Amnesty International DC Women’s Human Rights Action Team Presents
A Discussion with Hawa Aden Mohamed
Founder of Galkayo Education Centre for Peace and Development And
Recipient of Amnesty International’s Ginetta Sagan Award
Please join us for an informative discussion with Hawa Aden Mohamed about how FGM is a form of violence against women,
the work she is doing to combat it, and how we can help.
April 18, 2005 at 7:00pm
Mid-Atlantic Regional Office of Amnesty International USA
600 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Fifth Floor
For more information, please contact Anne Ellsworth at anne_ellsworth2002@yahoo.ca or Erica Morgan at ericachandra@hotmail.com. No RSVP is necessary.
HAWA ADEN MOHAMED, SOMALIA
2005 RECIPIENT OF THE GINETTA SAGAN AWARD
Hawa Aden Mohamed was forced to flee from Mogadishu in 1991, when her country collapsed into civil war. Her flight led her to a new life in Canada, but within five years she chose to return to Somalia to continue the work for women and children that begun a decade before.
In the 1980s Ms Mohamed founded the first Woman’s Adult Education Development Center in Somalia, to help bring literacy and economic independence to Somali women. Ms Mohamed also established the Refugee Women’s Relief and Development Centre in response to the huge influx of refugees into Somalia.
On her return to Somalia in 1995, Ms Mohamed settled in Kismayo, a city of over 80% displaced and destitute population, where she established the Jubba Women’s Development Centre (JWDC), with a mandate to promote women’s health and social, political and economic development. However, she was forced to flee Jubba in 1999 when militia groups invaded the city and destroyed the center. Ms Mohamed relocated in Galkayo, where she continues her work, founding the Galkayo Education Center for Peace and Development (GECPD). The centre serves over 500 women and children in many towns and villages with medical care, vocational and income-generating trainings, support for more than 50 orphans, and the only public school for girls in the area.
Since its establishment GECPD has worked for the total elimination of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), which is widely practiced in Somalia, addressing the problem through public advocacy campaigns and educational efforts to reach key stakeholders, including religious and political leaders, teachers, parents, doctors, traditional birth attendants, and female circumcisers. As a result of GECPD’s efforts FGM is no longer a taboo topic but widely discussed and even mandated in the teaching curricula of public schools.
With respect to her courageous work against FGM, Ms Mohamed will receive the 2005 Ginetta Sagan Award by Amnesty International at the organization's annual general meeting in Austin, Texas on Friday, April 8. The award is given for outstanding contributions to the human rights of women and children.
FGM is a dangerous procedure, by which women have their entire external genitalia cut, scraped, or burned out. This often has dire physical, sexual, and mental consequences. The procedure is usually performed in unsanitary conditions, using objects like broken glass, tin can lids, blunt knives, scissors, or razors. Victims are not given anesthesia or antibiotics and rarely have access to medical treatment. FGM often results in infection, shock, hemorrhaging, abscesses, benign nerve tumors, cysts, excess scar tissue, progressively enlarging scars, and sterility of women. Because FGM is practiced as a group rite on many girls at once using the same cutting implement, it can easily cause the spread of HIV and other communicable diseases.
Amnesty International USA’s Ginetta Sagan Award
Ginetta Sagan was a founder of Amnesty International USA. A member of the Italian Resistance, she was imprisoned and tortured during World War II. The Ginetta Sagan Fund Award recognizes individual accomplishment, often in the face of personal danger. It is designed to bring increased international scrutiny to human rights violations and to enable the recipient to live and work freely.
