The main character in Desert Flower is Waris Dirie, and ‘Waris’ means a desert flower. Such flowers can bloom even in the toughest of climates. Waris Dirie was also able grow strongly through her bravery. She published this book about her childhood and her present life.

This book includes Waris Dirie’s life story and especially talks about a longstanding convention in Somalia in Africa - female circumcision. Have you ever heard about this? It is often called FGM (Female Genital Mutilation) and it still happens in twenty eight countries in Africa. According to an estimation done by the United Nations, every day more than 8,000 girls have FGM performed on them.

Waris Dirie was born in the Somalian desert near to the border with Ethiopia. Even at the age of five she could see that circumcision is inhuman, seeing her sister’s circumcision procedure. She fled after hearing that she should marry an old man in exchange for five camels. After that, she went to London and worked as a maid for her relative. Luckily, while working in London, she was selected by a famous photographer, Terence Donovan and became a world famous model.

While living in London, she realized how unreasonable female circumcision is. She thought that all girls knew about this, but she soon discovered that most Londoners were not even aware of it. Afterward, she decided to reveal her painful past and her country’s shameful convention, and made a public statement to let people know about it. She founded the ‘Waris Dirie Foundation’ in 2002 and has been working hard to help women suffering from circumcision. She could have overlooked the custom as many other women have done, but she made another choice. Her courage gave hope to many women who have suffered from circumcision.

Women in the African continent have suffered from circumcision for over 4,000 years. After the circumcision, the women are not allowed to have sex except with her husband. In addition, many men there believe that the women who did not have the procedure performed are prodigal, so they don’t choose those women to be their wives. For this reason, the procedure is still very common as parents know that they need to circumcise their daughters in order to obtain them a husband in the future.

There are so many reasons to object to circumcision. First, it often happens in unsanitary conditions and so many girls die during the procedure. Razors, scissors, and sprinters are used and the procedure naturally brings about the possibility of getting infected. In addition, the procedures are not done by legal and professional medical specialists, so it is dangerous. What is worse, after the operation, they suffer from another pain in that it takes more than thirty minutes for them to be able to urinate, and their menstrual pain also increases. It is also often the case that these women die in childbirth from excessive bleeding.

It goes without saying that every custom in every country ought to be respected. However, as seen above, female circumcision is definitely a highly controversial and unjust custom. People and governments should do more to help stop this suffering.