The body of Katoucha Niane, a 47-year-old former model, activist and author, was found in the Seine. Katoucha, as she was known professionally, had been missing for several weeks:

She had been missing since January and was last seen returning home from a party. She lived in a houseboat near Paris’ Alexandre III bridge, and her handbag was later found on the boat.

The Guinean-born model told The Associated Press in 1994 that she ran away to Europe at 17 aiming to be a model. Her big break came when Jules-Francois Crahay, then the designer at Lanvin, spotted her in a line-up. The label hired her as a fitting model. Her first catwalk modeling was for Thierry Mugler at the start of the 1980s.

Following her time as a model, Katoucha focused on educating the world about the practice of female circumcision, a procedure she herself underwent as a young girl:

After quitting the runway, she turned to speaking out actively against female circumcision, describing her own experience at age 9 in a book, “Katoucha, In My Flesh,” which was published last year.

“I will never get the incomparable pain out of my head,” she wrote in the book, which she dedicated to her three children.

Vanity Fair’s fashion and style director, Michael Roberts, said Katoucha was “one those girls who used her fame to spotlight the misfortunes of others.”

At a time when models are more famous for their drugs habits and body mass indexes than their talent, Katoucha stands out not only for being beautiful and poised, but because she used her fame as a platform to promote a cause other than her own fame.

Body of Top Model Katoucha Found [AP]