VIDEO: She Is Called the Woman with No Face Because of Terrible Disease

Sometimes children are born with diseases that make no sense since no one in their family had them and genetically everything is OK. Even if it seems when they are born that they are just fine, it might turn out to be a lot worse than expected. This is exactly what happened to this Indian family and their little baby girl.

According to dailymail.co.uk, a woman in India has spent her life without a face after doctors told her family there was nothing they could do. Khadija Khatoon doesn’t even know if she has eyes or a nose and her mouth is a small slit on the left side of her face.

The 21-year-old is thought to have neurofibromatosis, the general name for a number of genetic conditions that cause swellings or lumps, which has severely distorted her features. But despite her devastating deformities Khadija insists she is happy.

‘I’m made this way and I accept it graciously,’ she said.

‘I do what I can. If this is how I’m meant to be then I live with it. It’s not a matter of coping, I just live as I am.’

Khadija was born at her home, in Kolkata, West Bengal, Eastern India, to impoverished Muslim parents. Her father Rashid Mulla, 60, and mother Amina Bibi, 50, realized something was wrong when she hadn’t opened her eyes at two-months old.

‘She was born with thick heavy eyelids and she looked different to my other children at birth but we didn’t think anything of it until we realized she couldn’t open her eyes properly,’ said Amina.

‘When we took her to the hospital she was admitted for six months and they did lots of tests but doctors eventually told us there was nothing they could do.’

Khadija’s condition worsened as she grew up and the extra skin continued to grow out of control.

‘Because the doctors told us there was nothing they could do we never went back to them,’ Amina added. ‘And as Khadija got older she refused any help.’

Khadija has never been to school and has learned all she knows from her two brothers, Rutpaul 28, and Muzzafar, 25, and three sisters who are now married and left home.

Although many people who have the condition inherit it from one of their parents, up to 50 per cent develop it randomly from a gene mutation before they are born.

Despite their alarming appearance, the growths and swellings – called neurofibromas and caused by a growth of cells – are not cancerous or contagious.

Khadija’s brothers work in a bakery earning 7,000 Rs (£70) a month, but her father doesn’t have full time work, managing only occasionally to sell garden fruit at the market.

Khadija hopes the government will come forward and help with the family’s finances.

She said: ‘If only the government would see my position and help me, I would like that.’

However, she insists she does not want surgery for fear of risking her life.