Somali woman helping rape victims wins UN award

Hawa Aden Mohamed

Hawa Aden Mohamed has won the United Nations refugee agency's Nansen Refugee Award on Tuesday for her work in helping thousands of Somali women and girls, many of them rape victims, start new lives in their battered homeland.

According to a statement by the," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres Mohamed, 63, is a former Somali refugee who returned from safety in Canada to her war-torn country in 1995, launching an education programme in Puntland to shelter and train Somalis who have fled war, famine and violence.

"When Hawa Aden Mohamed rescues a displaced girl, a life is turned around,” he said.

Adding that Hawa Mohamed who is also Known as "Mama Hawa", founded the Galkayo Education Centre for Peace and Development which has assisted more than 215,000 displaced and victims of violence since 1999, .

UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said in a news briefing, "In a society like Somalia, it's very often that a woman or a girl is raped and they are severely marginalised thereafter. So what she has done is given them is a home, a new start, hope for a new life and their dignity back,"

The award ceremony will take place in Geneva on October 1.

Congratulation.