A collection of knives, blades and amulet used for female circumcision in Kenya's Pokot districtNine-year old Fay Mohammed, recovers from an operation in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 2004.
Waris, now 48 and living in Poland with her four children, was just five years old when she was subjected to FGM in her home country of Somalia. She was then forced into marrying a 60-year-old man when she was just thirteen, a threat which left her no choice but to flee to Mogadish, where she had family. She later moved to London to live with relatives and worked in a local McDonald's before getting her big break when she was scouted by a fashion photographer in the 1990s.
Her career as a supermodel went from strength to strength and she starred in Chanel campaigns and even made a cameo appearance in James Bond movie, The Living Daylights. But her life was fickle. ‘I thought, “This is b*****t, fake. I couldn’t sleep one more night knowing the truth about what was happening to girls,’ she told The Guardian. And that’s when she decided to speak up.
The practice – which many believe leaves a girl ‘clean’ in preparation for her marriage - usually happens before girls reach the age of fifteen but can be performed on babies at birth too. It causes intense pain, risk of infection and can even lead to fatal childbirth later in life.
