Leyla Hussein

Leyla Hussein is a Somali psychotherapist, writer, specialist on female genital mutilation (FGM) and gender rights, and lead campaigner working to end violence against women and girls. She is the founder of the Dahlia Project, a psychotherapist and counseling service for survivors of FGM, and the chief executive of Hawa’s Haven, a collective of Somali women campaigners and community activists who work to raise awareness about violence against Somali women and children. Hussein is also the co-founder of Daughters of Eve, a nonprofit working to protect those at risk from FGM. She recently became a consultant and global ambassador for the Girl Generation Program, where she provides safeguarding training to ambassadors to help them cope with and campaign against FGM. She advises several organizations and has presented her research on FGM at Oxford, Cambridge, and Harvard, among others. For her work Hussein was awarded Cosmopolitan’s Ultimate Campaigner Women of the Year Award in 2010 and was named one of BBC's 100 Women of 2013.