Saving a Desert Flower/Saving Safa from Female Genital Mutilation (FGM)

Waris Dirie’s (1965-) memoir, Saving Safa: Rescuing a Little Girl from FGM (2015), manifests a fluid and matter-of-fact account of her life especially her attempt to rescue a seven years old Djibouti girl, Safa Nour, from the horrific cultural violence/crime of female genital mutilation (FGM). Dirie gives voice to her and thousand others’ unspeakable suffering of FGM. She spells out hertremendous rage like the Senegalese anti-FGM activist Khady Koita and Somaliborn anti-FGM activist Hibo Wardere. At the age of five, infibulation, the most severe form of FGM, was performed on Dirie. At the age of thirteen, she escaped from her native place, Galkayo, Somalia and later turned a supermodel and a UN ambassador for the abolition of FGM. Her first personal account, Desert Flower: The Extraordinary Journey of a Desert Nomad (1998) laid bare her heart touching story about her trauma and years of struggle to stand for the rights of little girls/women. The book was an international bestseller and adapted into a film of the same name in 2009. Safa was chosen to act as young Waris Dirie in the film. Saving Safa was a part of her campaign against FGM. In the book, Safa was frequently called “our little Desert Flower” and the first name of the author, Waris, also means desert flower. Flower is emblematic of blameless female genitals.