Female genital mutilation is the excruciating and damaging experience
that Beyond the Dance a lot of women in many cultures across Africa and
in many other parts of the world suffer. Even when the women find
themselves, for one reason or another, relocate in what should be safe
havens, this practice frequently follows them like a vengeance ghost.
Beyond the dance is a compilation of testimonies and poems about the
humiliation of female genital mutilation, and about the resulting
deprivation and loss. It encompasses accounts, factual in some cases and
lyrical in others, of the experience of this practice lived or
witnessed, and the visceral responses to the practice. The anger is
palpable, the bafflement tangible. Beside the pain, though, is the hope
borne of the voices raised by governments, organisations, institutions
and individuals, urging a stop to the practice and coaxing oft-unwilling
communities into abandoning it or transforming it into a meaningful
ritual that builds up rather than ruins. Through the pages of this
volume we share the pain, thoughts, views and feelings of the victims of
female genital cutting and of people concerned about the debilitating
practice. We share the hope that they hold out for a firm and final end
to the practice.
