Somalia: The Worst Place To Be A Woman.....

[gedo_gurl]

As I read the misogynist writings here about Somali women, I realise this is a nationwide problem. Our sisters back home are living in a hell within a hell. This woman's life story makes me cry, subxanaAllah.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/ju ... en-somalia

Fatima Osman Bulle lives in an internally displaced ppeople's camp in Mogadishu. Her makeshift house consists of cloths and sticks and has no running water, electricity or toilet. She and her husband, seven children and three relatives are crammed into one room.

"I feel that I am a low-class member of the family," Bulle says. "I am the most disrespected person in the home."

The 35-year-old has been sexually harassed, tortured and abducted by people she worked for in the past . She now earns $40 (£24) a month as a housemaid and cook.

"I started working as housemaid when I was eight, I was married by force when I was 13 and I am a victim of domestic violence since then," she says.

"The abuses start from early childhood. I was circumcised when I was five. It is a lifetime wound that I live with all the time. I experienced child labour and forced marriage and I never went into a class."

She cannot read or write and her children have been denied access to education. Their future is "dark", she says.

Domestic violence, constant fear of rape, lack of healthcare and basic needs and cultural inferiority are the reality for women in Somalia. They have no voice and little respect.

Fadumo Isaak Ahmed, 30, a mother of five, typifies the destitution and suffering of the women and children in her neighbourhood.

"I work and wash clothes for the families," she says. "I have no regular job. I look for my luck, but the amount I can generate can be one dollar or less.

"Three of my children go begging. They are street beggars. If they get some money, we can use it as the fuel of the hurricane lamp. If they don't get any, we sleep in the dark."

Ahmed has also experienced female genital mutilation, early marriage and child labour. She whispers: "My husband beats me when I don't get a job because he stays in the house and thinks that I am his slave. If I left him, I would have no place to go, so I am a life slave.

"It is the circumstances and the culture of the country that made me such a low-class person."

Ahmed grew up as an orphan and was forced to marry a cousin when she was 14. "He died when I got two children, and I was forced to marry his younger brother who is my husband now. He beats me all the time," she says.

"A man raped me when I was 13, and I was victimised by rapists two other times when my husband was absent."

She is worried about the future of her three daughters, who have no hope of going to school.

Violence against women in Somalia is the highest in Africa, according Mogadishu's Somali Women Development Centre, which provides support to victims.

Nadia Sufi Abdi, the centre's human rights documentation officer, describes the country as "a woman's hell on earth."

She says: "No woman in Somalia is happy to be a woman because, from the cradle to the grave, woman is a victim.

"The domestic violence, the raping, killing and kidnapping of women is part of the daily life, and there is no authority standing to stop this."

[Tuba]

That is really disturbing.

In my younger and naive years, I actually did not ever think rape & sexual assault took place in Somalia. If we stigmitized it less, people could see it less as a 'gaalo' issue and a more as of one that is shared by humanity. Maybe this is my calling insha'Allah, tackling this issue from a grass-root awareness and advocacy aspect. Who knows.

[anonymousfaarax]

They do have it hard but they are also the stongest women. May allah make it easy for them and ease their hardships. There surely is non like the Somali women; non as enduring, as hardworking, as ultruistic and as devout to their families regardless of what may happen to them. Wale abaal ayay nagu leeyihiin and it breaks my heart to see how they are treated and to see what they have gone through

[anonymousfaarax]

That is really disturbing.

In my younger and naive years, I actually did not ever think rape & sexual assault took place in Somalia. If we stigmitized it less, people could see it less as a 'gaalo' issue and a more as of one that is shared by humanity. Maybe this is my calling insha'Allah, tackling this issue from a grass-root awareness and advocacy aspect. Who knows.

Rape happens in any society but from what I have been reading and the vibe from this aticle is that it is systematically being commited by bandits/militias/miscreants in the regions where conflict is taking place as well to IDP's and refugees either when travelling, fleeing or in camps. In these situations women are especially vulnerable as they may well be sperated from their families/husbands/friends/neighbours/relatives/clan and the environment where they would have a certain level of protection. Also the purpetrator may be able to get away with it easily in a state of choas/emergency/severe hardships where they may be a large and continous movement of people.

[FAH1223]

What do you expect... there is no rule of law

[qoraxeey]

Gedo Gurl .. welcome back .. long time agooo .. halke ka baaxdaay



somalia is the worst place to be man , woman , child and animal .... or any living organism

[salool]

Ilaahy ha sahlo masaakinta.Kufsashada dhimashada aya dhaanta.

[AhmedBoqor]

I have to strongly disagree with this sentiment. Yes they have it bad in Somalia but not as terrible as other countries in Africa especially the central and west and I believe we have God to thank for that alhamdulillah.

[anonymousfaarax]

It is very prevalent in the south nowadays.

[udun]

They do have it hard but they are also the stongest women. May allah make it easy for them and ease their hardships. There surely is non like the Somali women; non as enduring, as hardworking, as ultruistic and as devout to their families regardless of what may happen to them. Wale abaal ayay nagu leeyihiin and it breaks my heart to see how they are treated and to see what they have gone through

Amen.

I pray to Allah this brutal civil war will have a conclusion and the life of Somali women and children will improve.

[Turbulence]

wow the crazy lady is back.

[Rabshoole]

Ilaahay ha u fududeeyo noolasheeda iyo umadda kale oo dhib iyo rafaad ku nool dhalkeena.

[anonymousfaarax]

Amiin.

[gedo_gurl]

Amiin to your du'as. Tuba, good luck inshaAllah.

FAH, of course. But we all forget that women always have it the hardest, this post was just a highlighter.