In Malaysia, female genital mutilation rarely appears in headlines, courtrooms, or official statistics, yet it is quietly practised on a vast scale. Known locally as sunat perempuan (female circumcision), the procedure is widely accepted within Malay Muslim communities and is often described as mild, symbolic, or purely religious. This softer language obscures a harder reality: under international medical and human rights standards, what is practised in Malaysia clearly falls under female genital mutilation, and its persistence reveals how deeply gender, religion, medicine and state silence can intertwine.
Studies conducted over the past two decades suggest that FGM in Malaysia is close to universal among Malay Muslim women. Surveys of women attending government and private clinics have found prevalence rates frequently exceeding 80 or even 90 percent. Most girls undergo the procedure in infancy or early childhood, sometimes within weeks of birth, long before consent or awareness is possible. The forms most commonly reported correspond to WHO Type IV, involving pricking, nicking or scraping of genital tissue, and in some cases Type I, which includes partial cutting of the clitoral hood or tip. While defenders stress that “nothing is removed” or that the cut is minimal, the World Health Organization classifies all such acts as FGM, regardless of extent or intent.
One of the defining features of FGM in Malaysia is its medicalisation. Unlike many African contexts where cutting is carried out by traditional practitioners, Malaysian parents often turn to licensed doctors, nurses or midwives, usually in private clinics. This medical setting reassures families that the procedure is safe, hygienic and modern, and shields it from the stigma associated with traditional cutting. Yet medicalisation has not reduced prevalence. Instead, it has normalised the practice, embedding it within routine healthcare and lending it professional legitimacy. Global health bodies consistently warn that medicalisation does not eliminate harm and may entrench FGM by making it appear benign and acceptable.
Religion plays a central role in sustaining the practice. In 2009, Malaysia’s National Council of Islamic Religious Affairs issued a fatwa declaring female circumcision obligatory (wajib) for Muslim women unless it causes harm. Although fatwas do not carry the force of criminal law, their moral authority is significant. Many parents cite religious duty as the primary reason for subjecting their daughters to FGM, often believing it to be a requirement of Islam rather than a cultural choice. This interpretation draws largely on Shafi’i jurisprudence, dominant in Malaysia, yet it is contested by many Islamic scholars worldwide, including Muslim authorities who argue that FGM has no basis in the Qur’an and contradicts Islamic principles of preventing harm.
Legally, Malaysia occupies a grey zone. There is no explicit prohibition of FGM in federal law, and the practice is not mentioned in the Penal Code. In theory, severe cases could fall under child abuse or assault provisions, but in practice there are no known prosecutions related to FGM. Government agencies rarely use the term “female genital mutilation,” preferring “female circumcision,” a linguistic choice that minimises perceived severity and weakens accountability. This legal and rhetorical ambiguity allows the practice to continue largely unchallenged.
Public discussion of FGM in Malaysia is limited and often defensive. Authorities and religious figures frequently argue that Malaysian practices are not comparable to those in Africa, framing international criticism as culturally ignorant or Islamophobic. Survivors’ experiences, particularly concerning pain, sexual health or bodily autonomy, are seldom centred, and open debate about women’s sexuality remains deeply constrained. Yet cracks are beginning to appear. Younger feminists, some medical professionals and Muslim reformist voices increasingly question whether a non-consensual procedure on a child’s genitals can ever be reconciled with child rights, women’s dignity and Malaysia’s obligations under international conventions such as CEDAW.
Malaysia’s experience challenges comfortable global assumptions about FGM. It shows that the practice can thrive not only in rural or impoverished settings, but also in middle-income, urbanised societies with advanced healthcare systems. Far from disappearing, FGM in Malaysia has adapted, cloaked in medical authority and religious legitimacy. Understanding this reality is essential, not only for protecting Malaysian girls, but for recognising that ending FGM requires confronting power, institutions and narratives wherever they exist, not just where the world expects to find them.
They keep telling us it’s just a small cut. Just a prick. Just a touch. Just tradition. Just religion. Just hygiene. Just don’t call it mutilation, please, because that word is uncomfortable and might upset respectable men in suits, white coats, or robes.
Well, Spicy Auntie is upset anyway.
Let’s be very clear: when you hold down a baby girl and cut her genitals for reasons she cannot understand, consent to, or escape from, that is violence. I don’t care if the blade is replaced by a sterile instrument. I don’t care if the room smells of antiseptic instead of incense. I don’t care if the person doing it has a medical degree framed on the wall. Violence wrapped in politeness is still violence.
What makes Malaysia particularly infuriating is not secrecy, but respectability. This is not happening in dark corners. It happens in clinics. It happens with receipts. It happens with nods of approval from religious councils and knowing smiles from professionals who should know better. This is patriarchy with paperwork. Patriarchy with a stethoscope.
And the excuses. Oh, the excuses. “It’s not like Africa.” As if African girls somehow deserve worse. As if harm becomes acceptable once it is smaller, quieter, bloodless enough to reassure the adults. “It controls desire.” Translation: female sexuality still terrifies us. “It’s wajib.” Funny how divine obligation always seems to land on the bodies of girls, never boys’ pleasure, never men’s power.
What enrages me most is the gaslighting. Girls grow up never being told what was done to them. Women are taught not to question, not to feel, not to connect discomfort or loss with that early cut. Silence is part of the procedure. So is shame. So is the idea that a good woman doesn’t complain.
Let me say this slowly for those in the back: no religion requires cutting a child’s genitals. No medical ethics justify it. No cultural pride excuses it. And no amount of euphemisms will wash the blood off the idea.
Malaysia likes to present itself as modern, educated, progressive. You don’t get to keep those labels while slicing into baby girls and calling it care. You don’t get to hide behind fatwas and lab coats and pretend this is compassion.
Spicy Auntie is done with the politeness. Stop cutting girls. Stop lying about it. Stop dressing violence up as virtue. And stop asking women to be calm about something that should make us furious.