Waris Dirie

Waris Dirie (born in 1965) is an Austrian model, author, actress and human rights activist of Somali origin.At the age of thirteen, she run away from her family in order to escape an arranged marriage to a much older man.. Waris along with a few relatives later moved to London, where she resided with and worked for an uncle who had been appointed Somali ambassador.
 By chance, Waris was discovered by photographer , who helped  her to be a model for top designers such as Chanel,Levi's and Revlon.
In 1997, at the height of her modeling career, Waris spoke for the first time with Laura Ziv of the women's magazine Marie Claire  about the female genital mutilation (FGM) that she had undergone as a child, an interview which received worldwide media coverage. That same year, Waris became a UN ambassador for the abolition of FGM.