Permission to use images and text should be directed to Spinifex Press FURTHER INFORMATION ON The Day Kadi Lost Part of Her Life Book development Map showing prevalence of FGM Publishers

The Day Kadi Lost Part of Her Life Spinifex Press and Female Genital Mutilation Answers to hard questions Why did you want to publish this book? The Day Kadi Lost Part of Her Life is an important book because it portrays the brutal reality of FGM in photos for the first time. Spinifex Press decided that this was an important topic to be discussed and given a wide airing in Australia. Spinifex is an independent feminist publisher whose aim is to publish titles that deal with gender and politics; FGM is but one expression of the types of patriarchal control and domination that confront women of all cultures in the 1990s and beyond.

We feel that The Day Kadi Lost Part of Her Life is our contribution to raising awareness and helping to eradicate this practice. Furthermore, part proceeds from the sales of this title world wide will be donated to FORWARD, a registered charity in the UK with the aim of campaigning for the elimination of FGM and other practices prejudicial to the health of women and children.

Don't you think that the photographs are unpleasant and confronting?

Yes, but the purpose of the photos is to document the practice in an honest way that shows how severe and painful these acts are for the girls who are subjected to FGM. Photographs can offer a greater impact than words alone; there exists a large body of medical, academic and anecdotal evidence surrounding FGM world wide, but The Day Kadi Lost Part of Her Life, with its accessible text complementing the images, allows the story of FGM to reach a far wider audience.

The bulk of the photographs portray Kadi as a normal little girl, going about the kind of everyday activities that millions of similar girls enjoy; the juxtaposition of images of Kadi being ripped from this life to endure unanaesthetised surgery highlights the unnecessary and brutal nature of FGM. Photos are integral to the impact of this book, and important in the process of raising awareness.

It is also our intention that the book be used for educational purposes. Pictures offer immediate access to persons of all ages and levels of language competence, and the delicate portrayal of the act meets the need for culturally sensitive educational material.

What relevance does this book have to Australia?

FGM is a global human rights issue. Australia is a multiple signatory to international agreements which call for the eradication of FGM. Nonetheless, FGM is performed on some girls in this country, and causes ongoing health concerns and difficulties to certain refugee and migrant women who have undergone the procedure before immigration. It is important to initiate discussion of FGM with the women concerned by listening with acute awareness of the sensitive nature of the issues involved, and with the aims of collaboration and cooperation. The Day Kadi Lost Part of Her Life, although depicting an occurrence of FGM in Africa, portrays a belief system and events which will be familiar to many female immigrants to Australia; these similarities should provide a starting point for new dialogues concerning FGM.

Isn't FGM only practiced by Muslims?

No, not exclusively, nor do all Muslims consider it to be part of the life of a young girl; in the words of Nahid Toubia, author of Female Genital Mutilation: A Call for Global Action, "FGM is practiced by Muslims, Christians, some animists, and one Jewish sect, but it is not a requirement of any of these religions; the distribution of the practice does not follow the distribution of these religious groups on the continentÉthis is a practice of culture more than religion."

Why do women participate in FGM?

"[FGM is] not related to any colour or any religion. It is related to a patriarchal class system of 5000 years ago when men started to build a patriarchal family, a patriarchal society."

The reasons that women participate in the perpetuation of FGM, either by subjecting their daughters to the act or by being the actual perpetrator of FGM are many and complex.

It is reported that in "some societies the practice of FGM provides the traditional birth attendants with power, status and money not usually accessible outside of the private domestic sphere." The society and culture that such women live in, as portrayed in Kadi's story, offer very few options for women to operate outside of the home; their role, and the status accorded it, are a direct result of their culture's patriarchally driven value system. For the circumcisers, their involvement in the act of FGM means employment and status in the community that they would otherwise only enjoy in a limited way. Reasons given for FGM include marriageability, chastity, maintenance of virginity before marriage, initiation into womanhood and/or the community, enhancement of male sexual pleasure, and cleanliness.

The Royal Australian College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has stated in literature for health professionals that in "all cases of FGM the intention is not of violence, but rather to ensure the future welfare of the child"; women who have FGM performed on their daughters' have their best interests in mind within the confines of their cultural experience. However, FGM is detrimental to the mental and physical health and well-being of girls and women, and broad based education programmes are the best way to facilitate change and eliminate FGM.

Is it your place to be talking about FGM? What gives privileged Western feminists the right to criticise the traditions of other cultures?

"It is good to swim in the waters of tradition but to sink in them is suicide"

Very often women who are affected by cultural practices of this kind are not in a position to speak out against them; greater access to the media and like organisations allow greater publicity to be given to the issue of FGM by enfranchised women in societies that accept in law the concept of female and male equality. However, it is not only Western, first world women and men who are outspoken against FGM; many of the most active and vocal opponents of FGM are women from the countries and cultures where FGM is practiced. Any practice which injures women and/or girls must not be allowed to be obscured by claims that cultural integrity is at stake, or that this is the way that things have always been done. FGM occurs in at least forty countries around the world, countries not necessarily linked in any way through religious or cultural similarities; industrialised and non-industrialised, first and third world women suffer through FGM. Many women of these cultures have found the courage to speak out against FGM, and we feel it is our duty to support them through raising awareness of these practices.

Why is FGM any different to the circumcision of boys?

The circumcision of boy-children, in the form it is known in Australia, involves the removal of the foreskin, or prepuce, from the penis. This act is performed for reasons of religion, in the Jewish faith, or for culturally imposed concepts of hygiene or for aesthetic reasons. "The degree of cutting in female circumcision is anatomically much more extensive [than in male circumcision]. The male equivalent of clitoridectomy (in which all or part of the clitoris is removed) would be the amputation of most of the penis. The male equivalent of infibulation (which involves not only clitoridectomy, but the removal or closing off of the sensitive tissue around the vagina) would be removal of all the penis, its roots of soft tissue, and part of the scrotal skin."(Nahid Toubia, Female Genital Mutilation, p.9) Unlike FGM, male circumcision is not performed with the aim of diminishing the sexual desire or drive of the male, nor to ensure chastity or virginity.

women@spinifexpress.com.au