“Real Housewives of Dubai” star Chanel Ayan shares her traumatic experience with genital mutilation in hopes of raising awareness.
The Bravolebrity, who is of Somali and Ethiopian descent, revealed on Wednesday that she was forced to undergo female circumcision when she was just 5 years old in order to keep her virginity until marriage.
“I’m a survivor,” Ayan told E! News after candidly discussing the proceedings on this week’s episode of her reality show. “I felt completely betrayed by my culture and my family. This is simply a barbaric practice, and it should not be happening to young girls.
“It happened to me 35 years ago and I never got over it.”
Ayan’s mutilation took place when her aunt and grandmother took her and her sister to a stranger’s house, where a man ‘sewn’ their genitals.
“This makes everyone a virgin in my culture,” explains Ayan, 44. ‘Cause how are you going to have sex if you’re screwed as a girl until you get married? It’s a way to keep men happy.”
The fashion designer said that in addition to the physical pain she experienced from the mutilation, she still has emotional pain.
“I think the trauma is something I will live with for the rest of my life,” she told the outlet. “That’s why I want to talk about it because I honestly don’t want this to happen to anyone because I know exactly what it feels like and it’s not right. A lot of girls get depressed, hormones are out of balance, a lot of young girls die.”
Ayan is launching a line of makeup, Ayan Beauty, to boost revenue for ending the harmful practice that continues to this day.
“I’m just looking forward to it after opening [up about] it, I took my power away from the people who did this to me that I trusted most because I was 5 years old and I didn’t know what was happening to me. I didn’t even know what was going on,” she said.
“As long as I use my platform to raise awareness to stop this – if I can save 20 girls, 100 girls, 500 girls I feel like that’s the goal I have. It’s child abuse. And a lot of girls just die for no reason.”