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 "To date I believe that I am the only British artist who has tackled the subject of female genital mutilation (FGM) and I continue to develop the theme in both sculpture and painting. My first contact with the practice of genital mutilation was some years ago when I spent 6 months living on an oasis in the Western Desert of Egypt. I was staying with a friend and while I was there she arranged to have her 7 year old daughter cut; it was a traumatic experience for both her and her daughter, made worse by the extreme pain and infection that followed. However my friend knew that if her daughter had not been cut that finding a husband, in later life, would not be possible; mutilated girls are considered to make more faithful wives. Wages for women are very much lower than those of men in Egypt and it is seldom an option to be a career woman and not marry, as it is in Britain and the USA. 


I have come across cutting since, many times, through working in the social justice field in Britain. Perhaps what shocks me most is how little knowledge there seems to be in the UK population about the practice and how it can carry on in a society where no excuses can be made for it. In the UK and the USA it is a serious criminal offence (to take part in organising it, at home or abroad) and we have none of the severe social pressures that my Egyptian friend had to take into account. In the UK it is estimated that 21,000 little girls are at risk each and every year, the USA has less reliable figures but it is estimated that at least 228,000 are at risk. The UK FGM Act 2002 provides for long prison sentences for people who arrange for FGM to take place however there have been no prosecutions since the new Act came into use in 2003 : This is an indictment of of the health, education and social work professionals who have the safeguarding responsibility to act.


Both in the UK and USA there is a lack of knowledge and willingness to tackle cutting amongst it's female child population: Where are our principles about defending little girls from serious, violent, physical assault? Why do women have to grow up maimed, infected and with persistent pain in our 'free and emancipated' countries? The laws are in place to protect them but are remaining unused, none of the professionals are acting to implement them. 


Cutting is not linked to any one religion, there are communities within at least 3 of the major world religions who practice it (Christianity, Islam and Judaiism) as well as voodoo. Nor is it confined to any race or continent; it is used worldwide and was used by European and UK familes until the 1950s as a medical cure for masturbation, waywardness and lesbianism in girls and women. Sexual gratification, inevitably, is very difficult for anyone who has undergone the operation.


For me to respond, to this crime against human rights, through fine art, was something that I felt I had to do. I strongly believe that when we look at visual art work we respond emotionally to it and are therefore stimulated to think more deeply about the subject. I hope that people will be moved by my work and that professionals, such as social workers, doctors, nurses and teachers will be motivated to act and not be put off by misplaced cultural sensitivities surrounding the subject."


Fiona Dent