Subtitles This well done movie is based on the real-life story of Waris Dirie, a dirt-poor girl who flees an arranged marriage in Somalia, winds up in London and becomes one of the world's most recognizable supermodels.
As her star rises, Dirie speaks out against the practice of female genital mutilation, a trauma she experienced as a girl. I personally learned about this unbelievably horrid practice about thirty years ago as reporters began to cover Africa, and the customs of it's people were explored.
Individually we can do little to stop this form of abuse of women that has been going on since "civilization" began, except to support UN efforts try to 're-culture " the tribes that still follow this barbaric practice.
From Wikipedia: Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting and female circumcision, is defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) as "all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons."FGM is typically carried out on girls from a few days old to puberty. It may take place in a hospital, but is usually performed, without anaesthesia, by a traditional circumciser using a knife, razor, or scissors. According to the WHO, it is practiced in 28 countries in western, eastern, and north-eastern Africa, in parts of the Middle East, and within some immigrant communities in Europe, North America, Australasia.[2] The WHO estimates that 100–140 million women and girls around the world have experienced the procedure, including 92 million in Africa
The practice is carried out by some communities who believe it reduces a woman's libido. Opposition to FGM focuses on human rights violations, lack of informed consent, and health risks, which include fatal hemorrhaging, epidermoid cysts, recurrent urinary and vaginal infections, chronic pain, and obstetrical complications. Since 1979, there have been concerted efforts by international bodies to end the practice, including sponsorship by the United Nations of an International Day of Zero Tolerance to Female Genital Mutilation, held each 6 February since 2003. Sylvia Tamale, a Ugandan legal scholar, writes that there is a large body of research and activism in Africa itself that strongly opposes FGM, but she cautions that some African feminists object to what she calls the imperialist infantilization of African women, and they reject the idea that FGM is nothing but a barbaric rejection of modernity. Tamale suggests that there are cultural and political aspect issue.
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