In response to ongoing abuses of women's rights in the name of fundamentalist Islam, Ayaan Hirsi Ali and her supporters established the AHA Foundation in 2007 to help protect and defend the rights of women in the West against militant Islam.

Through education, outreach and the dissemination of knowledge, the Foundation aims to combat several types of crimes against women, including female genital mutilation, forced marriages, honor violence, and honor killings.

The Foundation is opposed to the adoption of dual legal systems to adjudicate family disputes in religious families and supports the separation of all religions and the State.

The AHA Foundation works to reinforce the following basic rights: the rights of women and girls to security and control of their own bodies, the rights of women and girls to an education, the rights of women to work outside the home and to control their own income, the rights of women and girls to freedom of expression and association, and the rights of women and girls to other basic civil rights of citizens and residents defined under the laws of Western democracies and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, regardless of sexual identification.

Founding member, Ayaan Hirsi Alli

As a 501(c)3 organization under the Internal Revenue Code of the U.S., the Foundation only accepts charitable and philanthropic contributions and does not sell products of any kind.

Click here to learn more about the AHA Foundation.

WHAT DO WE KNOW? Click here to download facts and figures on the circumstances affecting Muslim girls and women in the United States.

 

UNITED STATES:

18 August 2010: Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes on how to win the clash of civilizations, arguing the key advantage of Samuel Huntington's famous model is that it describes the world as it is--not as we wish it to be. MORE >

17 August 2010: Brett Stephens writes the Ground Zero mosque imam earns wide congratulations while true Muslim reformers go ignored. MORE >

10 August 2010: In Trinidad, Colorado, doctor Marci Bowers has performed about two dozen reconstructive surgeries on mostly African born women victimized as children by female genital mutilation: cultural, religious and social factors have helped keep the practice alive among those who believe it will reduce promiscuity and take away sexual pleasure or desire. MORE >

INTERNATIONAL:

2 September 2010: The parents of so-called "honour killing" victim Shafilea Ahmed have been arrested on suspicion of her murder, police sources have said: Shafilea went missing from her home in Warrington (UK) in September 2003, aged 17. MORE >

2 September 2010: Though the Indonesian government banned female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) four years ago, experts say religious support for the practice is more fervent than ever, particularly in rural communities: a lack of regulation since the ban makes it difficult to monitor, but medical practitioners say FGM remains commonplace for women of all ages in the emerging democracy of 240 million - the world's largest Muslim nation. MORE >

26 August 2010: The husband of a US citizen, who claimed she was confined illegally for seven months, says that she is under her family's influence: Shahrukh Pervez and his father Pervez Alam Arain addressed a press conference in Hyderabad on Tuesday and claimed that his wife Sadia was under pressure from her uncle and other relatives: Shahrukh said that he married Sadia in Houston, US, without her parents' consent which is why the family tried to annul the marriage while they were in the US. MORE >