The doctor walked into the post-natal ward that morning on her regular rounds.

The air was thick with excitement and the smell of antiseptics and all around her, she could see tired new mothers with their newborns wrapped nicely in their cots.

Her eyes picked out someone at the corner of the ward, wrapped in a blanket, oblivious to the joy around her. The doctor walked up to her.

"Hi, I'm Dr. Amal," the doctor smiled, attempting to start a conversation. The woman sniffed in response. The bed creaked as she tried to sit up.

Dr. Amal noted her sunken tired eyes, there was a dullness in her eyes, whether it was from the post-partum pethidine painkiller or grief, Dr. Amal was not sure.

"Doc. Good morning o. You don come to discharge me?" The woman asked, with fear in her eyes.

"No, Fatimah, I'm just here to talk. And you can just call me Amal," the doctor responded, flashing her a calming smile.

"Let's talk about what's on your mind," the good doctor pressed further.

Fatimah's mind went back to how it all began. It was supposed to be a rite of passage: something to keep the young girls focused and pure until they married.

All young girls went through this unspoken rite of passage before the bulge of their chest became noticeable.

She remembered it all very vividly. She was called into her grandmother's hut, where she saw two other cousins, girls in her age grade.

Her grandmother had offered them dry meat and talked about how like her name Fatimah which meant the one who abstains, this rite was going to help curb their urges and keep them focused and faithful in the future.

On the morning of the ritual, Fatimah and her cousins were escorted to a hut by her mother and aunties. They waited outside the hut, moments later she heard a muffled scream from inside the hut and when she peeped inside she saw a girl straddled and held down by four women, and in between her legs was an old woman doing this she couldn't make out but seemed painful. 

She panicked and bolted but there was as far as her tiny 10-year-old legs could carry her before she was caught by some men and brought back.

She was taken into the hut by her aunties but her mother was not allowed to go in, she saw the girl who was screaming some moments ago lying in a corner whimpering. 

She was lay down on a mat while the old woman cleaned her blade, Her aunties parted her legs and held her hands with the help of the old woman's apprentice, Tears were welling up in Fatimah's eyes, she was terrified that her protectors were about to do this to her. 

The old woman knelt between her legs and got to work, Fatimah jerked as the cold blade came in contact with her member and a white searing pain tore through her as the cutter lifted her hood and sliced off her clitoris, her labia majora and minor, dismembering her vulva and grinning as she went at it. 

One would think the cutter enjoyed the pains and screaming or perhaps her joy came from the almost clean job of dismembering one's vulva. Fatimah's vulva was sewn almost shut and a white pasty substance was applied to her vulva, she was taken to the corner of the hut where the other cut girl was lying, and from the corner of her eyes she could see her cousins come into the hut and she feared for them as numbness took over her.

“That is type III FGM and one of the worst forms of Female Genital mutilation," the doctor cut in.

 "When did you first notice something was wrong," she asked.

“The pain never really went away and for weeks after the cutting peeing hurt a lot, but I noticed something was wrong when I started seeing my period when I was 12, It was always very painful because my vulva was almost sewn shut and the blood couldn't flow out freely," Fatimah answered.

“How is your marriage," Dr. Amal quizzed on

“I met my husband and we got married after months of dating, I am in love with him but I never really took any interest in the sexual part of the relationship, and when we decided to have babies the only sensation I felt down there when we made love was a prickly discomfort and this has affected our sex life," Fatimah replied. 

"We've been having difficulties with conceiving and I just lost this one after all the trials," she continued, her voice breaking.

“Your fallopian tube might have been compromised due to urinary tract infections from the cutting. But we'd have to run further tests to be sure of that, on the bright side you're not among the thousands that lose their lives every year due to complications from the FGM procedures", Dr. Amal said, trying to reassure Fatimah.

“And you could undergo a reconstructive surgery called deinfibulation, it'd involve the reopening of your vagina and restoring some of your genital components,” she opined.

A smile lit up on Fatimah's face on such options being available to her

"I'm sorry none of my fellow practitioners ever told you about this option," Doctor Amal apologized. "But you'd promise me that you'd speak up and sensitize people in your community about the vices of FGM and not just turn a blind eye,” she added smiling.

“Thank you, Amal, I would,” Fatimah replied visibly elated.

“I'd send a nurse right away to prep you for your test", Dr Amal said turning to walk away.

The doctor was happy she had scored one over the toxic culture of female Genital mutilation, she hoped she had started a chain reaction that would spread from Fatimah to her rural community and further.