Real Housewives of Dubai star Chanel Ayan revealed on the latest episode of the show that she survived genital mutilation as a child.

Chanel is of Ethiopian and Somali descent. The Bravo star explained that she and her sister had to forcefully undergo the circumcision. This was because “In my culture, it’s done to keep women virgins” until marriage.

During the episode, she was attending a hypnotherapy session with fellow housewife Dr. Sara Al-Madani when she tearfully revealed what she's kept close to her chest for years:

"At 5 years old, my aunt and my grandma came to pick us up to take us to another town. And then the next morning at 6 a.m., I didn't know where I was going whatsoever," Ayan confessed. "Then they took us to this man's house and they just tied us on the bed and we were circumcised."

She is now using her platform to bring awareness and discuss the effects and impacts of the barbaric act of female genital mutilation.

“I’m a survivor. I felt that I was utterly betrayed by my culture and my family. This is just a barbaric practice and it shouldn’t be happening to young girls,” she said in an interview with E! News this week. “It happened to me 35 years ago and I’ve never gotten over it.”

According to The World Health Organization, "more than 200 million girls and women alive today have undergone female genital mutilation in the countries where the practice is concentrated." It added that an estimated 3 million girls are at risk of undergoing female genital mutilation.