Fartuun Abdisalaan Adan (Somali: Fartuun Aadan, Arabic: فرتون آدن) is a Somali social activist. She is the executive director of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre, a Mogadishu based organization that works on peace building and protecting and empowering marginalized groups . She is also the co-founder of Sister Somalia, which is Somali's first rape crisis and support program for survivors of gender-based violence.

Adan’s work has received multiple international honors, including the International Women of Courage Award from the United States Department of State in 2013 , a human rights award from the German government in 2014 , the Gleitsman International Activist Award from Harvard Kennedy School in 2015 , the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity in 2020 , and the Right Livelihood Award in 2022.

Fartuun Adan grew up in Somalia. She was married to Elman Ali Ahmed, a local entrepreneur and peace activist. Her husband was widely known in Mogadishu as the "Somali father of peace." He popularized the slogan “Drop the gun, pick up the pen” and created programs that help war-affected youth, including former child soldiers and orphans, move towards schooling and positive livelihoods. The couple had four daughters together.

In 1996, during the height of the Somali Civil War, Adan's husband was killed near the family's home in southern Mogadishu. Human rights organizations and later profiles in Somali diaspora media recount the 1996 assassination and its impact on the family marking it as turning point that pushed Adan into a more public role as a defender of peace and human rights. Soon after the assassination, Adan left Somalia with her daughters.

Fartuun Adan emigrated to Canada in 1999, settling in Ottawa. In interviews, she spoke about how she felt the work her and her husband had started in Mogadishu was unfinished. In 2007, she returned to Somalia to advocate for peace and human rights and to revive the organization that would become the current day Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre. Reports from Canadian news outlets described the traveling back and forth between Ottawa and Mogadishu, linking the Somali diaspora communities with local civil society in Somalia.

On November 20, 2019, local authorities confirmed her daughter Almaas Elman, who had also returned to Somalia as an aid worker, had been shot and killed in a car, near the Mogadishu airport. The tragic killing came more than two decades after the assassination of Elman Ali Ahmed, which prompted attention to the risks faced by Somali human rights activists. Adan and her surviving daughters chose to continue their work in Somalia, and as a result are looked at as a family that continues multigenerational activism despite repeated losses. ^{[AI-retrieved source]}

Fartuun Adan is the executive director of the Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre, a Mogadishu-based NGO established in honour of her late husband. She serves as the organization's Executive Director, while their daughter Ilwad works alongside her in a senior leadership role. According to the organization's own website, Elman Peace works across multiple pillars, including peace and reconciliation, human rights and protection, gender equality, climate and security, education, and job creation for young people.

The Right Livelihood Award foundation describes Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre as carrying forward the slogan “Drop the gun, pick up the pen” philosophy through community-based disarmament, rehabilitation, and reintegration of former combatants, including child soldiers. The organization combines counseling, basic education, vocational training and job placement, and has also created initiatives such as an ocean-therapy program that uses watergames and the sea as a part of trauma healing for children affected by war. Under Adan’s leadership, Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre has grown from a local center in Mogadishu to an entire network of people working in several regions of Somalia and even partners they advise in other African countries.