The politics of female genital surgery in displaced communities PASCALE ALLOTEY*, LENORE MANDERSON* & SONIA GROVER** *Key Centre for Women’s Health in Society, Department of Public Health, University of Melbourne; **Centre for Adolescent Health, Royal Women’s Hospital ABSTRACT International efforts to control female genital surgery (also referred to as female genital mutilation) have mainly targeted countries where the practice is culturally sanctioned. Women in these countries belong to a mainstream culture and are supported by their communities through the process of debate and change. In displaced communities, particularly among migrants and refugees living in Western countries, women from these communities are the visible minority, and the focus and implementation of legislation and health policy addressing female genital surgery risks creating or increasing inequities in access to reproductive health. This paper reviews health policy on female genital surgery in Australia. We relate the frequency of genital cosmetic surgery in the wider population to procedures such as re-inbulation following childbirth, requested by African women; this latter procedure is illegal and currently unavailable in most public hospitals. Data are presented to highlight the effects of these and other political and legal inconsistencies on the reproductive health of women from displaced communities. Introduction Over the past decade, national and international programmes, including those of multilateral agencies such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and non-government organizations, have expanded their operational interests in women’s health to include violence against women. As dened at the Fourth World Conference on Women (Koch & Basu, 1996), the term refers to ‘any act of gender- based violence that results in, or is likely to result in, physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or private life’. Such acts may occur within the family or household, within the community, or as perpetrated or condoned by the state. Acts specified as occurring in the household include battering, sexual abuse of children, dowry-related violence, marital rape, non- spousal violence and violence related to exploitation, and ‘traditional practices Critical Public Health,Vol. 11, No. 3, 2001 Critical Public Health ISSN 0958-1596 print/ISSN 1469-3682 online © 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/09581590110066649 Correspondence to: Pascale Allotey, Key Centre for Women’s Health in Society, Department of Public Health, School of Population Health, The University of Melbourne, Vic 3010, Australia. Tel: + 613 8344 4333; fax: + 613 9347 9824; email: pascale@unimelb.edu.au