Female circumcision – also known as female genital cutting or female genital mutilation has been a controversial and sensitive matter in Malaysia. Regrettably, research on female circumcision in Malaysia scarce. In 2009, the National Fatwa Committee issued fatwa that made it obligatory (wajib) for Muslim women to be circumcised unless this was potentially harmful to their wellbeing. All the same, there is still no consensus on this position among Muslim and religious leaders in the country.

Over 90% of Muslim women in the country have been circumcised. Malaysian women provided an array of reasons to subscribing to the practice;  pricking or inflicting a superficial cut on the skin or tip of the clitoris when they were infants and up to the age of six” (FRHAM and ARROW, 2021). The Malaysian government declared that “Malaysia’s kind of FGM/C” is the kind of female circumcision that falls under Type 4 of the World Health Organization FGM classification scheme, i.e., “all other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes, e.g. pricking, scraping and cauterising the genital area.”