical professionals who treat complications without reporting it as ‘child abuse’, and government officials who pretend this isn't happening.
Every single person in this network is complicit in the abuse. Every single one deserves to be held criminally responsible. But instead of arrests, we have acceptance. Instead of prosecutions, we have protection. Instead of justice, we have deliberate ignorance.
The Systematic Nature of the Crime
The mother confirmed that this wasn’t an isolated act: "Yes, it was done for all" the girls in her family. This is not occasional cruelty, it’s a pattern. A community-sanctioned violence, where the bodies of children are permanently altered before they even understand what’s happening.
The system moves with a chilling precision:
- Babies are marked from the moment the community learns of their birth.
- The acts are timed to align with cultural rituals, turning tradition into a weapon.
- Perpetrators carry out their work openly, confident in the shield of communal acceptance.
- Evidence is methodically erased, leaving no trace.
- Victims are far too young to understand, or to resist.
- And witnesses, raised to accept this as normal, become silent bystanders, their perception shaped before they can question it.
The State's Criminal Negligence
What makes Sri Lanka's current anti-crime rhetoric particularly obscene is the absence of law against FGC. No government agency tracks how many girls are mutilated. No healthcare system documents complications. No law enforcement agency investigates these crimes. No prosecutor presses charges against perpetrators. It's deliberate criminal negligence. Every day the state fails to act is another day it enables child abuse. Every political cycle that ignores FGC is a victory for those who profit from mutilating children.
The Fresh Evidence
What makes this mother’s testimony particularly damning is its immediacy. This isn't historical documentation, it's a mother processing, in real time, the realization that her daughter was mutilated. "I didn't know anything about it until I read your article, only now I understand how harmful it is," she told me. The present tense is crucial here. Right now, in 2025, a Sri Lankan mother is discovering that her daughter was subjected to a crime she didn't recognize. The evidence isn't cold, it's burning hot. The need for action isn't eventual, it's immediate.
Behind Closed Doors
As I write these words, somewhere in Sri Lanka a female child is being carried into a room. Somewhere screams are about to be ignored. Somewhere evidence is about to be wrapped and buried. Somewhere another crime is about to be committed against a defenceless child. Somewhere a blade is sharpened, and a name written on it.
Today, Anam* carries scars that will never fully heal. Her mother carries guilt that will never fully fade. And Sri Lanka carries the shame of a society that refuses to protect its daughters from systematic violence. The question isn't whether FGC is a crime. This mother’s testimony makes that undeniably clear. The question is whether Sri Lanka or the Muslim Community enabling this has the courage to treat it as one. Every day we delay is another day children suffer. This mother trusted me with her story. She shared her pain with consent, hoping it might protect other children from what happened to Anam*. The least we can do is listen. The most we could do is act.
