ST. JOHN'S, N.L. —

It’s an age when girls are excited about playing outside, finding new friends and losing their first baby teeth.

But when Maryam Sheikh was six years old, she was taken to a secluded outdoor area and had her genitals cut and removed.

More than 40 years later, she can recall the agony like it was yesterday.

“It was awful. It’s something that’s difficult to describe, it was so painful,” she said.

“The blood was gushing. To this day, if I smell blood, I get nauseated. It brings me back to that day.”

Growing up in the small village of Garissa in northeastern Kenya, Sheikh is one of about 200 million girls and women alive today in the world who have been subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) — the practice of partially or totally removing the external female genitalia or injuring the female genital organs for non-medical reasons.