Garden of Peace

Hi, my name is Shamsa Sharawe or Shamsa Araweelo. I am raising money to help a 23 year old mother who is at risk of forced marriage again and her 3 year old daughter who will be cut soon after her mother is married off. Let me introduce myself, I am the founder of Garden of Peace charity dedicated to supporting survivors and victims of honour-based violence. We aflre not registered because that requires funds of its own. Nevertheless we support survivors and protect those at risk. We are healing orientated charity as we believe the neglect of survivors of harmful practices such as female genital mutilation can not continue. As a survivor-led charity, we will offer each flower (survivor) in our Garden person-centred care because we understand the importance of individuality. We know flowers have different origins, and some require different treatment for their unique individual needs so why should survivors of female genital mutilation be any different?


At Garden of Peace, we are putting our efforts into also educating people of the harmful practice of Re-culturing. This form of abuse, consists of returning British youths both girls and boys to Somalia under false pretences. As a result, these minors and young adults are at high risk of Female genital mutilation, underage marriage, forced marriage and false imprisonment in a facility designed to re-culture Western youths and adults. These individuals usually experience extreme forms of honour-based abuse but no one is focused on this practice, no reports, no recorded deaths as a direct result, no training and most of all no support. However, at Garden of Peace, we fight to prevent, support, educate and return these youths and adults to the UK. 


I've been supporting them from first contact until they return, support includes assisting them in contacting FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) to help with a loan to get their emergency travel documents sent directly to them in Somalia, and support with flights under special circumstances. for example, if FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office) is unable to assist with flight tickets or loans for ETD (emergency travel document), one of my cases I suffered financially and mentally because I had to pay out of pocket which I can not continue to do being a single mom which no support of my own but now we can help using donations raised. I struggled for months with re-culturing cases of minors and young adults and I was able to bring 3 individuals back safely, two minors and one young adult. However, I also experienced the loss of one of their female cases because FCDO did not take the case seriously and I was not coming from a known registered organisation or charity, SO I was ignored and it resulted in the suspicious death of a 23 British-born female. More so, another young woman is missing because her case was delayed and was not taken seriously. For that reseason I decided to create (Garden of Peace) to o prevent, reduce, educate, and rescue honour-based abuse victims and support the healing of all survivors of honour-based abuse.
This current case I am working on needs not only your attention but your generosity. Here is her story and her 3-year-old daughter. please trigger warning is advised, this is in her own words in writing and voice recording.


" I am going to tell you is my story. I beg you to save me and my daughter from this dangerous environment. I think my parents have severe mental health problems and have never learnt to cope with it. Instead, it became part of their personality.


Our father started a car selling business in an Arabic country (it was successful ), and decided we need to live there. He told everyone that his love for his wife and kids won't let him be away from them and that he needed us to feel whole. In truth, he took us to there to discipline the 3 oldest children to make an example of us to the rest of his kids because we were rotten whores (his words not mine). It was because i am a tomboy and my two older sisters had interest in music and were extroverts.


We left UK in 2006 while our mother was pregnant when i was 8 years old, a couple months later she gave birth to a girl. We started school in that Arabic country on the first year there. Our father would pick is up from school and if he even saw us say goodbye to a girl, we were beaten with computer wires twisted together until he saw bloody marks all over our body. He would wake us up at 1am with beatings to do homework we didn't understand and keep us awake until we've finished our homework. At times we already done our homework before bedtime, he still beat us awake to do extra. There was no way of appeasing him and our mother let him. There was once an incident were i was late on my toilet break (it was 2am), I ran to get to the living room on time and tripped on my bag, hitting the bridge of my nose on the edge of the chair. My nose and eye was badly bruised for 3-4 months. They refused to take me to the hospital. My teachers were so worried about me that they called after my parents to tell them that i needed a doctor asap, but the moment we were away from them he beat me so bad i couldn't breath and said your seeking attention. There are many accidents like that and the worst part is that only me and my two older sisters suffered through this. When i was 10, my parents took me and my sisters to a old one bedroom house, where we were held down one by one and cut, we had type three FGM and we were very lucky to survive, i remember having high fever, unable to walk for weeks.
After a year of going to school, he took us out so we would become there slaves and always told us that too. We had to cook, clean, bathe our siblings, learn the Quran and Hadiith but not naturally. He would test us on versus we hadn't even reached and would beat us for it, he would beat us to "show us" that's how he'll beat us if we didn't know the quran. It got to the point where when we heard his voice we would hide in the closet and toilets to avoid him because if he saw us we would be dragged to a room and beaten.


We moved to Somalia in 2011 when i was 13 year old. Our father lost his business and decided to come to Somalia to grow his farm. We moved and our maternal grandmother was elated to see us and wanted us to live near her so we can see her all the time. But again, father gave an excuse of him not wanting to be far away from us and moved us to another town, he told me that it was because we were whores and would sell our bodies to anyone. The abuse continued there as well. They beat me so many times that my rotator cuff teared and i developed a shoulder instability. My right shoulder would dislocate as many as 2 times on a good day and 3-5 times on a bad day. I was in so much pain, there were even times when it took several hours of not moving my hand for my shoulder to settle. Even through all that they denied me any type of medical attention. I want to make it clear that we were not poor or even had any money issues. I stayed with that pain for 2 years before my my socket joint finally bent in half. Still I was denied medical attention for 3 more months before they finally brang me to a Turkey hospital in Mogadishu. They lied to the doctor and said it has only been 2-3 weeks when my shoulder pain started and that they have no idea what caused it. It was 2015 when the doctor told us that i needed surgery and that made my father really angry. In that same week he brang one of my younger sisters to the eye doctor, I told him that my eyesight was really bad and he kept on calling me a liar and an attention seeker even when we were at the Optometrist. That was until I was checked and the Optometrist confirmed that my eyesight was indeed bad.
 I couldn't see peoples face features for so long that when i put on the lenses i was shocked that everyone looked so much more different than i thought. My amazment was short lived. After we left the Optometrist my father claimed that i was lying and that there would be consequences. A week later was my surgey and my parents blamed me for "wasting so much money". The doctor explained to my parents that i shouldn't leave to Marka for at least a month so i could heal and start physical therapy. My parents agreed and 2 days later we were on the road back to marka. Every bump and movement hurt so much, i was forbidden to take any painkillers. The driver got worried when i cried out of pain at every turn and bump (the road to Marka is dangerous and Rocky), the driver started slowing down at any bumps, some passengers were worried too and didn't mind being late or driving slowly for my sake. My father chimed in and said I'm just dramatic and to ignore me, it took a couple of attempts to convince the driver and the passengers to not worry about me. My mother slid near to me and told me to shut up and stop making a scene.


There are many similar and worser scenarios that I've been through but I wont go into detail about it. I will tell you the sicknesses though.

Pneumonia

Hypoxemia

H pylori and peptic ulcer (I currently have this one and has remaind untreated for a year now)

Asthma

Eczema

Knee injury

Jaw trauma ( from my father repeatedly beating my face)

And much more


In 2013 my oldest sister was married off to a stranger at the age 18. He was a horrible man and was 13 years older than her and lived in the UK. He shamed her for being curvy and called her ugly all the time. She renewed her passport while she was there and came back to us 4 months later because he couldn't stand looking at her. Our father asked her about what happened, slapped her across the face and pulled her hair saying she has to go back to him.

Her father in-law was more understanding and gave her the divorce. Our father hated that, and body shamed my sister for a long time after that. My second oldest sister had a smaller structure than me and looked much more younger, so my parents skipped her and got me married off in 2016 at the age of 18 as well. I met him one morning and that same night my father threatened me into marrying him. Saying that i would regret my decisions if i don't get married, that the only reason I'm alive is to produce, and that he would never forgive me and pray for the worst things to happen to me if i refuse his request. I was young and it was beaten into me from a young age that I should always fear my fathers wrath.

I agreed to the marraige and was married off one week later on june 14th 2016. I believed in my soul that a marriage would save me from my fathers clutches even though i was forced into it but i went from one prison to the next.
On our first night, he labeled me as a liar because he hadn't know I have Asthma.

He hurt me with words so many time. The worst was him telling me explicit ways that i would die or how he would execute it. I now have a deathphobia thanks to the many years of mental abuse. He would gaslight about thing i said or done so much i started to believe i was crazy and making things up. I tried to tell my parents and sister what i was going through but they all turned a blind eye and said it was my duty to cover up his mistakes and that i needed to be a better wife.

I couldn't get pregnant for the first 4 years of my marriage because my mom had me get Stage 3 FGM ( i was sewn together) at the age of 10 causing health complications.


My oldest sister got married by force again to another man in 2017 to a good-ish man. She convinced him to let her leave to England and she left while she was 5 months pregnant. But it was a really close call. My father couldn't get to her in time to stop her from leaving cause he was stuck in the farm ( the roads were flooded by the river over flowing). He was so mad that he would call me and my second oldest sister a lot.

But he was worse with me, he called me several times a day cursing, blaming, yelling, and threatening me with death. Saying i was at fault for letting her leave and that i should've stopped her since i was married and could relate.

I got so stressed and depressed that i was admitted to the hospital for a couple of days cause i wasn't breathing properly and i had irregular heartbeats.

My husband at the time started his work in Mogadishu, so i stayed with my parents for a year. We would sneak in phone calls with Our sister to make sure she was fine. I father noticed and beat us for even thinking of talking to her.


My second oldest sister got married in 2018 to an okay man and lived in Mogadishu . I moved in with her after the whole family moved to Mogadishu for my brothers to start university.

I dreaded seeing my husband at the time, but at the end it was inevitable. It was only in july 2019 when i finally got pregnant.

I was so elated that i dressed up and suprised him with the news but it didn't go as planned. He frowned at me, then told me that he prays for it to be an ectopic pregnancy and he would be the happiest man alive if i would die because of it. I started having this nerve pain in my right leg a couple days later. I informed my husband at the time (please understand that it is painful for me to say his name or write it), he then proceeded to make sure that i knew i wasn't going to get any medical attention because he wanted me to die with the baby. When my sister saw that i couldn't even walk from the pain she informed our parents (i didn't have a phone), my brother in-law was the one to get involved though and i got to go to the hospital. The baby was healthy and the pain was from the place the baby latched onto. That didn't make my husband happy. So his abuse got worse.
It started as the usual threats of praying and begging god to kill me in horrific ways. When that wasn't enough he would kick my belly to give me a miscarriage. When that wasn't enought he would trip me over while i was carrying hot food and glasses so i would get burnt and the shard of glass would stab me and end my life. Then it was starvation. He denied me food and i couldn't eat what my sister and he was eating cause the smell of it made me sick. It got to the point where my brother in law had to buy me food and water cause i was ill. He then started to look for another house far away from both our families. Telling me that we're moving and that no one would here my screams or will ever see me again.

Then there was my asthma. Intstead of morning sickness like most pregnant people, I got severe asthma attacks and had to spend most of my first trimester in the ER. My asthma was so bad you could here me wheezing before you even came inside my room. My inhaler wasn't working and i had no phone. Even if i did have a phone i couldn't talk or move. My husband at the time took advantage of that. He would make sure i couldn't breath or move before pinning me down and raping me. He would only let me go to the hospital after a couple of days of raping me. I felt disgusting inside and I blamed myself. No-one listened to me. No one would believe me. No-one could save me. The raping went on for the whole first trimester and half of the second trimester. I got a phone somewhere between then because he knew i was too broken to tell anyone.

I was in such a bad place where I believed death was a more merciful approach.

The only thing that stopped me was the baby i was carrying from actually doing the deed.

One day near the end of my 2nd trimester, i got a call from an unknown number. I answered the phone and it was my eldest sister. She called my other sister before me to check if i was okay. She only figured out that day that i was pregnant and she was so happy. I hid everything behind the smile i fooled everyone with, but she knew. She knew me so well that she could here something was wrong. It took her only saying "What happened" for me to burst into unstoppable tears. It took me a couple of days to fully open up. But she didn't have (she still cant) a job or enough funds to save me. Our parents made sure we didn't know anyone so nobody could ever help us. I didn't no any place to escape to or anyone, we were indoors for so long that we didn't even know how the exterior of our home looked like.

I went for my 8 month check up and decided to not go back. My mother argued with me calling me spoiled and said i should be a good wife and suck it up.

I borned my angel on the 29/03/2020. I only had 2 pairs of clothes for her. No money to buy anything else. My father payed for the hospital and said i should be grateful. I stayed with my parents for 6 weeks before i was forced to go back to my husband.

In those 6 weeks i hated my life so so much. I developed an issue of when someone mentioned his name in front of me i would start shaking and sweating. My father noticed that. He would call me while i was resting, if i was asleep i was to be woken up. When i went to him, he would say his name and lie to me saying he's coming.

Another thing was that he would call me while I'm breastfeeding and say it's an emergency. I would run there to see if someone got hurt or something happened, but, he was only calling me to say his name and hurt me all over again.

It is known in Somalia that if someone borns relatives bring gifts to the mother or to her family. I got a couple of clothes from my Aunts for my daughter. My father would wait for people to be around to shame
me and call me a spoiled bitch.

After 6 weeks we (me and my daughter) had to go back to that horrible man.

For almost three more years i suffered but now with my daughter to protect. He attempted beating her when she was an infant to discipline her and multiple times after that. I told my parents but they turned a blind eye.

It wasn't until late November when i opened up to my second oldest sister and told her what was going on. She was hurt i hadn't seeked her out sooner, but she was more angry with our parents. She packed my clothes and gave me money to leave and go to my parents house.

I told her all the abuse he did to me and told my mother i wanted a divorce. She was furious and called my father to tell him too. She came back to me and said "your father allowed you to stay here but you will be going back to him after you recover".

I was shocked. Where did all the anger go? It took one word from my father to change her mind.

My husband at the time started spreading rumours, saying that i verbally abused him and i would hit him and was talking to other men. My brother in law and my sister told everyone that it's not true but my father wouldn't have it. In my parents eyes, i should've been docile and compliant and that i deserved everything that happened to me.

When word went around and got to my husband at the time's uncle. He got mad, not at me, but at his nephew. And gave me my divorce on December the 8th.

My parents couldn't get me married right away but they were planning behind my back. They repeatedly told me that if i died it would have been better than being a divorced woman and that the shit outside has more value than me.

I begged my sister that lives in UK to help me but she doesn't have the finances too.

Now I'm due to another forced marriage to a 40 year old man with 3 wives and he lives in the Rural areas next month on the 13th of may. My parents have been in contact with my Ex and told him about my future marriage and now he wants to take my daughter and give her FGM the week after my marriage. My parents both agreed and I'm so lost not knowing how to protect her at all. My sister contacted

Shamsa Sharawe/ Shamsa Araweelo 7th April 2023 through social media and she has been helping and supporting me since. W e contacted FCDO UK to report my second force marriage and my daughters high risk of FGM, FCDO said if Shamsa can handle the emergency travel documents and flight payments, they will work on issusing me and my daughter travel document as she born in Somalia as a result of muy force marriage and rape.

Please I beg of you.

Please save me and my daughter.

My parents are now away but will be returned back on start of may to marry me off and they will cut my 3 year old daughter.

I can't go through that again. I can't leave my daughter with people who don't care about her at all and want to harm her.

I need to leave before they get back.

My father would kill me if he sees me trying to leave and for that reason i can not give any information that could identify me including the location of the arabic country we were first taken to. i am scared i will be identified. I can not include my name, nickname or any other identifying information but you will also hear my story from my own mouth.

I beg of you to save me.

You my only hope.
With the money raised, we will pay and apply for her travel doc and her daughters with the help of FCDO, we will also pay for their travel, food and other essentials for the little girls during the travel and transit. We hope to take her out within the next 3 weeks before the 23-year-old mother's forced marriage and 4 weeks before the little girl is cut. I also have another case, so the remainder of the donation will be used to help a young 21-year-old male return was also taken back and is now trapped and locked in a facility where he was severely beaten and chained for months on end. He has little time outside so he reached out and FCDO is also supporting me with his case but honestly I found young males are often overlooked but not with Garden of Peace, victims are victims male or female. This young man deserves his freedom just like anyone else. so please help me get their flight tickets, travels essentials and most importantly emergency travel document. These victims of honour-based abuse will come back safely and with your donations, I can act fast. donations are all we need at this point. For these cases alone will total cost of 5-7 thousand pounds (emergency travel document for 3, flight tickets from Somalia for 3, Food and other essentials during travel, transport to airport, taxi, and 200 each for essentials on their return each. They will receive support through referrals for housing support for the mother and daughter. Also the young man, we also supporting them with job applications, but most of all we can provide a safe place to heal and become a productive part of society, help in finding purpose, understand and fulfilment by first working through their trauma. So in turn they are empowered to join our fight in ending honour-based violence like female genital mutilation, under age marriage, forced marriage, and dhaqan celis (re-culturing).

The remaining balance will be used for other cases we will be handling, also whatever is left will be put towards the charity register of (Garden of Peace) including charity preparation for community use- improving website, information flyers, events including group sessions and more.


Everything chest with these donations will be shown and explained on TikTok. You will get to see the tickets have been booked and emergency documents have been applied. You will be on this journey with me as you are contributing to their safe, return and I have no doubt in my mind that when they do return, they will express their gratitude thank you all in advance for your donations for your support for sharing you are saving our lives, and you are saving a young girl from the complications of female genital mutilation, you are saving a young man from being beaten to death, and a young woman being forced to get married to a 40 oh dear old man. I appreciate you all.