Beads and bobbles shine with colour on the headdress of 17-year-old Balkissa Maiga, a girl in the northern Malian town of Gao.
Headdresses like hers were traditionally worn in the area by elite figures on special occasions. However, strict limitations were placed on their use during the nine-month rule of radical Islamists in Gao, which only ended this January with the arrival of French and Malian troops.