Hawo Tako

Who is Hawo Tako?

Hawo Tako, also recorded as Hawa Osman or Xaawo Taako, was a Somali nationalist activist celebrated as one of the earliest and most prominent women in the Somali independence movement. Originally from the Somali-inhabited Kebri Beyah area near the present-day Somali Region of Ethiopia, she relocated to Mogadishu and became an energetic organizer for the Somali Youth League (SYL), the leading political movement campaigning for the unification and independence of Somali territories after the Second World War. She was especially active in mobilizing women and ordinary citizens for public demonstrations against proposals to return southern Somalia to Italian trusteeship. On 11 January 1948, during a major SYL demonstration in Mogadishu timed to coincide with a visit from the Allied Four Powers Commission, violence broke out between protesters and Italian police and settlers in what became known as the 1948 Mogadishu massacre. Hawo Tako was seriously wounded in the unrest and died of her injuries days later. Her death galvanized the nationalist movement, and she was elevated to the status of a martyr of Somali independence. A monument depicting her armed with a sword and a stone stands today beside the Somali National Theatre in Mogadishu, and the Somali Women's Democratic Organization, founded in 1977, was named in her honor.

Sources: Wikipedia, "Hawo Tako" · Goobjoog News, "Today in History 1948: Somalia popular freedom fighter Hawa-tako killed"