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Edna Adan Ismail

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Edna Adan Ismail
8thMinister of Foreign Affairs
In office
June 25, 2003 – June 26, 2006
PresidentDahir Riyale Kahin
Preceded byMohammad Saed Gees
Succeeded byAbdilahi Mohamed Dualeh
Personal details
Born8 September 1937(1937-09-08)(age86)
Hargeisa,British Somaliland
EducationBorough Polytechnic(nowLondon South Bank University)
OccupationActivist
Known forActivist for the abolition offemale genital mutilation(FGM)
AwardsTempleton Prize(2023)
Signature

Edna Adan Ismail(Somali:Edna Aadan Ismaaciil / Adna Aadan Ismaaciil;born 8 September 1937) is anurse midwife,activist,and was the first femaleForeign MinisterofSomaliland[1]from 2003 to 2006. She previously served as Somaliland's Minister of Family Welfare and Social Development.

She is the director and founder of theEdna Adan Maternity HospitalinHargeisaand an activist and pioneer in the struggle for the abolition offemale genital mutilation.She is also President of the Organization for Victims of Torture.[2]

She was married three times, including toMohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal,who was the prime minister of theState of Somalilandfive days prior toTrust Territory of Somalia's independence and later theSomali Republic(1960–1960) and (1967–1969) andPresident of Somaliland(1993–2002), although the two divorced after five years.

Early life

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Ismail with her petcheetahin 1968.

Ismail was born in Hargeisa, in what was at the timeBritish Somaliland,on 8 September 1937,[3]the daughter of a prominent Somalimedical doctor.[4]She was one of five children born to her mother, but two died at the time of delivery.[5]At the time girls weren't educated in Somaliland, but her father hired a tutor for some local boys and she learned to read and write with them. She later went to a school inDjiboutiwhere her aunt was a teacher.[6]When she was eight years old, she underwentFGM.It was arranged by her mother and grandmother when her father was on a business trip; when he returned he was furious.[5]

Wanting to prevent other women from undergoing the same trauma she did, she trained as a nurse andmidwifein the United Kingdom at theBorough Polytechnic,nowLondon South Bank University.[5]She later marriedMuhammad Haji Ibrahim Egal,aSomali politicianwho was electedPrime Minister of Somaliain 1967, although the two divorced after five years.

She is said to be "the first Somali girl" to study in Britain,[7]Somalia’s first qualified nurse-midwife[7][8]and the first Somali woman to drive.[7]

Hospital work

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Edna Adan Maternity Hospital,Hargeisa
Edna Adan University,Hargeisa

In 1980, Ismail began building a hospital in Somaliland's capital ofHargeisa,but was forced to leave the country due to the beginning of theSomaliland War of Independencein 1981.[9]

She returned to Somaliland and built from scratch a maternity hospital, which she continues to run. TheEdna Adan Maternity Hospitalofficially opened on 9 March 2002, in land donated to her by the regional government at a site formerly used as a rubbish dump. The region lacked trained nurses to staff the hospital[10]– as most had either fled the country or been killed during the civil war – and so Edna recruited more than 30 candidates and began training them in 2000 while the hospital was still under construction. The hospital now has two operating theatres, laboratory, library, computer centre and a complete wing dedicated to training nurses and midwives. As of 2018,the hospital had 200 staff and 1500 students.[6]

The mission of the Edna Adan Hospital is to help to improve the health of the local inhabitants, in particular the high rate of maternal and infant mortality. The facility is a non-profit making charity and a midwifery teaching hospital that is also undertaking the training of student nurses and Assistant Laboratory Technicians.

Charity work

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Ismail's work is supported by charities in the United Kingdom and the United States which help her raise support andawarenessto train additional midwives and fight FGM in Somaliland.[11][12]

Edna Adan Presenting atTEDxAmsterdam2019

Government work

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Ismail was the only female minister in the Somaliland government until July 2006, when she was replaced as Foreign Minister by former Minister of Information and National Guidance Abdillahi Mohamed Dualeh. In addition to her work in government, she continues to be a voice for the Somaliland peoples' democratic will. In March 2022 she was elected as President of theUnrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization.

Awards and recognition

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Ismail was a recipient of the AMANITARE 2002 Annual Award for her efforts to open a private maternity hospital in Somaliland in 1998.[13]

In recognition of her lifelong contribution to humanitarian work, the name of Edna Adan Ismail was added to the Medical Mission Hall of Fame,[14]University of Toledo,Ohio, in March 2007. She has an Honorary Doctoral Degree fromClark UniversityinMassachusetts.She was made an Honorary Fellow ofCardiff Universityin Wales in 2008.[15]In 2018, she was granted an Honorary Fellowship by theRoyal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.[16]

In 2012, Ismail was featured in the documentaryHalf the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,premiering onPBS1 and 2 October. The series introduces women and girls living under very difficult circumstances and bravely fighting to challenge them. TheHalf the SkyPBS TV series is produced by Show of Force along with Fugitive Films. She was the castaway in the long-running seriesDesert Island DiscsonBBC Radio 4on 22 October 2017.[17]

She has been called "The Muslim Mother Teresa" byKate Grant,CEO of the Fistula Foundation.[18]

In 2018, she was awarded an honorary doctorate fromLondon South Bank University.[6]

In 2019, she wrote a book about her life, "A Woman of Firsts"[19]

In 2023 she was awarded theTempleton Prize.[20]

See also

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References

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  1. ^Gettleman, Jeffrey (2 June 2009)."No Winner Seen in Somalia's Battle With Chaos".The New York Times.Retrieved20 May2019.
  2. ^Topping, Alexandra (23 June 2014)."Somaliland's leading lady for women's rights: 'It is time for men to step up'".The Guardian.
  3. ^Skaine, Rosemary (2008).Women Political Leaders in Africa.McFarlane. p. 54.ISBN9780786432998.
  4. ^"125th Anniversary - Get Involved - My Cardiff".Cf.ac.uk. Archived fromthe originalon 13 May 2014.Retrieved10 December2014.
  5. ^abc"Why giving birth in the U.S. is surprisingly deadly".National Geographic.13 December 2018. Archived fromthe originalon 15 December 2018.Retrieved22 December2018.
  6. ^abcUniversity, London South Bank."Edna Adan Ismail, Honorary Doctor".lsbu.ac.uk.Retrieved7 November2018.
  7. ^abcKristof, Nicholas D.; Sheryl WuDunn (2010).Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide.Vintage Books. pp.124–.ISBN978-0-307-38709-7.
  8. ^"Somali Maternity Care".Archived fromthe originalon 14 November 2012.
  9. ^"Who is Edna Adan".26 September 2018. Archived fromthe originalon 19 March 2020.Retrieved30 January2020.
  10. ^"Partner Spotlight: Edna Adan University Hospital, Somaliland".Direct Relief.24 August 2012.
  11. ^"Archived copy"(PDF).Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 22 August 2016.Retrieved13 March2018.{{cite web}}:CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  12. ^Carson, Mary (12 December 2016)."Edna Adan: 'With my army of midwives, fewer girls will go through FGM'".The Guardian.Retrieved23 May2018.
  13. ^Sheldon, Kathleen E., 1952- (2005).Historical dictionary of women in Sub-Saharan Africa.Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press.ISBN0-8108-5331-0.OCLC56967121.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  14. ^Leather, Andrew; Ismail, Edna Adan; Ali, Roda; Abdi, Yasin Arab; Abby, Mohamed Hussein; Gulaid, Suleiman Ahmed; Walhad, Said Ahmed; Guleid, Suleiman; Ervine, Ian Maxwell; Lowe-Lauri, Malcolm; Parker, Michael; Adams, Sarah; Datema, Marieke; Parry, Eldryd (2006)."Working together to rebuild health care in post-conflict Somaliland".The Lancet.368(9541): 1119–1125.doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(06)69047-8.PMID16997666.S2CID25900688.Retrieved10 December2014.
  15. ^"Annual Review 2008"(PDF).Cardiff University. p. 15 of 18.Retrieved7 September2020.
  16. ^"Fellows honoris causa of the RCOG".Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists.Retrieved6 September2020.
  17. ^"BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Edna Adan Ismail".BBC.
  18. ^Kate Grant (1 October 2012)."The Muslim Mother Theresa".The Huffington Post.Retrieved1 October2012.
  19. ^Ismail, Edna Adan (2019).A Woman of Firsts.London, UK: HQ, Harper Collins.ISBN978-0-00-830538-3.
  20. ^Templeton Prize 2023
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