"FGM breaches all human rights and has no place in any 21st century society." -- Waris Dirie
Waris Dirie is known to be one of the earliest to raise the issue of FGM publicly and globally. Born as one of 12 children into her nomadic family in 1965 in Somalia, she was subjected to circumcision in the form of infibulation when she was only 5. One of her sisters bled to death during the circumcision. At the age of thirteen, she fled through the desert in order to escape an arranged marriage to a 60-year-old man.
She was brought to London by her Somalian relatives where she worked as a maid and later as a cleaning lady at McDonald's. At the age of 18, her life changed abruptly, when she was discovered by a renowned photographer Terence Donovan, who photographed her in 1987 with other still unknown models. Her modelling career took off and she became one of the most famous models.
In an interview, Dirie told her interviewer Jenny Johnston of England's Mirror that, "I still remember the pain, my God, the pain. But I didn't move an inch. I wanted Mama to be proud of me." Proud, for her parents had told her there were bad things between her legs and they had to be removed. In a way, however, Dirie was lucky; estimates suggest that one in four girls die during the procedure, which is common in parts of Africa and is practised in 28 countries around the world. For two of Dirie's sisters and two of her cousins, the procedure was fatal, something that must have weighed on Dirie's mind as she lay recuperating for weeks, with her legs tied together.
After she began to tell interviewers what she had lived through, she gave up modelling and became a campaigner against the practice of female genital mutilation. Since then she has been involved in numerous campaigns and programs in raising awareness about FGM and complete eradication of this unethical practice.
In 1997 Dirie published the book Desert Flower (the English translation of her name 'Waris'): The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad, written with Cathleen Miller. Described as an autobiographical novel, the book traced the events of Dirie's childhood and her rise to international fame and activism. The movie "Desert Flower" based on her biography is a must-watch.
