By SARAH PRICE

Nimko Ali is not shy when it comes to talking about vaginas, especially when it’s for a good cause.

That good cause is promoting awareness and prevention of female genital mutilation (FGM), one of the most widely practiced and tabooed subjects regarding women today.

“The lack of sensitivity toward FGM is what shocks me, and people wanting to ask me about my sexual experiences,” she says.

Ali is a British-Somali FGM survivor and campaigner against the practice.

She recently spoke on the topic in  a conversation with Anne Summers at Federation Square in Melbourne, both to shed some light on the experience of female genital mutilation and to protest against what she calls “an all-out crime against gender”. I followed up that conversation with her at a later time.

FGM has affected more than 133 million girls and women worldwide, according to the United Nations.

And it is happening here in Australia, where 5640 girls under the age of 15 are considered at high risk, according to the organisation No FGM Australia.

UNICEF reports FGM is a violation of human rights. While it is condemned by many international treaties and conventions, the practice is still performed in lines with tradition and social norms to “ensure that girls are socially accepted and marriageable, and to uphold the status of the family”, according to UNICEF.

But Ali said it was "merely about the power dynamics that is present in every society”.

Ali was just seven when she experienced the process known as infibulation, after her family took her from Britain back to Africa to have the procedure. At age 11 she had surgery to reverse some of the effects.

There are four degrees of genital cutting. Type 1 is known as clitoridectomy (partial or total removal of the clitoris). Type 2 is excision (partial or total removal of the clitoris and the labia minora, with or without excision of the labia majora). Type 3 is infibulation (narrowing of the vaginal opening, with or without the removal of the clitoris). Type 4  includes all  the other harmful procedures to the female genitalia for non-medical purposes, such as pricking, piercing, incising, scraping and cauterizing the genital area.

“When I came to live in the UK, having my experience dismissed was something that really stood out for me,” she said.

“I remember asking my teacher about this really weird thing that happened to me, and her response was one of the most fundamental things that shaped my life."

The teacher said: “This is what happens to girls like you.”

Ali decided she wanted to start pioneering for the prevention of FGM and to help change the mindsets of young girls and women.

“I wish I could say I woke up one day and thought to myself, ‘I’m going to change the world’, but ultimately I came face to face with how complacent I was in this situation,” she said.

One of the biggest misconceptions about the practice, she said, was its association with religion, particularly Islam and Christianity.

“I remember doing a speech at a young girls school in Bristol and I was encouraging them about further studies and mentors from their own cultural background being able to help them if need be.

“When the teacher left, one of the girls asked whether FGM is halal and put it in an Islamic context.”

Ali, being Muslim herself, was shocked.

“I stood back and thought, ‘how the hell can this be happening?' ” she said.

According to UNICEF, FGM is most prevalent in northeastern Africa. While it has no medical benefits, the thought process behind it has a religious or cultural orientation.

“There is absolutely no basis for FGM in any Islamic or Christian texts,” she said.

Another misconception about the taboos surrounding the practice is its sexual impact on women.

The practice often results in prolonged bleeding, infection, infertility and even death.

But the most sensational topic Ali has been questioned about is her private sexual life. When talking to a certain male British politician one-on-one about political changes, who Ali declined to name, she was asked whether she “can orgasm”.

In response, Ali said: “It depends how good you are, minister.”

Ali acknowledged that she had given up her privacy on this issue, but she had done that "so other girls don’t have to".

"Sometimes it’s the only way for people to become aware," she said.

“There’s nothing more personal and important to me than my gender and I see this constantly being dismissed in politics and political-decision making,” she said.

Ali said for any real change to occur, women needed to feel comfortable talking about FGM if it had happened to them personally.

Words such as "barbaric" and "crime" were not used because of cultural sensitivities and because they could deter more women coming forward with their stories.

“I know women who have undergone FGM [and are] scared of coming forward because they don’t want the shame of being seen for their vagina,” she said. A balance of honest conversation and respectful sensitivity is important.

Ali is against the sharing of pictures and videos of girls who have experienced FGM on the internet and social media because she believes this will have negative effects.

“You don’t need to see a video or picture of a woman being raped to know that rape occurs,” she said.

As for the future, Ali hopes for the best. Her four-year-old niece – “without her wings being clipped” – is the first in her family not to undergo FGM.

“If everyone was just a little louder on the issue, I do believe FGM will end within a generation,” she said.

“It begins now, with us.”

Male Perceptions of FGM

Usama Shahid, a final year medical student in Townsville, Queensland, who has researched male attitudes to FGM, agreed there needed to be more sensitivity towards the issue for “a real change” to occur.

Shahid wrote a medical and social thesis about male perceptions of FGM in 2014, titled Attitudes to and prevention of female genital mutilation.

“The first step is to ensure there are heavy legal ramifications,” he said.

“Beyond this, we need to change attitudes … throwing around terms such as ‘barbaric practices’ is going to deter women affected by having any sort of conversation,” he said.

It is believed FGM practices still occurs illegally in Australia and Britain, and young girls taken abroad to get the process done.

Despite this, Shahid could hardly find any evidence or studies looking at male perspectives on FGM. This is when he decided to take up his thesis on the issue.

“We recruited every male who is 16-30 years old from the Sub-Saharan African region who is a migrant and residing in Townsville,” he said.

“They were asked to talk about FGM from a medical point of view and touched on the religious/cultural aspect also,” he said.

FGM is illegal and criminalised in almost every African country and in Western countries but prevalence rates are almost the same since the 1980s.

“I believe this is because we haven’t really targeted the attitudes behind FGM,” he said.

In his thesis, males were found to be making the final decisions on whether their daughters should be cut only 8-21 per cent of the time.

There are also findings in his thesis to suggest that perceptions have changed in migrants. Those who had resided in Australia for more than 10 years no longer supported FGM.

“It is so culturally ingrained that changing perceptions of FGM is never going to happen overnight, it takes time.”

“It’s not a two-year-old girl's fault that this happens to her, but because this practice predates religion and has occurred over thousands of generations, we can’t patronise them any further either,” he said.

On a positive note, Shahid said from his thesis findings he believes male perceptions on FGM are amenable to change.

“It will always be a bit of a taboo subject, but I still believe we need to discuss it as much as we can and raise awareness of the topic.”