Desert Children by Waris Dirie

A campaigner investigates a hidden international injustice

Fair Condition - Ex-library, with covers scuffed and worn at the edges and corners. Pages and page edges are heavily browned, with foxing and brown spots, especially on the opening page.

Waris Dirie turns her attention to the continuing practice of female genital mutilation and the experiences of girls and women living under its threat. Working with journalist Corinna Milborn, she follows the issue beyond Africa into European communities, speaking with people whose lives reveal the human consequences behind a frequently concealed subject. Personal testimony is joined by investigation and the urgency of Dirie’s campaigning, as she examines silence, cultural pressure and the difficulties faced by those seeking protection or change. The book extends the concerns of her earlier autobiographical writing into a wider account of advocacy and responsibility. Direct and compassionate, Desert Children asks how families, institutions and societies respond to vulnerable children and what it takes to challenge a practice sustained through secrecy and fear.