Waris Dirie
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| Waris Dirie | |
 Waris Dirie on the cover of her 2005 book, Desert Children
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| Born | 1965 (unverified) Somalia |
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| Nationality | Austrian |
| Occupation | Model, UN Special Ambassador (1997-2003), author |
| Title | Special Ambassador for the Elimination of Female Genital Mutilation, Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur |
| Children | Aleeke (born 1997) |
| Relatives | Iman (cousin) |
Waris Dirie (born 1965 in Somalia) is a Somali model and a former UN advocate for the abolition of female genital mutilation.
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[edit] Early life
Dirie was born into a nomadic tribe in Somalia. Her home was a portable hut woven from grass. According to her autobiography, at age five, her mother held her down while a local woman cut away her genitals. Afterwards, she was stitched up tightly, leaving a hole the diameter of a matchstick and making 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, her sister and two cousins did not. Waris ran away from her home because of an arranged marriage.
[edit] Modeling career
Dirie fled Somalia at the age of thirteen because her father gave her in marriage to a 61-year-old man in exchange for five camels. She escaped the marriage by traveling to her sister's home in Mogadishu, Somalia. She then moved around the city, living with aunts and uncles until she got a maid's job working for her uncle. She lived in her uncle's home, in London, and hid her passport when he was going to return her. She ended up staying in Britain illegally and surviving by scrubbing floors at McDonald's.
By chance, she was discovered by photographer 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. "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."
Dirie now lives in Vienna, Austria with her son, Aleeke (born 1997), by her former companion, the American jazz musician Dana Murray.[1] 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."
In 1987, Waris played a minor role in the Bond movie The Living Daylights. In 2005 she became an Austrian citizen.
Waris is a cousin of fellow Somali supermodel Iman.[2]
[edit] 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. Waris 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.[3]
The suspect had met Waris 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.[4]
[edit] Disappearance in Brussels
In March 2008, she went missing for 3 days in Brussels, Belgium.[5] She was last seen in the early hours of Wednesday, March 5, 2008. She was found alive on Friday, March 7, 2008 by a plainclothes Brussels policeman[6], 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.[7] 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.[8] 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, she also said that the Brussels police refused to help her.
[edit] 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.[9]
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.[10][11]
In 2007 she received the Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur for her humanitarian work.[12]
[edit] Bibliography
Dirie has written four autobiographical books, at the current time only three have been published:
[edit] Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad
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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] A Letter to my Mother
Dirie's planned fourth book will venture into her experiences in the modelling world.[13]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Dirie, Waris, "Desert Dawn," Virago Press, 2003
- ^ Waris: From Somalia to modeling CNN.com December 6, 1995, Janine Sharell
- ^ Guardian News article, Somalian-born author attacked by stalker
- ^ Model's stalker had previous arrests. BBC News (March 11, 2004). Retrieved on 2008-02-15.
- ^ 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' (Dutch)
- ^ Ex-Supermodel Activist Says Taxi Driver Abducted Her
- ^ 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.
- ^ Sheeko Magazine interview by Liha Mohass.
