Waris Dirie is a Somali supermodel. She is a cousin of Iman though with the exception of legendary modeling careers, they’ve had wildly different lives. Waris was born into a nomadic tribe and was subject to female genital mutilation at the age of five; her sister and two cousins died from complications from the procedure. At 13, she fled for Mogadishu to avoid marrying a man in his sixties and ended up working for an uncle in London. The girl scrubbing floors at McDonald’s ended up on the cover of the 1987 Pirelli calendar, launching a great career.
With former companion Dana Murray, she has a son Aleeke and they reside in Vienna. She is now an Austrian citizen.
Former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed her Special Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation and she is an activist like the late Katoucha Niane, GBW honoree and FGM survivor. Her autobiography Desert Flower is a best-seller. She has also written two other autobiographical works: Desert Dawn and Desert Children. She plans a fourth A Letter to My Mother.
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