SHE was 13 when she fled her
home in the Somali desert and an arranged marriage with a man five
times her age.
Three decades later, after a career as a supermodel and human
rights activist, Waris Dirie is planning to go home to Africa.
“I dream of having my own farm and lodge in Tanzania, near Mount
Kilimanjaro,” she said in an interview with The Sunday Times last
week. “I am convinced that my beautiful continent has more
potential than most people imagine.”
Born to a family of nomadic goat herders, Dirie, 44, has led an
extraordinary life: she was “discovered” in London by a fashion
photographer who gave her his card in a burger bar where she was
sweeping up.
The “nomad to supermodel” story is the subject of Desert Flower,
a film that opened last week in Paris.
It has shocked audiences with its portrayal of the pivotal
moment in Dirie’s life when, as a three-year-old, she was subjected
to ritual genital mutilation by a woman wielding a worn razor.
Liya Kebede, an Ethiopian model, plays Dirie in the film. Dirie
cried at the first viewing. The film is based on her autobiography
of the same name and also stars Sally Hawkins, Timothy Spall and
Juliet Stevenson, the British actors.
“It was very disturbing and emotional, especially scenes from my
childhood,” Dirie said. “It is a barbaric crime,” she added,
talking about female circumcision. “It’s incredible it is still
happening now in the 21st century.”
Since abandoning the catwalk, Dirie, who lives in Austria, has
campaigned for an end to the practice. She hopes the film will
promote indignation at “an especially cruel form of suppressing
women” that claimed the life of one of her sisters, who bled to
death after being circumcised.
“I have reached a lot of people,” she said, referring to her
role as a United Nations special ambassador and recipient of
numerous humanitarian awards, as well as France’s Légion d’Honneur.
“But those who could really change something, the politicians, do
not seem willing to act. Not in Europe and even less in Africa,
Asia and in the Middle East.”
She hopes the film will be shown everywhere in Africa but says
“eradicating female genital mutilation can only happen there if the
living conditions of the people and the social and legal status of
women improve”.
The film’s director was determined to make the childhood scenes
as authentic as possible and these were shot in Djibouti, which
shares a border with Somalia. Local families were used as extras
and a circumciser was found who was filmed with her razor.
After the “operation”, Dirie was sewn up with a thorn and thread
to ensure she would stay a virgin until her husband “opened” her
with a knife on her wedding night. When she reached 13 she decided
to flee rather than submit to the old man who had paid five
camels.
She walked to Mogadishu, the capital, where her grandmother put
her on a plane to London. The Somali ambassador’s wife was an aunt
who took her in as a cleaner. When the ambassador left, she got a
job in a burger bar. Terence Donovan, the photographer, spotted
her. “We’re always looking for new faces,” he says in the film,
handing her his card.
A modelling agent was appalled by the scars on her feet but this
did not stop her being on the cover of the Pirelli calendar in
1987, helping her to become one of the most famous black models of
the 1990s.
Aid ‘fraud’
A United Nations agency blacklisted a British whistleblower
after he exposed alleged corruption in its Somalian aid programme,
according to a UN ethics committee report, writes Sara Hashash.
Ismail Ahmed, who worked for the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP) in 2005-7, said it had hounded him after he
uncovered fraud in a programme backed by British aid money to
combat terrorism and money-laundering. He was later told his
contract would not be renewed.
The UNDP investigated but concluded that no current staff member
was involved in any corrupt activities.
The UN ethics report confirmed that an official had warned a
potential employer not to hire Ahmed because of his “silly”
accusations. Ahmed has received compensation.
