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"  When Waris Dirie was modeling in the &amp;#039;90s, photographers would sometimes notice the dark scars and scratches on her long, elegant feet. They look like someone took a lash to her, or a vicious birch branch. In the fashion world, where perfection is vital, people would insist Dirie needed body makeup or an emergency pedicure.  In fact, those scars are potent reminders of who she is and where she comes from. Dirie is a former supermodel turned activist whose mission is stopping female genital mutilation (FGM). This year, her life story will be told in the film Desert Flower, starring the model and actress Liya Kebede as the adult Dirie, based on Dirie&amp;#039;s 1998 autobiography of the same name. &amp;quot;I was moved and shocked [when I saw] my entire childhood on screen,&amp;quot; Dirie tells me as we sit in her chic hotel room off the Champs-\u00E9lys\u00E9es in Paris, where she is promoting the film&amp;#039;s upcoming French release. &amp;quot;It brought back all the memories.&amp;quot; Today, three decades after fleeing the Somali desert to escape an arranged marriage, Dirie&amp;#039;s feet are bare again. Though she has a bad cold \u2014 so bad that the hotel staff feared it was swine flu and began providing masks to room service \u2014 she is eager to talk. She throws off a dowdy puffer coat, orders peppermint tea, and slides her feet into hotel slippers, the white terry-cloth old-lady kind, and begins to tell me about her life. She is wearing jeans by no particular brand, an old Bob Marley T-shirt (the imprint so faded, I think it&amp;#039;s Abraham Lincoln), and a worn brown cardigan, with a blue spangled do-rag tied around her head. Desert Flower recounts the story of Dirie&amp;#039;s healed wounds, a result of her harrowing journey through the desert brush as she ran away from her camel-herding Somali family, and the genesis of her role as a potent voice against FGM, a practice that has been inflicted on up to 140 million women and girls worldwide. Though female circumcision is often thought of as a foreign issue, according to experts at Boston&amp;#039;s Brigham and Women&amp;#039;s Hospital, an estimated 228,000 women in the U.S. have undergone the procedure or are at risk. &amp;quot;Violence against woman does not know borders,&amp;quot; notes Dirie, &amp;quot;whether it is FGM, forced marriage, honor killings, or domestic violence.&amp;quot; She is pushing hard for a U.S. release of Desert Flower and notes, &amp;quot;There are an estimated 40,000 FGM victims in New York City alone.&amp;quot;  It&amp;#039;s a practice Dirie can speak about firsthand. Her mother held her down when she was cut without anesthesia by a gypsy woman when she was a tiny girl. Dirie&amp;#039;s vaginal opening was stitched closed with thorns. The pain was horrific. &amp;quot;Can you imagine anything worse than hearing the screams of pain of your own child?&amp;quot; she asks. &amp;quot;I consider FGM the worst type of torture that can be done to a woman. It&amp;#039;s impossible to describe the pain,&amp;quot; she continues. One of Dirie&amp;#039;s older sisters bled to death after the procedure, while a six-year-old cousin perished from a resulting infection. In her book, Dirie makes it clear that FGM is blatant butchering, writing, &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s like someone is slicing through the meat of your thigh or cutting off your arm, except this is the most sensitive part of your body.&amp;quot; In many African communities, she goes on to explain, &amp;quot;the prevailing wisdom is that there are bad things between a girl&amp;#039;s legs.&amp;quot; Dirie has come a long way to find herself in this well-appointed Paris room. At around 13, her father sold her to a much older man to be his next wife. The plan was that he would cut open her stitched vagina with a knife or break it open by penetrating her. So she ran away. She was alone in the desert for days \u2014 no water, no food. &amp;quot;I knew that as long as I was alive, I could make it,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I had nothing to lose but my freedom.&amp;quot; Once, she woke up to find a lion staring at her. She believes he did not gobble her up because she was too skinny. &amp;quot;I wasn&amp;#039;t worth eating,&amp;quot; she says. Before reaching relatives in Mogadishu, Dirie was nearly raped by the friend of a driver who had picked her up while hitchhiking. She hit her attacker with a rock, jumped off the truck, and ran for her life. &amp;quot;What happened to my attacker after I hit him with the stone, I&amp;#039;ve never known,&amp;quot; she wrote in her book.  By 1983, Dirie had made her way to London with the help of an aunt who was married to the Somali ambassador to the city. Upon arriving in the U.K., she worked as a maid for two years and, in what is no less than a real-life Cinderella story, was discovered by the late fashion photographer Terence Donovan while she was working in a hamburger joint. He ended up shooting her for the cover of the 1987 Pirelli calendar. By the 1990s, she was living the high life, modeling for Chanel, Levi&amp;#039;s, and Revlon.  Weary of being labeled &amp;quot;the nomad gypsy model,&amp;quot; Dirie quit modeling and broke her silence about FGM in 1997. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s about empowerment,&amp;quot; Dirie tells me. She knew her high profile would help get her message out, but she says, &amp;quot;Being famous is not the reason I went public. When I lay down at night and could not sleep, I would hear the screams of all the girls out there who still have to suffer through it. I just knew this was my mission. Even as a little girl, I knew that I would fight against this crime. I didn&amp;#039;t know how, where, or when, but I knew I would do it.&amp;quot; Kebede, whose portrayal of Dirie is moving and nuanced, was thrilled to find such a challenging role. &amp;quot;I had the most incredible time playing Waris,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s fascinating the way she always marched forward, no matter what obstacle was in front of her.&amp;quot; The two women didn&amp;#039;t meet until the end of filming. &amp;quot;I was meeting this person whose life I knew inside out and was not really sure what to say to her,&amp;quot; recalls Kebede. &amp;quot;She cupped my face in her hands and looked into my eyes and said, &amp;#039;This is good,&amp;#039; and that broke the ice.&amp;quot; Even with eyes tired from her cold, Dirie, at 44, is still ravishing. (Her age comes from Wikipedia, not from her. &amp;quot;Angel, I don&amp;#039;t know how old I am; neither does my mother. We don&amp;#039;t keep track of years in Africa, only of seasons.&amp;quot;) &amp;quot;Personal style?&amp;quot; says Dirie with a shrug. &amp;quot;I don&amp;#039;t really believe in that. Whatever is comfortable.&amp;quot; When asked if she has a favorite designer, she looks genuinely baffled. &amp;quot;Er ... I don&amp;#039;t know. I like athletic clothes,&amp;quot; she says. She mentions that the fashion group PPR (home to Gucci and Stella McCartney, among others) asked her to design a line of athletic clothes for Puma. &amp;quot;Sport is the only thing that works. Spiritually, mentally, it empowers me.&amp;quot;  That&amp;#039;s not to say she isn&amp;#039;t grateful for the opportunities modeling gave her. &amp;quot;It got me where I am today,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;I learned a lot. I lost a lot, gained a lot. Then I moved on. I had to change the world.&amp;quot; Her last job was another Pirelli calendar, the 1997 edition shot by Richard Avedon. Since 2002, the nonprofit Waris Dirie Foundation has assisted more than 40,000 people all over the world who have been affected or threatened by FGM. &amp;quot;Once a mother from Sudan came to my office with her two-year-old daughter. They had fled the conflict in Darfur, and now her husband and his parents had decided to have the little girl mutilated,&amp;quot; recalls Dirie. &amp;quot;I immediately informed social services and talked to both the father and his parents about FGM. The girl was saved.&amp;quot; She is quick to point out that FGM is not just a women&amp;#039;s issue. &amp;quot;As the mother of two boys, I feel we have to teach men early. Every education begins with Mama. We have to rethink what we teach our sons. That&amp;#039;s the most important thing.&amp;quot;  This year, Dirie plans to show Desert Flower free of charge in Africa and to educate lawyers in Kenya on how to help women affected by FGM, domestic violence, or forced marriage. She is also, along with Salma Hayek, Stella McCartney, Gucci&amp;#039;s Frida Giannini, and others, on the board of the PPR Foundation for Women&amp;#039;s Dignity and Rights, which campaigns for women&amp;#039;s causes worldwide.  Dirie currently splits her time between Gda\u0144sk, Poland, and Vienna but says, &amp;quot;Look, I belong nowhere and to no one.&amp;quot; Her next move may be to Africa, likely to Tanzania, later this year. &amp;quot;When I go back to Somalia and talk to women about FGM,&amp;quot; Dirie says, &amp;quot;they always ask me, &amp;#039;You mean you left your camels to go live in white man&amp;#039;s world?&amp;#039; &amp;quot;And I always say, &amp;#039;Yes, I did that. A camel girl did that. I did it with my wish and my wheel and my way.&amp;#039;&amp;quot;  To help in the fight against FGM, go to waris-dirie-foundation.com.  "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/news/a465/waris-genital-mutilation-0210/>