# Hibaaq Osman (Hibaaq Cismaan)

> Hibaaq Osman: Somali founder of El-Karama and the SIHA women's network.

Source page: https://calankii.com/en/people/hibaaq-osman/
Last checked: 2026-11-12
Publisher: Calankii (https://calankii.com)

## Who is she?

Hibaaq Osman is a Somali political strategist ([Wikipedia, Hibaaq Osman](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibaaq_Osman)). She was born in Somalia, studied there and in Ethiopia, [Sudan](/en/diaspora/sudan/) and the United States, and has lived and worked in Yemen (same source).

## Work

From 1992 she was director of communications for the Fund for Peace, and she chaired the Center for the Advancement of Somali Women and Children in Washington DC ([Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hibaaq_Osman)). She founded the Centre for the Strategic Initiatives of Women, and the SIHA network, which links women's groups across the Horn of Africa (same source).

Since 2002 she has led V-Day's work in Africa, the Middle East and Asia (same source). In 2005 she founded El-Karama, a Cairo-based organisation working on women's rights in fourteen countries of the Middle East and North Africa, including Somalia (same source). Through it she launched the Libyan Women's Platform for Peace in 2011 and the Syrian Women's Forum for Peace in 2012 (same source). See [Somalis in Egypt](/en/diaspora/egypt/).

## In short

A Somali strategist who built women's rights networks across the Horn of Africa and the Arab world.

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