Waris Dirie
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Waris Dirie واريس ديري | |
|---|---|
| File:Waris Dirie.jpg | |
| Born | 1965 (unverified) |
| Occupation(s) | Model, UN Special Ambassador (1997-2003), author |
| Title | Special Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation, Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur |
Waris Dirie (Template:Lang-so, Template:Lang-ar) (born 1965 in Gaalkacyo, Somalia) is a Supermodel, author and human rights activist against female mutilation (FGM). From 1997 to 2003 she was a UN advocate for the abolition of FGM.
Early life
Waris Dirie was born into a nomadic clan in Somalia. Her home was a portable hut woven from grass. According to her autobiography, at the age of five, her mother held her down while a local woman mutilated her. Afterwards, she was stitched up tightly, leaving a hole the diameter of a matchstick, which made it nearly impossible to walk. "I felt not complete with myself as a woman. Some days I felt so powerless," she said. "When I think back about that, it still disturbs me. But coming back over that is still the hardest thing for me because you have to learn about yourself, you have to feel comfortable with yourself." Although Dirie survived the procedure, one sister and two cousins did not. Waris ran away from her home because of an arranged marriage at the age of 13.
Career
Dirie fled Somalia at the age of thirteen because her father gave her in marriage to an old man. She escaped the marriage by traveling to her sister's home in Mogadishu, Somalia. Then she moved with her uncle, a former Somali ambassador, to London and worked as his maid. She hid her passport when he was going to return her and ended up staying in Britain illegally, surviving by scrubbing floors at McDonald's.[1]
By chance, she was discovered by Starphotographer Terence Donovan, who put her face on the cover of the 1987 Pirelli calendar. From there, her career took off, being placed in ads for designers such as Chanel, Levi's, L'Oréal or Revlon. "It's very sad that I had to make the choice to leave my country and at the same time I did not want to leave," she said. "Africa is different. I was young. I had nothing to worry about. I had my family, I had my animals, I had my simple life. It was beautiful."
In 1987, Waris played a minor role in the Bond movie The Living Daylights. She also appeared on the runways of London, Milan, Paris and New York City and in fashion magazines such as Elle, Glamour and Vogue. In 1995 the BBC produced the documentary A Nomad in New York about her career.
In 1997, at the height of her modeling career, Waris Dirie spoke for the first time about her mutilation with Laura Ziv from the fashion magazine Marie Claire and received a worldwide media coverage. The same year she became UN advocate for the abolition of FGM. Furthermore she visited her mother in 1997 and her family in the year 2000 during the Somali Civil War. In 1998 her first book Desert Flower was published and became an international bestseller. [2] Other books by Waris Dirie are Desert Dawn and Desert Children, with which she started a European campaign against FGM. In 2002 she founded the Waris Dirie Foundation in Vienna, Austria. The Foundation collects money for charity projects in Somalia, Senegal and Sudan. In March 2005 she became an Austrian citizen. In 2006 the European Union put FGM on its agenda, many European countries passed more rigorous laws against FGM and prevention projects were initiated. In 2007 Waris Dirie also starts a campaign with Scotland Yard and the BBC in Great Britain.[3]
Dirie now lives in Vienna, Austria, but she still feels the contrasts between the West and her war-torn home. "Here it seems like it is chaos forever and I'm trying to sit down for a moment and there's no time for that," she laughed. "In Somalia we don't have clocks so we don't care what time it is. But in the West, everything is money-money, power, sucking, sucking away. It is never enough."
Her son Aleeke lives with his father, the American jazz musician Dana Murray, in the USA.
Contrary to popular belief Waris is not related to fellow Somali model Iman.[4]. In her book Desert Flower, Waris states that Iman's mother was good friends with Waris's aunty, with whom Waris once lived with in London.
Humanitarian work
In 1997, Waris Dirie quit modelling to focus on her work against female genital mutilation. That year UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed her Special Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation.[5]
Her autobiographical novel Desert Flower, which tells the story of her own childhood and genital mutilation, has been printed in numerous languages and topped best-seller lists in Europe.[6][7]
In 2007 she received the Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur for her humanitarian work.[8]
Incidents
Attack
Waris Dirie was attacked in March 2004 at her home in Vienna. Then aged 40, she had moved from her flat in Cardiff to escape the persecution of a 26-year-old Portuguese stalker who had become convinced that she loved him.
Paulo Augusto was in custody after apparently following her 1,000 miles across Europe and gaining access to her apartment by climbing through a neighbour's window. "She was so frightened and in shock that she let him in," a police spokesman, Harald Hofmayer, said. Dirie suffered minor injuries when her assailant threw her to the floor, he added. The attacker left in a taxi, only to return later on foot and smash one of the building's ground-floor windows. He was arrested when neighbours called the police.[9]
The suspect had met Dirie six months earlier when his brother was working at her previous residence in Wales, police said. He later broke into that home and stole items of her clothing.[10]
Disappearance in Brussels
In the early hours of Wednesday, March 5, 2008, she went missing for 3 days in Brussels, Belgium.[11] She was found alive on Friday, March 7, 2008 by a plainclothes Brussels policeman[12], in the presence of a local window cleaner. He told press, that the couple met in a pub and were planning to spend dinner together.[13] Dirie could not give an explanation over what happened, and only said that she was lost, and couldn't find her way back to her hotel. Since she had no money on her, she had been sleeping in hotel lobbies. Afterwards, she declared that she was kidnapped for two days by a taxi driver and the story of having been lost was to keep the press from asking her too many questions. She also knew the window cleaner for less than an hour.[14] A few days later, she again changed her story and told Austrian media that she was kidnapped and held by a taxi-driver who tried to rape her.[citation needed] She also said that the Brussels police refused to help her.[citation needed]
Bibliography
Dirie has published three autobiographical books:
Desert Flower
First in the series, Desert Flower tells Dirie's story of enduring female circumcision; fleeing through the desert; being discovered by Terence Donovan and becoming a top fashion model. Written in collaboration with Cathleen Miller; published in 1999 by HarperCollins Publishers and republished in several languages.
Desert Dawn
A sequel to Desert Flower, describing how Dirie became a UN Special Ambassador against female genital mutilation (FGM) and returned to her family in Somalia. Written in collaboration with Jeanne D'Haem; published in 2003 by Virago Press, Limited.
Desert Children
Third in the series, Desert Children reveals how Dirie and journalist Corinna Milborn investigated the practice of FGM in Europe. Written with Corinna Milborn, translation by Sheelagh Alabaster; published in 2007 by Time Warner UK.
References
- ^ Dirie, Waris, "Desert Dawn," Virago Press, 2003
- ^ Somalia's Desert Flower
- ^ Britain Fights Female Genital Mutilation
- ^ Waris: From Somalia to modeling CNN.com December 6, 1995, Janine Sharell
- ^ Messengers of Peace and Goodwill Ambassadors at the United Nations - 23 October 2000
- ^ Somalia's Desert Flower TIME July 7 2002 By HELEN GIBSON
- ^ Waris Dirie Foundation
- ^ Communiqué de la Présidence de la République annonçant la remise de décoration par M. Nicolas SARKOZY, Président de la République. Élysée Palace, July 11, 2007.
- ^ Guardian News article, Somalian-born author attacked by stalker
- ^ "Model's stalker had previous arrests". BBC News. March 11, 2004. Retrieved 2008-02-15.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ Associated Press, "Model, rights campaigner goes missing", CNN.com, March 7, 2008. Accessed March 7, 2008
- ^ Ex-Model Waris Dirie Found in Brussels
- ^ 'We gingen een leuke avond beleven' Template:Nl icon
- ^ Ex-Supermodel Activist Says Taxi Driver Abducted Her