Template talk:FGM opposition timeline

You never even mentioned anything about creating this template. At any rate, Raqiya Haji Dualeh Abdalla and the SWDO are the actual first anti-FGM campaigners in Somalia. They established the SWDO in 1977 (a governmental organization) to implement the government's 1972 law against FGM. As the U.S. Department of State notes [1]:

The Siad Barre Government has historically supported women's rights. In the face of conservative opposition, it rewrote laws to increase women's rights to inherit and own property, made women the legal equals of men, and perhaps most importantly it outlawed female circumcision. The Government's campaign against female circumcision, led by the Somali Women's Democratic Organization of the SRSP, continued to make progress in 1989. Although the practice remained common, especially in rural areas, pharaonic circumcisions (the most extreme and dangerous form of female genital mutilation) became less common.

Ismail only spoke out on FGM after Abdalla and her colleagues had already founded the SWDO, and she did so with governmental permission not on her own ("In 1977, when Somali Women's Democratic Organization was formed, Edna Adal Ismail, an experienced health worker, spoke out with governmental permission about infibulation" [2]). Ismail's proposals mentioned above likewise came after Abdalla (not Ismail) was elected as Somalia's representative on the 1979 WHO conference's five-member sub-committee on FGM. Please see the linked page with references from the SWDO itself and the United States government, among others. Middayexpress (talk) 20:27, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]

See discussion at Talk:Female genital mutilation#Ismail again. SlimVirgin ^(talk) 21:34, 16 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]