THERE is one woman's story of female genital mutilation that Cora Bissett cannot forget.

"There are different types of FGM," said Cora, during a rehearsal break of her new play Rites, which is based on the ritual known as "female circumcision".

"There is one - which is the most extreme - where parts of the genitals are removed and then the woman is stitched up.

"I heard how a woman had undergone FGM when she was much younger in her country of origin.

"She hadn't spoken to anyone about it until she spoke to a female chaplain.

"She said on her wedding night her husband had to cut her open.

"The violence of that for me is really hard to understand. I can get my mind around more moderate forms, I still couldn't condone it or want it, but I can understand it.

"But a piece of your body that's meant to be open that's closed over and results in this violence? I can't get my head round it."

Cora has tackled serious "real life" subjects through her directing career, including Roadkill, which examined sex trafficking, and Glasgow Girls - a musical based on Drumchapel school pupils fighting for their refugee peers.

But Cora admits that FGM was an issue she had never considered.

As the Evening Times has reported, around 350 girls are born in Scotland each year into communities where FGM is part of the culture.

Around 24,000 people are born in countries with a prolific rate of the practice currently live north of the border.

The largest communities affected are Nigerians, followed by Somalis, and also people from Egypt, Kenya, Sudan and Eritrea.

Around 125 million girls and women are estimated to have had FGM worldwide.

It was a discussion with the Scottish Refugee Council that led Cora to consider the subject.

Cora said: "We talked about what was happening in Scotland.

"I think we're in an exciting time. We have become a very multicultural country.

"That, for me, is exciting and positive but it also brings with it challenges. We're meeting new cultures with our set of presumptions.

"They suggested that I do something on FGM because a lot of young girls presented to the Refugee Council with it."

Cora said these girls were now in Scotland and were "part of our story".

She added: "Our health officials need to be clued up on how to deal with these girls, our legal system needs to be clued up on how we protect these girls.

"We deem FGM as child abuse in the eyes of the law, but that culture might not deem it as child abuse.

"You've got two worlds colliding there. And that for me was very interesting."

Cora teamed up with Yusra Warsama, a poet and performer from Manchester with Somali heritage.

Yusra comes from a community with links to FGM - in Somalia it is practised on 98% of girls.

The pair spoke to women and men - people who agree with it and those against it.

Cora said: "We could have made a play about this evil thing that happens to little girls but it's not helping us understand it any better.

"The whole play is about trying to give a voice to the people who do it, to the people who've been through it. It brings up issues of race, tension.

"The whole play is about asking lots of tricky questions."

They decided to record interviews to use the exact words of survivors in the play along with video and images.

However, there is no footage of FGM taking place because they believed that could be exploitative.

The pair found huge variations of stories on the subject - from a group of Somali women in Cardiff who say they left FGM behind 20 years ago, to a woman in Scotland unable to tell anyone what she's been through.

Then, Cora says, there's the "inspiring" youth group set up by a school teacher after her female pupils said they could not go on a horse riding trip because they had been 'cut'.

"That youth group has swelled to 90 and it's full of boys," said Cora.

The play is a co-production between National Theatre of Scotland and Oxford Road Corridor.

The cast includes Janet Kumah and James Mackenzie - well known for his role in children's TV show The Raven.

There are planned special screenings for women and communities affected.

Cora hopes those who come to see the play will come away with a deeper understanding of the cultural reasons for FGM.

She said: "I want the practise to end, of course I do.

"But I hope what people come out thinking is: 'Wow, there's good ways we can approach FGM and there are bad ways'.

"And bad ways are stigmatising communities and driving it underground."

Yusra said she hoped Rites would explore the "grey areas".

She added: "I hope people understand it's not as straight forward as we'd like it to be because it's embroiled in terms of race, society and socially. It's connected to identity and beliefs.

"It's a very complex thing."

Rites at Tron Theatre

Tue 5 (preview) - Sat 9 May 2015, 7.45pm

Box office: 0141 552 4267