Safa Idriss Nour Is Waris Dirie's 'Desert Flower' In the Fight To End FGM In Somalia
/
Safa Idriss Nour Is Waris Dirie's 'Desert Flower' In the Fight To End FGM In Somalia
A simple Facebook share last week elicited more likes than any supermodel has achieved on my page. Meet Safa Idriss Nour, a young girl born in a slum in Dijibouti, Somalia. Perhaps her gorgeous young-girl face soothed a world under fire in Beirut, Nigeria and Paris. Mali had not blown up yet as my FB friends fell under Safa's spell.
On Friday I decided to look for information about this young girl, and the truth of her life amazed me.
A Young Somali Girl Uncut
An estimated 98% of girls and women in Dijibouti have undergone female genital mutilation, a procedure of varying severity in Somali culture. AOC has a long history of writing about FGM, the cutting off a female's clitoris and some of the labia. The procedure -- executed without anaesthetic -- is designed to protect a girl's purity and represents a sign of commitment to a future husband over a desire for sexual pleasure. In the most severe cases of FGM, a girl's labia is sewn together and only reopened after marriage. The probability of a young woman not being desirable as a bride and commanding no bride price for her family is high.
