A charity director made an OBE in the New Year’s Honours list said she is “flattered” to receive the honour.

Sajda Mughal, director of the JAN Trust, works to combat violence against women and promote women’s rights.

Ms Mughal joined the charity after nearly being killed in the terrorist attacks in London on July 7 2005. On the morning of the attacks, she was on the Piccadilly line in the same train as Germaine Lindsay, who detonated a bomb and killed 26 people.

She said: “That was obviously a near-death experience and an incredibly traumatic experience. But it changed my life. Before it happened I worked in the City. It made me rethink everything.”

Ms Mughal, who lives in Haringey with her three children, has since worked at the JAN Trust’s centre in Bedford Road, Wood Green.

She said: “Every day is different. Sometimes I might be visiting schools to talk about female genital mutilation, sometimes I might be visiting government ministers to influence policy.

“I work very long hours, I start early and come home late and then continue working at home. We're underresourced and underfunded. But I love it. Otherwise I wouldn’t do it.”

The JAN Trust focuses on preventing terrorism by helping mothers engage with their children, as well as working to stop female genital mutilation (FGM) and forced marriages.

Ms Mughal said that although the number of prosecutions for FGM in the UK was low, the practice is still a problem in Haringey.

She said:  “It’s happening where young women are being taken abroad. At JAN we work by letting young girls know that they can speak out about this and they can say no. We make sure they know that FGM is not something that’s allowed in the UK.

“Both FGM and forced marriages are culturally embedded practices, you need to go and speak to people and try to change their minds. We’re the only charity in the UK where we work with the perpetrators.”

Ms Mughal’s work has been commended by the Prime Minister David Cameron.

Recently, she was named by the Evening Standard as one of the Top 1,000 Influential Londoners in its campaigner category.

The JAN Trust has won awards, including ‘small charity big achiever’  in the Third Centre Awards for Excellence 2013 as well as The Centre for Social Justice Award 2013.