“Desert Flower”: a movie about a woman who never surrenders

The “Desert Flower” film was shot on the basis of the autobiographical novel of the well-known top model Váris Dirière. She was the first woman to act against the obesity of girls in African countries.

Váris Diriè was born in 1965 in Somalia. At the age of five she was subjected to feminine circimcision. At the age of 13, she had to escape from her home to avoid being married an elder man. With some helpless forces, she succeeded in crossing the desert, reaching Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu, and then to London, where she first started working at McDonald’s, and started learning English. An accidental encounter with photographer Theres Donovan becomes fatal for Baris. With the help of a photographer she begins her career of the model. Very soon, Váris begins to shoot for Chanel, Levi, L’Oréal and Revlon. As a model, she begins to appear in London, Milan, Paris, and New York. In 1997, when she was a well-known model, she first spoke to the Marie Claire women’s magazine about the female circumcision in Africa, and in the same year she became the United Nations ambassador to the female circumcision.

His Desert Flower Foundation is fighting against female circumcision, and people from all over the world join this initiative to try to prevent the brutal crime committed against little girls.

According to UN data,

• Today, there are 200 million women and girls living in the world who have been exposed to this or that genital mutilation.

• If this trend is maintained, more than 3 million women and girls are threatened every year.

• 44 million of girls subjected to genital mutilation are under 14 years of age. The most common phenomenon is found in Indonesia, Mauritania, and Gambia. Nearly half of girls under the age of 11 are exposed to genital mutilation.

• Somalia (98%), Guinea (97%) and Djibouti (93%) are leading in the age group of 15-49.

• This procedure can be accompanied by strong bleeding and other medical problems, including infections, infertility, complications of childbirth, up to newborn death.

• Sustainable Development -2030 includes a call to eliminate such operations of genital organs.

The International Health Organization announced February 6 as a day of intolerance towards women’s genital mutilation.

Full text in Armenian