Confronting Female Genital Mutilation in Waris Dirie?s Autobiography Desert Flower

摘要

This paper primarily discusses the contentious issue ofrecent times, i.e., Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) in Waris Dirie’sautobiography Desert Flower published in 1997. FGM is a genderbased violence that affects the physical, psychological, and sexualhealth of women. It is constructed as a means of policing the womenbodies by men in order to assure that they are clean and pure butwomen are made to believe that it is carried out for their ownbenefits. The convinced women then consider it as their duty tocontinue the ritual throughout their family lineage. Young girls arelured into accepting it by the belief that they will enter the respectfulgates of womanhood by adopting it and it will make their parents,family, and the whole clan proud of them. Women need to beliberated from the shackles of such inhuman practice. They need tobe educated about it. For this purpose, mid wives and doctors play amomentous role. Waris, in her autobiography has revealed howproper education and right behaviour of doctors can bring womenlike her out of the sufferings of FGM and lead a healthy and normallife. She does not stop at this. She decides to be the voice of thevoiceless and bring about mass awareness against the whole processof FGM. She gave several interviews regarding this issue, publishedbooks and made a film based on this novel. As a result of hercontinuous efforts to eradicate this ritual, she became a HumanRights ambassador for the U.N. She has also established the DesertFlower Foundation to advance women’s rights in Africa.