Waris Dirie: the supermodel giving FGM victims their sexuality back

The model's Desert Flower Foundation funds pioneering surgery that takes away the pain of sex. Rosamund Urwin hears stories of sensual healing
Campaigning: Waris Dirie, founder of the Desert Flower Foundation (Picture: Sarah Lee/Eyevine)
MUST CREDIT: Sarah Lee/Eyevine
Rosamund Urwin1 July 2015

Ntailan Lolkoki felt she was “brimming with sexuality” after her reconstructive surgery. Kenya-born and a member of the Masai tribe, she had undergone female genital mutilation at the age of 12. Last year she had an operation in Germany to restore sexual pleasure and ease pain.

“I looked wonderful all of a sudden,” she tells me. “As a kid you start to explore your sexuality but circumcision stopped that. After the surgery those feelings were restored. I would lie in my bed and I could feel everything. My neighbours could tell I had this sexuality.”

Her sexual renaissance faced new barriers, though: thin walls in her Berlin apartment — and local men. “My neighbours could hear what was going on in my flat; certain men wanted to join me,” she recalls. “I couldn’t masturbate on my own — they would knock on the door! These men had always sexually fantasised about me. When I had the operation and was oozing sexuality they wanted me for real, and they became very sexually aggressive.”

She was deeply upset. “It is your body, your life, and suddenly everyone else wants to be part of it,” she rages. “So initially, I circumcised myself, as others had circumcised me. But then I was no longer ashamed. Women have to embrace their sexuality. Even here [in Europe] women are circumcised in their minds: you have to be attractive to men but you’re not supposed to be sexual in yourself.”

Nonetheless, Lolkoki is ecstatic about the effects of her treatment. Aged “over 35” (her words), she said it made her “feel young again”. Eventually Lolkoki, who has previously lived in London, moved to a new apartment in Berlin, away from craning neighbourly ears.

She had had her operation thanks to the Desert Flower Foundation. It was started by Waris Dirie, a Somalian model and anti-FGM activist who made a biographical film, Desert Flower, about the custom. As well as funding reconstructive surgery, the foundation pays families to stop them having FGM performed on their daughters. Dirie has now written a book, Saving Safa, about this approach. There are 1,000 girls currently in the Save a Little Desert Flower programme but its goal is to save one million girls from FGM by 2020.

Waris Dirie at the 'Desert Flower' premiere in Madrid (Picture: Getty)

The Berlin centre offers a holistic treatment, with a gynaecologist, a urologist for women suffering urinary incontinence as a result of FGM, a psychologist and a yoga trainer to teach breathing techniques.

Because there is no UK branch yet, British FGM survivors have travelled to Berlin for treatment. “We get lots of emails from England and a few women just came over to get the treatment,” says Walter Lutschinger, a Desert Flower Foundation trustee and Dirie’s manager. “There is no one doing this in the UK, yet it has the highest number of FGM survivors in Europe.”

In 2013 Inab became the first woman to undergo reconstructive surgery at the Berlin centre. She grew up in a mountain village in Djibouti and her brother

Idriss played Waris’s brother in Desert Flower. She also features heavily in Saving Safa. The foundation paid for her trip to Berlin and treatment: full genital reconstruction.

“After surgery I felt complete as a woman,” the 20-year-old says. “I’m always laughing now. All the pain I had experienced for so long disappeared. My self-esteem is through the roof.”

The effects of FGM had been devastating on her: “I suffered terrible pain while urinating. When I got my period, I became very depressed. It also affected my studies; I was unable to concentrate on anything but the pain, so did badly in my exams.”

She now works for the Desert Flower Foundation in Djibouti, promoting its work: “I want to become a young role model for African girls, someone who can speak openly about my experiences with FGM. Waris is my role model.” Inab’s two sisters, Hibo (six) and Hamda (11), have been protected from FGM by the programme: “It has been very difficult to convince my mother that this was the right decision for them.”

Inab was 13 years old when she was “cut in the most cruel way”.

“I can remember everything,” she says. “I had witnessed my best friend being cut before me; I saw all the blood and my friend screamed until she fainted. I hid in the desert to avoid FGM but one night our neighbours and the person who was to cut me entered the hut, held me down and, with the support of my mother, cut me, even though I was fighting them to stop.”

Lolkoki viewed FGM ceremonies rather differently: as a great social event. “As a kid growing up it was the highlight of my life to go to circumcision ceremonies, more interesting than anything I had ever known.” The mothers made tea, a great love of the Masai. “But I did not have [circumcision] like my sister had it. I missed that.”

Lolkoki’s was performed at a clinic, because her mother had moved to Nairobi. “That saved my life, really. I only had ‘sunna’ — I didn’t have everything cut off.” By “sunna”, Lolkoki means she had a clitoridectomy, rather than full infibulation. “That meant it was easier to revive [sexual function],” she adds. “I could see there was something there.”

She has been through “a lot of therapists” dealing with the trauma. Part of the problem is the stigma around FGM. “You are branded like ice, or a stone without feelings. Men would look at you like: ‘she doesn’t function, she’s not hot’.”

As she got older, Lolkoki became desperate for reconstructive surgery. “I had tried to get it done before but was told it wasn’t possible,” she recalls. “That left me distraught. I thought it was the end of me. My life depended on having this operation.”

One evening, she heard about the Desert Flower centre on the radio. She called the next day, and spoke to a doctor. “Her voice put me at ease, so I made an appointment.”

After the operation it took about five weeks to heal. She believes the trauma of FGM had “shut the nerves down” in her genitals. “I don’t think the reconstructive surgery alone revived the nerves — it was my will, my desire to regain my sexuality. You have to bring yourself back against all the odds.”

Waris Dirie: model, author, actress and human rights activist (Picture: Getty)

Lolkoki, a drama student, also took solace in acting, dance and singing, as well as meditating. “That helped me listen to my body, to melt down the brick layers in myself. Dance helped me to re-find myself, to reawaken my senses. I want to share that with others, to encourage them to get in touch with themselves.”

She had grown to hate her culture and country because of its associations with FGM but the operation has brought her closer to her past.

“When I think of people in my tribe, I think of their oneness with nature. Men are in touch with their bodies but women’s sexuality is not bright because of circumcision. I feel more a Masai than ever — because I am in touch with myself. It is the feeling I had when I was a kid.”

Lolkoki’s family still lives in Kenya. She admits to being “a bit scared” about them finding out about the operation. “I don’t think they’d be very happy, though I’d like to tell them it’s a good thing. One of my sisters told [my family] I had been circumcised again.”

There is a mistaken belief that the clitorises of women who have not had FGM keep growing. “I don’t want to go home at the moment because they’ll say I have a long clitoris that will sweep the ground. Women who have this operation have to be strong in themselves, or family can ruin that.”

Lolkoki started a self-help group at the hospital with other FGM survivors. “When people come together who share the same destiny you open up and tell each other what you are going through. Therapists don’t know how it feels to be in a body that feels like a stone.”

She notes that a lot of women are unable to ask for the surgery because of familial pressures. “Husbands advise women not to have the operation, even though the women say: ‘I don’t like sex — it hurts’. It’s very difficult for women in cultures where they can’t stand up to men — they need much more back-up and men must be educated too.”

Like Inab, she dreams of a day when FGM is eradicated. “Culture is no justification. This is wrong and it needs to stop.”

Follow Rosamund Urwin on Twitter: @RosamundUrwin

Saving Safa: Rescuing a Little Girl from FGM is published by Virago tomorrow, £13.99

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