A desert flower that can never blossom

“Desert flower” is a movie about a model from Somalia. She was the first one to talk to the public about female circumcision. The movie touched me deeply. I cried during a scene where they show her as a three-year-old girl taken by her mother to the woman who cuts, removing her genitals and sewing her up. They didn’t show the exact procedure, but it was horrible seeing the young girl crying and screaming, and the bloodstain covering the rock. All this while her telling us how the birds ate the parts cut off.  After the procedure they sew them up to keep the virgins until their wedding night when the husband cuts them open, and I guess you know the rest. It must be excruciatingly painful. It’s a despicable act robbing women of their womanhood, their right to feel pleasure, and to give birth. We must be grateful for equality, but at the same time not to take it for granted. Not all women are as fortunate as us. Fight injustice against women!