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	Mama Hawa, lighting a path for Somalia''s recovery by UNHCR: Nansen Refugee Award Somalia   Hawa Aden Mohamed, is a former refugee who is lighting a path for Somalia''s recovery.   Widely known as Mama Hawa, she has taken extraordinary steps to empower thousands of displaced Somali women and girls, including many who have fled war, persecution or famine.   Hawa Aden Mohamed won the United Nations refugee agency''s Nansen Refugee Award for her work in helping thousands of Somali women and girls, start new lives in their battered homeland.   Mohamed, 63, a former Somali refugee returned to her war-torn country in 1995, launching an education program to shelter and train Somalis who have fled war, famine and violence, it said.   "When Hawa Aden Mohamed rescues a displaced girl, a life is turned around," U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres said in a statement.   She founded the Galkayo Education Centre for Peace and Development which has assisted more than 215,000 displaced and victims of violence since 1999, it said.   "In a society like Somalia, it''s very often that a woman or a girl is raped and they are severely marginalized thereafter. So what she has done is given them is a home, a new start, hope for a new life and their dignity back," UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told a news briefing.   Young Somali boys also receive vocational training in carpentry and welding to keep them off the streets and avoid them falling prey to criminal or armed groups, the agency said.   Somalia has been mired in conflict for more than two decades. More than two million people have been displaced.   * Learn more about Hawa Aden Mohamed and her remarkable efforts to empower displaced women and girls and rebuild Somalia. Visit the related web page
	Impunity for violence against women is a global concern by Rashida Manjoo Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences   Aug 2012   Governments are urged to act with due diligence to prevent and investigate violence against women and girls, prosecute perpetrators and provide protection and redress to victims.   This was contained in the report to the Human Rights Council by Rashida Manjoo, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences.   She noted that religious, cultural, and social norms and beliefs are largely the causal factors for harmful practices resulting in violence against women. Therefore countries’ efforts to comply must also address these structural causes.   Globally the prevalence of different manifestations of killings targeting women is increasing and a lack of accountability for such crimes remains a concern.   “Whether labelled murder, homicide, femicide, feminicide, or ‘honour’ killings, these manifestations of violence are culturally and socially embedded, and continue to be accepted, tolerated or justified - with impunity as the norm,” stressed the independent expert reacting to the latest killing of women in Pakistan and Afghanistan.   Impunity for the killings of women has become a global concern, a fact noted by the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon when he stated that, “Impunity for violence against women compounds the effects of such violence as a mechanism of control. When the State fails to hold perpetrators accountable, impunity not only intensifies the subordination and powerlessness of the targets of violence, but also sends a message to society that male violence against women is both acceptable and inevitable”.   These killings targeting women, Rashida Manjoo decried, are extreme signs of existing forms of violence against women and are not isolated incidents that arise suddenly.   They are rather the ultimate act of violence which is experienced in a continuum of violence.   “Failure of States to guarantee the right of women to a life free from violence” has led to many deaths of women, she adds.   In her report, she further states that the killings can both be active, direct or passive and indirect. The direct category includes killings as a result of intimate-partner violence; killings related to allegations of sorcery and witchcraft; armed conflict; dowry; gender identity and sexual orientation as a result of hatred and prejudice; ethnic- and indigenous identity; and female infanticide and honour killings.   The indirect killings she states include deaths linked to human trafficking, drug dealing, organized crime and gang-related activities; maternal mortality; deaths of girls or women due to simple neglect through starvation, ill-treatment and deliberate acts of inaction by the State.   Killings by intimate partners have significantly been underreported and the Special Rapporteur states in her report that studies have shown that in many countries the home is the place where a woman is most likely to be murdered.   On killings related to allegations of sorcery and witchcraft, the report shows that the pattern includes violent murders, physical mutilation, women being burned or buried alive, displacement, kidnapping and disappearance of girls and women who are also subjected to “exorcism”.   The report further adds that crimes committed in the name of “honour” have been characterized as being among the most severe of the harmful practices. The murders are carried out to “cleanse" family honour and are committed with high levels of impunity in many parts of the world.   Honour crimes also include stoning, women and girls being coerced to commit suicide after public denunciation of their behaviour, or being subjected to acid attacks. These crimes often go unreported, are rarely investigated and, when punished, sentences are far less than those for equally violent crimes.   In her 2012 report, the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences, Rashida Manjoo from South Africa underscored that States should adopt a comprehensive approach in addressing the gender related killings of women, and offered key recommendations to that end.   http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/ImpunityForVAWGlobalConcern.aspx   July 2012   United Nations Special Rapporteur Rashida Manjoo has stated that the recent killing of Fareeda Afridi, a human rights defender in Pakistan, of Hanifa Safi, a provincial head of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Afghanistan, as well as the public execution of Najiba, a woman accused of adultery in Afghanistan, “are tragic reminders that gender related killings of women are a global and increasing concern.”   “Whether labelled murder, homicide, femicide, or ‘honour’ killings, these manifestations of violence are culturally and socially embedded, and continue to be accepted, tolerated or justified - with impunity as the norm,” stressed the independent expert charged by the United Nations Human Rights Council to investigate and report on violence against women, its causes and consequences.   “The failure of States to guarantee women’s right to a life free from violence, allows for a continuum of violence which can end in their death.”   “The killings of women is indeed a State crime when tolerated by public institutions and officials - when they are unable to prevent, protect and guarantee the lives of women, who have consequently experienced multiple forms of discrimination and violence throughout their lifetime,” Ms. Manjoo said, urging both the Pakistani and the Afghan governments to conduct prompt and impartial investigations on these cases and to ensure perpetrators are brought to justice.   “It is crucial to acknowledge that these are not isolated incidents that arise suddenly and unexpectedly, but are rather the extreme manifestation of pre-existing forms of violence experienced by women everywhere,” she stressed.   “However, women suffering multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination, face a greater risk of experiencing such violence.”   The expert noted that women human rights defenders “are commonly perceived as challenging accepted socio-cultural norms, traditions, perceptions and stereotypes about femininity and the role and status of women in society, while reclaiming their rights or the rights of their communities.”   In her view, “this is also the case when women are accused of acting in ways that are considered ‘dishonourable’ in certain societies, and subjected to public punishments, also with the aim of influencing and controlling the conduct of other women.”   In her 2012 report* to the Human Right Council, the Special Rapporteur underscored that States should adopt a holistic approach to addressing the gender related killings of women, and offered some key recommendations to that end:   1. Ensuring effective investigations, prosecution and sanctions;   2. Guaranteeing access to adequate and effective judicial remedies;   3. Treating women victims and their relatives with respect and dignity;   4. Ensuring comprehensive reparations to victims and their relatives;   5. Identifying certain groups of women as being at particular risk when adopting preventative measures;   6. Modifying the social and cultural patterns and eliminating prejudices, customary practices and other practices based on the idea of the inferiority or superiority of either of the sexes, and on stereotyped roles for men and women   * See UN Women: http://www.unwomen.org/focus-areas/ Visit the related web page
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