Nimko Ali | |
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Born | 1982or1983(age 40–41) |
Alma mater | University of Bristol [1] |
Occupations |
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Title | Co-founder and CEO of The Five Foundation |
Nimko Ali OBE (Somali : Nimco Cali), alternatively spelled Nimco (born c. 1982), is a British social activist of Somali heritage. She is the co-founder and CEO of The Five Foundation, a global partnership to end female genital mutilation (FGM).
Ali underwent female genital mutilation in Djibouti. She released her first book in 2019 that contains 42 stories from 152 interviews that Ali collected from women across 14 countries. Later that year she co-founded The Five Foundation with Brendan Wynne, which is her current full tine role.
In 2020, she also co-founded the Ginsburg Women's Health Board with Mika Simmons. She contested a seat in the 2017 general election under the Women's Equality Party. In 2019, she supported Boris Johnson, endorsed the Conservative Party and campaigned for Conservative candidates. She was appointed as Independent Government Adviser for Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls in 2020, a post which ended in 2022.
Ali was born c. 1983 in Somalia. When she was four, her family moved to Manchester in England later moving to Cardiff, Wales. [1] [2] [3] She has four brothers, one of whom, Mohamed, is chair of the Somali Conservatives. [4] Aged seven, Ali underwent female genital mutilation (FGM) in Djibouti while on holiday with her family. [2] [5] She later suffered health complications and had to undergo reconstructive surgery. [6] The experience, and meeting other females who had been incised later inspired her to assist at-risk girls and to call for the practice's eradication. [2] [3] Ali studied law at Bristol University. [7]
In 2010, Ali along with psychotherapist Leyla Hussein founded Daughters of Eve. [2] [8] The non-profit organisation was established to help young women and girls, with a focus on providing education and raising awareness on female genital mutilation. [9]
Ali co-founded The Five Foundation, "The Global Partnership to End FGM", with Brendan Wynne in 2019. This non-profit organisation works to raise the issue of FGM on the international agenda and leverage funding for grassroots organisations working to end FGM. Ali previously worked as a civil servant. She also served as a women's rights activist and an independent training consultant for a number of years. [10] [11] Additionally, Ali served as a Network Coordinator for The Girl Generation. She has also written extensively on national gender rights. [10]
Her book What We’re Told Not to Talk About (But We're Going to Anyway): Women's Voices from East London to Ethiopia was published by Penguin Books in June 2019. It includes stories of women who are sharing experiences they have always been told should be "secret and shameful" as well as Ali's own story of living with FGM. [12] The book contained 42 stories from 152 interviews that Ali had undertaken with women across 14 countries. [13] In The Times , Hannah Betts described the book as "a compelling cross-cultural account of vaginal life". [14] Isobel Shirlaw said in i that it was an important book and that "The chorus of women's voices which provide a multi-dimensional, global view of these hidden issues is powerful". [15] The Guardian review by Arifa Akbar praised the book as "rich collection of intimate and uncensored stories" and wrote that Ali "delivers the physicality of the women's experiences with all the leaking, faecal, bloody mess of the body laid bare", although noting that "deeper reflection is lacking" and criticising the omission of coverage of anyone that was not heterosexual and cisgender. [16] Ali told an interviewer from The Guardian that:
"Since the age of seven, when I started talking about my vagina after FGM, I was told that I should be ashamed. But I wouldn't have been talking about these things if FGM hadn't happened to me. FGM was the patriarchy's way of trying to break me and keep me silent, but it made me the loudest person in the room." [13]
In 2020, Ali and Mika Simmons co-founded the Ginsburg Women's Health Board, to campaign for a more effective and equitable healthcare system for women from the National Health Service. The organisation is named after Ruth Bader Ginsburg. [17] [18]
Home Secretary of the United Kingdom Priti Patel appointed Ali as an Independent Government Adviser for Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls, in October 2020. [19] Ali was a direct appointment to the role, which, as is common with such roles,[ citation needed ] was not advertised. The role involves the formulation of a strategy to reduce violence against women and girls, with recommendations expected to be produced in 2021. [20] The report, with forewords from Priti Patel and from Ali, was published in July 2021. [21] [22] Ali expressed her hope that the strategy would be a foundation to improve safety for women and girls through education and legislation, but that "whole system" change would be required to reduce violence. [23] In December 2022 Ali said she does not want to serve under new Conservative Home Secretary Suella Braverman and was on a "completely different planet" to Braverman on women's rights and ethnic minorities. [24]
At the 2017 general election, Ali contested the seat of Hornsey and Wood Green in North London for the Women's Equality Party. [25] Ali polled 551 votes (0.9% of the total), [26] finishing in 5th place out of the 8 candidates that stood and losing her election deposit. [27] During the campaign, Ali's campaign workers received dozens of abusive and aggressive telephone calls, and Ali received a death threat. [25]
Ali is godmother to the son of Boris Johnson, the former prime minister of the United Kingdom, and his wife Carrie Johnson. [28] She endorsed Johnson, who she has referred to as a "real feminist", in the 2019 Conservative leadership election. [29] During the 2019 general election, Ali campaigned on behalf of the Conservatives. [30]
In 2014, Ali received the community/charity award, jointly with Leyla Hussein, at the 2014 Red Magazine Woman of the Year awards for their work with Daughters of Eve. [9] They also placed sixth in the Woman's Hour Power List 2014. [8] Ali was named one of BBC's 100 Women during 2018. [31]
On International Women's Day 2019 it was announced that the 2019 Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy’s International Women's Rights Award would be awarded to Ali for her "approach to ending FGM by offering holistic support to survivors of the practice". [32] Ali was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 Birthday Honours for services to tackling female genital mutilation and gender inequality. [33] [34]
Female genital mutilation (FGM) is the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the vulva. The practice is found in some countries of Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and within their respective diasporas. As of 2023, UNICEF estimates that "at least 200 million girls... in 31 countries", including Indonesia, Iraq, Yemen, and 27 African countries including Egypt—had been subjected to one or more types of female genital mutilation.
Efua Dorkenoo, OBE, affectionately known as "Mama Efua", was a Ghanaian-British campaigner against female genital mutilation (FGM) who pioneered the global movement to end the practice and worked internationally for more than 30 years to see the campaign "move from a problem lacking in recognition to a key issue for governments around the world."
Equality Now is a non-governmental organization founded in 1992 to advocate for the protection and promotion of the human rights of women and girls. Through a combination of regional partnerships, community mobilization and legal advocacy the organization works to encourage governments to adopt, improve and enforce laws that protect and promote women and girls' rights around the world.
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International Day of Zero Tolerance for Female Genital Mutilation is a United Nations-sponsored annual awareness day that takes place on February 6 as part of the UN's efforts to eradicate female genital mutilation. It was first introduced in 2003.
The Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom applying to England, Wales and Northern Ireland. It replaced the Prohibition of Female Circumcision Act 1985, extending the ban on female genital mutilation to address the practice of taking girls abroad to undergo FGM procedures, and increased the maximum penalty from 5 to 14 years' imprisonment. The Act does not extend to Scotland: the corresponding legislation there is the Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation (Scotland) Act 2005.
The status of women in Iraq at the beginning of the 21st century is affected by many factors: wars, sectarian religious debates concerning Islamic law and Iraq's Constitution, cultural traditions, and modern secularism. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women are widowed as a result of a series of wars and internal conflicts. Women's rights organizations struggle against harassment and intimidation, while they work to promote improvements to women's status in the law, in education, the workplace, and many other spheres of Iraqi life, and to curtail abusive traditional practices such as honor killings and forced marriages.
Comfort Iyabo Amah Momoh, is a British midwife who specializes in the treatment of female genital mutilation (FGM). Born in Nigeria, Momoh is a member of the British FGM national clinical group, established in 2007 to train health professionals in how to deal with the practice. Until 2017 she served as a public-health specialist at Guy's and St Thomas' NHS Foundation Trust in London. She is the editor of Female Genital Mutilation (2005).
Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting (FGC), female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and female circumcision, is practiced in 30 countries in western, eastern, and north-eastern Africa, in parts of the Middle East and Asia, and within some immigrant communities in Europe, North America and Australia. The WHO defines the practice as "all procedures that involve partial or total removal of the external female genitalia, or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons."
Daughters of Eve was a UK-based non profit organisation that worked to protect girls and young women who were at risk from female genital mutilation (FGM).
Leyla Hussein is a Somali-born British psychotherapist, social activist and university administrator. She is the founder of Dahlia project, one of the co-founders of the Daughters of Eve non-profit organization and a Chief Executive of Hawa's Haven. In 2020, Hussein was elected Rector of the University of St Andrews, making her the third woman and first woman of colour to hold this position.
Female genital mutilation in the United Kingdom is the ritual removal of some or all of the external female genitalia of women and girls living in the UK. According to Equality Now and City University London, an estimated 103,000 women and girls aged 15–49 were thought to be living with female genital mutilation (FGM) in England and Wales as of 2011.
Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female circumcision or female genital cutting, includes any procedure involving the removal or injury of part or all of external female genitalia for non-medical reasons. While the practice is most common in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, FGM is also widespread in immigrant communities and metropolitan areas in the United States, and was performed by doctors regularly until the 1980s.
Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as Female circumcision or Female Genital Cutting (FGC) in Nigeria accounts for the most female genital cutting/mutilation (FGM/C) cases worldwide. The practice is customarily a family tradition that the young female of the age 0-15 would experience. It is a procedure that involves partial or completely removing the external females genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs whenever for non-medical reasons.
Hoda Ali is a nurse and human rights activist defending the rights of girls through working and campaigning to end female genital mutilation in the United Kingdom.
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The legal status of female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting (FGC), differs widely across the world.
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