An ordinary razor blade, a sharp knife, or a shard of broken glass. The mother and the aunts restrain the little girl while a woman is paid to inflict a pain so intense that it will never be forgotten. Afterwards the girl won't be able to move for a week, waiting for the wound to heal and the whole family praying it won't get infected.

For more than 125 million women around the world, the passage from infancy to adulthood is marked by the blood that comes from a female genital mutilation (FGM). The procedure comprises cutting the clitoris, sometimes scraping away the labia minora, up to the most extreme form: removal of all the external genitalia and sewing the incision closed leaving a small hole for menstrual flow and urine, which will later be cut open on the girl's wedding night. An obligatory ritual in certain societies, it is believed to "purify" women from their femininity, sentencing them to undergo excruciating pain to make them virgins for life, resistant to sexual pleasure, and therefore — the main aim — make them devoted and faithful wives.