Press Release:
February 16, 2005

Contact: Erin Callahan, 415.291.9233 x 202
ecallahan@aiusa.org

Amnesty International USA Honors Hawa Aden Mohamed
with Ginetta Sagan Award

SAN FRANCISCO—Amnesty International USA will give one of its highest honors to a grassroots activist from Somalia who has opposed female genital mutilation in the African nation.

Hawa Aden Mohamed will receive the 11th annual Ginetta Sagan Award at the human rights 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.

"She is an extraordinary and courageous human rights activist," said former Amnesty board chair Julianne Cartwright Traylor. "Genital mutilation is one of the most widespread human rights violations against females."

Over 98% of Somali females have undergone genital mutilation, according to Equality Now, a New York-based women's rights organization that nominated Mohamed for the honor. One of those was Mohamed's older sister, who died at age seven following the centuries-old practice.

Although her work has met with opposition, some of it violent, from fundamentalists, Mohamed continues to educate religious teachers in Somalia about the dangers of female genital mutilation.

She has made inroads into the deeply conservative Somali culture with those educational efforts and public statements against the practice. In March 2004, Mohamed helped mobilize 20,000 women and girls in eight towns in an unprecedented protest against it.

Mohamed is the founder of the Galkayo Education Centre for Peace and Development, in Puntland, a state in northeast Somalia. In addition to its work to end female genital mutilation, the organization runs educational programs for girls and women.

Those include adult education, primary school for over 500 girls and second-chance education for girls and women ages 18-25 who were unable to go to school during Somalia's civil war.

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.