Nimco Ali observes Australian feminism and shakes her head. She admits she’s only just arrived here but her advice to feminists would be “to be a little bit more brave, a little bit more bold”. In the UK, she says, there’s more “honesty, more ‘get out of my fucking way’ ”.

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Ali, 32, is a Somali-born British activist and survivor of female genital mutilation (FGM), performed on her when she was seven years old.



Ali is fierce, and has led an in-your-face, humorous, relentless campaign against FGM in the UK. She helped make the issue front page news with her “fanny suit” – a vagina costume she wears to rallies – and the “muff march” to protest against the growing incidence of labiaplasty in the UK. After years of silence, she now speaks openly about her own experience of FGM.



She is in Australia as a keynote speaker at a conference to mark 40 years since the publication of Anne Summers’ feminist classic Damned Whores and God’s Police.



“It’s like the 1980s here,” she tells Guardian Australia on the sidelines of the Sydney conference. “It’s like Germaine Greer’s interpretation of what feminism is, and that feminism doesn’t sit well with me now because I’m straight, I love men, I don’t see all men as rapists, I don’t see all men as threats.”

It’s a blunt assessment of local feminism, and a quick judgment, but Ali’s first impressions are that UK feminism is younger, and more radical than here. And more effective.



Be a little bit more brave, a little bit more bold Nimco Ali

Ali uses everything she can to draw attention to her cause. She reckons Australia’s first female defence minister, Marise Payne, should declare herself “the first fanny defence minister. I want her to defend women in this country and globally. Rather than bombing people, let’s talk about how we can use our military and our departments of homeland security to defend women.”



The United Nations estimates between 100 million and 140 million girls and women have been subjected to FGM. About 28 countries, mostly in Africa and the Middle East, practice “cutting” girls. The procedures range from symbolic nicks to serious mutilation, including the partial or complete removal of the labia minora and the clitoris.



Ali’s operation was of the most serious type, and she was later hospitalised. Elizabeth Elliott, professor of paediatrics and child health at the University of Sydney, told the conference a recent survey of Australian paediatricians found 10% had seen a girl under 18 with FGM. Some had been approached to perform the procedure.



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Australian laws are similar to those in the UK. FGM is illegal and there is mandatory reporting of suspected cases. There are few prosecutions – Australia’s first trial is now under way – although Ali says a prosecution is an admission of failure.

Protecting children is the key thing, she says. Her four-year-old niece Sofia will not be cut. “We’ve gone from 100% to zero in our family.”



Ali dismisses the notion that cultural sensitivities need to be respected in tackling FGM. That means western cultural sensitivities, too. She sees no distinction between FGM and cosmetic procedures such as labiaplasty, where the labia minora is reduced or removed for no medical purpose.



“It’s exactly the same [as FGM],” she says. “Anything you do to your body because patriarchy tells you is unacceptable.”



Nimco Ali will be in conversation with Anne Summers in Sydney on 24 September and in Melbourne on 28 September