Mamia Chentouf

Mamia Chentouf (Arabic: ماميا شنتوف was an Algerian midwife, independence activist and founder of the first women's rights organization in Algeria. Encouraged by her family to become educated, she attended the University of Algiers and completed training as a midwife. During her schooling, she joined the Algerian Independence Movement, which sought to free the country from French colonial rule. Using her work as a midwife to make contacts with other women, she rallied them to the nationalist cause and founded the first women's rights organization in the country. As part of the militant group, she was exiled, arrested and then fled to Tunis, Tunisia in 1955. While living there, she was one of the founders of the Algerian Red Crescent Society. At the end of the Independence War she became a journalist, returned to Algiers and studied political science. She served as organizer of the National Union of Algerian Women and was successful in creating family planning centers. Frustrated at an inability to change the family code to prohibit polygamy, she retired from politics in 1969.