"Nu weet ik dat genitale verminking niet slechts een Afrikaans probleem is, maar een probleem dat de hele wereld aangaat. Nu weet ik dat het aantal genitaal verminkte vrouwen in Duitsland in de komende 10 jaar zal verdubbelen. Nu weet ik dat FGM ook in elk Europees land wordt uitgevoerd."
...
"Nu weet ik dat de slachtoffers hulp nodig hebben, van ons allemaal."

Jest to naprawdę ciężka książka. Porusza bardzo poważny temat, jakim jest obrzezanie kobiet. Waris Dirie sama przechodziła przez ten brutalny rytuał i teraz chce sprawić, żeby został on całkowicie zabroniony.
Jest to niesamowite, ponieważ gdyby nie ona nikt nie zwracałby na to uwagi. Kobiety często boja się o tym mówić i właśnie to uświadamia nam Waris. Sama przełamuje ten temat tabu i wypowiada się o okaleczaniu kobiet. To niesamowite, co ta kobieta robi. Jednak nadal jest dużo do zrobienia i właśnie ta książka nam to pokazuje.
Przyznaję, ciężko mi się czytało tę książkę. Porusza bardzo poważny temat i nie jest ona przeznaczona dla dzieci czy nastolatków. Przede wszystkim dorośli powinni zainteresować się tę pozycją, ponieważ pozwoli nam ona otworzyć się bardziej na świat, zobaczyć inny punkt widzenia.

Vrouwenbesnijdenis is en blijft een belangrijk thema, waar Waris Dirie in dit boek op een veel theoretischere manier naar kijkt: ze vertelt niet zozeer haar eigen verhaal, als wel dat van de vele meisjes die in Europa leven, maar toch besneden worden. In Europa door een professionele arts, in Europa door een overgevlogen midgaan, op vakantie in Afrika... De cijfers - ondertussen weliswaar meer dan tien jaar oud - zijn schokkend en een mens kan alleen maar hopen dat de situatie ondertussen verbeterd is, al vrees ik dat dat niet het geval is.
Desondanks irriteerde ik mij tijdens het lezen soms aan de inconsequente houding van Waris Dirie: het heeft niets met Islam te maken, dan weer wel; in Nederland is er een grote scheiding tussen de migranten die er leven en de Nederlanders zelf om dan vijf minuten later uit te roepen hoe heerlijk het er is en hoe de multiculturele samenleving er gelukt is...
Ik blijf het straf vinden dat ze haar verhaal naar buiten gebracht heeft en zo duizenden meisjes een stem gegeven heeft, maar in dit boek vond ik haar stem jammer genoeg eerder storen dan bijdragen.

agghiacciante

The third of Waris Dirie's books. This one takes the focus away from her own life and zooms in on the lives and experiences of African women living in Europe with FGM. The book was published in 2005, so this is now ten years out of date. Things may have gotten better, or the status quo may remain. I don't know. But I'm sure the problem hasn't gone away. In this Waris travels around speaking to activists, doctors, victims in Austria, France, England and Germany, and is horrified to find that it's possible to get your girls circumcised in Europe, despite the fact that it is now illegal in many countries. And in other cases they send daughters back to the home country for a visit, where the proceedure can also be done. It is heartbreaking that it's going on, and that so much of it happens in well-meaning ignorance. Many people don't understand what it is exactly, or what it's consequences are; so many mothers arrange for this in the honest belief that they are doing the best for their daughters. So really I guess this book is a continuation to raise awareness and to educate people that this practice should not be tolerated.

This is all good stuff and you can't argue with it, so it feels almost wrong to criticise a book like this. But out of her three books it is the weakest. There's a lot of repeating, there is a bit of contradiction and a lot of muddle in the writing and the layout of it. So taking it on the level of a piece of writing, it's not that fantastic. Taking it on the cause it is defending, it's great.

One thing she brought up in one of the chapters I'd never really thought about before, but she's actually very right. FGM is illegal in many countries - that is, you should not mutilate female genitalia, leave it be as nature intended. But in the cosmetic industry craze, there is the designer vagina, and people paying scary sums of money to have parts reduced, enlarged, removed... where do you draw the line? And really, at what point does this surgery actually become illegal? And you can't use the arguement, oh, but they want it and they're paying for it so it's ok - because so many mothers genuinely want this proceedure for their daughters and will pay to have it done because they think they are doing the right thing for their child.

After reading Desert Children, I definitely want to go back and read Dirie's first two books that focus on her own experiences and her work against female genital mutilation in her own country. Desert Children is her third book, describing the steps she took as her attention turned towards Europe and the ways in which the practice lived under the radar and had varying laws and enforcements. It's a little unclear what specific role she plays - it seems as though she is more of a facilitator of the team who researches the information for her, although also has the conversations with more prominent individuals who might only be willing to talk to her. The book is an interesting mix of sharing the knowledge they learn and also her ongoing reflections about her experiences. It's definitely full of resources at the end, and realistic in the sense of accounting for progress in some areas while feeling stymied and frustrated in others.

story doesnt change much from beginning to end. while it did open my eyes to FGM, not my kind of book.

I have given the book 5 stars for tackling an important topic. The abhorrent practice of female genital mutilation came to Europe with various waves of African migration. This is an angry book, and rightly so. Yes, it is repetitive, but the author's investigations in France, Germany, Austria, Britain and the Netherlands reveal the extent of crimes against tens of thousands of young girls of African origin, in blind obedience to tradition, crimes carried out under the noses of doctors, nurses and social workers, who shrink from interfering in a different 'culture'. The book was published in 2005, but little has changed in the intervening 13 years. Although legislation prohibits the practice So far, France is the only European country that prosecutes parents and cutters.

Although the author is a UN ambassador, she fails to mention that neither the United Nations nor the World Health Organisation have made any real push to eliminate FGM in African countries by linking financial aid to campaigns against it.

A depressing read, but an important one.

This BOOK assist me so much as I learn more on FGM

Desert Children looks at the issue of female genital mutilation and compares the approaches to dealing with it in European countries. It is quite insightful on this issue of FGM

Great to read about FGM through a Euro-Centric perspective. Excellent and inspiring stories from women.

In Dirie's third book re: FGM (I haven't read the second one yet), she focuses on researching how widespread FGM is in Europe. She discovers that while there are "laws" to protect women and children from being mutilated in Europe, this precaution is still not enough and for most part, it's not really working. The parents just either do it in secret or go back to Africa to get it done by 'mutilators' there. This book is a real eye-opener of the backwardness of this custom. Read and learn.