Since Ajak Deng was spotted in 2008, she's been one of Australia's most successful model exports. Over almost a decade she's walked for Dior, Louis Vuitton, Valentino, Marc Jacobs, Chloe and Jean Paul Gaultier and starred in an armful of global campaigns. Despite her success, Ajak announced on Instagram today that she is "officially done with the fashion industry. " She explained that she is giving up her career because she "can no longer deal with the fakes and the lies. My life is too short for this dramatic life." Adding that she planned to move back to Australia to "live the life that I fully deserved. Which is real life." Despite her impending flight back home, don't expect Ajak to appear on Australian runways either. The model's manager Stephen Bucknell followed her announcement, commenting that she'd always struggled to book work in Australia because the industry's bias towards white models: "They'll book th...
Balkissa Chaibou dreamed of becoming a doctor, but when she was 12 she was shocked to learn she had been promised as a bride to her cousin. She decided to fight for her rights - even if that meant taking her own family to court. "I came from school at around 18:00, and Mum called me," Balkissa Chaibou recalls. "She pointed to a group of visitors and said of one of them, 'He is the one who will marry you.' "I thought she was joking. And she told me, 'Go unbraid, and wash your hair.' That is when I realised she was serious." The young girl from Niger had always been ambitious. "When I was little, I was dreaming of becoming a doctor. Take care of people, wear the white coat. Help people," she says. Marriage to her cousin, who had arrived with his father from neighbouring Nigeria, would make this impossible. "They said if you marry him you won't be able to study any more. For me my passion...
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