AL-SHAYDAN RAPING SOMALI WOMEN AND GIRLS

[tightrope]

For Somali Women, Pain of Being a Spoil of War

A rape victim in Mogadishu hid her identity. Aid workers say there has been a free-for-all of armed men preying upon women and girls displaced by famine.

By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN
Published: December 27, 2011

MOGADISHU, Somalia — The girl’s voice dropped to a hush as she remembered the bright, sunny afternoon when she stepped out of her hut and saw her best friend buried in the sand, up to her neck.


Her friend had made the mistake of refusing to marry a Shabab commander. Now she was about to get her head bashed in, rock by rock.

“You’re next,” the Shabab warned the girl, a frail 17-year-old who was living with her brother in a squalid refugee camp.

Several months later, the men came back. Five militants burst into her hut, pinned her down and gang-raped her, she said. They claimed to be on a jihad, or holy war, and any resistance was considered a crime against Islam, punishable by death.

“I’ve had some very bad dreams about these men,” she said, having recently escaped the area they control. “I don’t know what religion they are.”

Somalia has been steadily worn down by decades of conflict and chaos, its cities in ruins and its people starving. Just this year, tens of thousands have died from famine, with countless others cut down in relentless combat. Now Somalis face yet another widespread terror: an alarming increase in rapes and sexual abuse of women and girls.

The Shabab militant group, which presents itself as a morally righteous rebel force and the defender of pure Islam, is seizing women and girls as spoils of war, gang-raping and abusing them as part of its reign of terror in southern Somalia, according to victims, aid workers and United Nations officials. Short of cash and losing ground, the militants are also forcing families to hand over girls for arranged marriages that often last no more than a few weeks and are essentially sexual slavery, a cheap way to bolster their ranks’ flagging morale.

But it is not just the Shabab. In the past few months, aid workers and victims say, there has been a free-for-all of armed men preying upon women and girls displaced by Somalia’s famine, who often trek hundreds of miles searching for food and end up in crowded, lawless refugee camps where Islamist militants, rogue militiamen and even government soldiers rape, rob and kill with impunity.

With the famine putting hundreds of thousands of women on the move — severing them from their traditional protection mechanism, the clan — aid workers say more Somali women are being raped right now than at any time in recent memory. In some areas, they say, women are being used as chits at roadblocks, surrendered to the gunmen staffing the barrier in the road so that a group of desperate refugees can pass.

“The situation is intensifying,” said Radhika Coomaraswamy, the United Nations’ special representative for children and armed conflict. All the recent flight has created a surge in opportunistic rapes, she said, and “for the Shabab, forced marriage is another aspect they are using to control the population.”

In the past two months, from Mogadishu alone, the United Nations says it has received more than 2,500 reports of gender-based violence, an unusually large number here. But because Somalia is a no-go zone for most operations, United Nations officials say they are unable to confirm the reports, leaving the work to fledgling Somali aid organizations under constant threat.

Somalia is a deeply traditional place, where 98 percent of girls are subject to genital cutting, according to United Nations figures. Most girls are illiterate and relegated to their homes. When they venture out, it is usually to work, trudging through the rubble-strewn alleyways wrapped head to toe in thick black cloth, often lugging something on their back, the equatorial sun burning down on them.

The famine and mass displacement, which began over the summer, have made women and girls more vulnerable. Many Somali communities have been disbanded, and with armed groups forcing men and boys into their militias, it is often single women, with children in tow, who set off on the dangerous odyssey to refugee camps.

At the same time, aid workers and United Nations officials say the Shabab, who are fighting Somalia’s transitional government and imposing a harsh version of Islam in the areas they control, can no longer pay their several thousand fighters the way they used to. Much as they seize crops and livestock, giving their militants what they call “temporary wives” is how the Shabab keep many young men fighting for them.

But these are hardly marriages, said Sheik Mohamed Farah Ali, a former Shabab commander who defected to the government army.

“There’s no cleric, no ceremony, nothing,” he said, adding that Shabab fighters had even paired up with thin little girls as young as 12, who are left torn and incontinent afterward. If a girl refuses, he said, “she’s killed by stones or bullets.”

One young woman just delivered a baby, half Somali, half Arab. She said she was selected by a Somali Shabab fighter she knew, brought to a house full of guns and handed off to a portly Arab commander, one of the many foreigners fighting for the Shabab.

“He did whatever he wanted with me,” she said. “Night and day.”

She said she escaped when he was sleeping.

The Elman Peace and Human Rights Center is one of the few Somali organizations helping rape victims, run by Fartuun Adan, a tall, outspoken woman whose husband, Elman, was gunned down by warlords years ago. Ms. Adan says that since the famine began, she has met hundreds of women who have been raped and hundreds more who have escaped forced marriages.

“You have no idea how difficult it is for them to come forward,” she said. “There’s no justice here, no protection. People say, ‘You’re junk’ if you’ve been raped.”

Often, the women are left wounded or pregnant, forced to seek help. Ms. Adan wants to expand her medical services and counseling for rape victims and possibly open a safe house, but it is hard to do on a budget of $5,000 a month, provided by a small aid organization called Sister Somalia. Ms. Adan wept on a recent day as she listened to the 17-year-old girl recount the story of seeing her friend stoned to death and then being gang-raped herself.

“These girls ask me, ‘How am I going to get married, what’s going to be my future, what’s going to happen to me?’ ” she said. “We can’t answer that.”

Some of the women in Ms. Adan’s office seem to have come from another time. They have made it here, with help from Elman’s network, from the deepest recesses of rural Somalia, where women are still treated like chattel.

One 18-year-old who asked to go by Ms. Nur, her common last name, was married off at 10. She was a nomad and says that to this day she has never used a phone or seen a television.

She spoke of being raped by two Shabab fighters at a displaced-persons camp in October. She said the men did not bother saying much when they entered her hut. They just pointed their guns at her chest and uttered two words: stay silent.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/28/world ... ted=1&_r=2

[LobsterUnit]

we believe you, jeffrey, we really do.

[Basra-]

# 1 How do we know this is NOT a brilliant ploy to have the lovely "American Baasaboor"? Asylum?

# 2 How do we know--one qabil is hating on the other and using Cadaans for proganda.

# 3 Who cares.

[galia]

Kill the witches. They could be lying only to survive after seeing Al-shabaab's defeat.

[eliteSomali]

^ Regardless of the authenticity of this... al cudur needs to disappear!

[tightrope]

THE ARTICLE IS LEGIT.
THE SAME JOURNALIST WHO WROTE THIS ARTICLE, WENT TO THE OGADEN AND MET THE ONLF.

[SahanGalbeed]

Markii la waydiiyay somalidan maxaad ku taageertan Al Shabaab , waxay ku jawaabeen , because warlord ki iyo mooryaanti baa dadki wada kufsatay .
Hadda sheekadi waxay isku badashay , al shabaab-ti baa dadki kufasnaysa . haye ?
Nacaybkan dadkan laga kala dhex abuurayo , anigu sidii loogu noolan laha marka dambe meeshan ma arko wallahi.
Kolba koox cusub ayuun ba soo gasha ciyaarta , laakin ciyaartu is ma badasho , ina Lilah wa ina Ileehi Raajicuun


Anigu nin gaal oo faranasiis ah baan ka dhegaysta maalin dhaweed radio-ga . Wuxu u shaqeeya NGO dadka masakiinta ee gaajadu laysay loogu soo diray Somalia .Wuxu yidhi , haddeynu nahay NGO horta dhulka ay dadku joogan meel faro badan baa inaga mamnuuc ah . Muslimiinti sida Turkiga iyo Carabti ba ina dhaafisay sababta oo ah , al shabaab si walba ha uga so hor jeedan e , been ka ma sheegan , dacaayad ka ma alifaan , iney wax jiraan yihiin na way u qirtaan
Anagu bu yidhi , haddanu nahay wadamada gaalada , we have a tendency to demonize our enemies . It really doesn't solve anything bu yidhi , runtiina dhibaatooyin faro badan baynu ku qabna . Wuxu yidhi , labo boqol oo Turki ah baa joogta Xamar , cid walaa af duubtay ama xabad ku furtay la ma hayo buu yidhi .
Gaalkii wadamada Galbeed ka socda , niman ba ilaaliya , haddeynu ka baxno meelaha la inoo ogolyahay na , wa ba khalaas .
TFG du waa wada Yalaxow gan halkan soo gala oo miidhan wallahi . I have no hopes for that country as long as they continue to be that way .

[FAH1223]

we believe you, jeffrey, we really do.

I like Jeffrey's article

[SahanGalbeed]

Dawlad aan maddax banaani lahayn , weligeed lugo ay leedahay ku ma istaagi karto, been ha isku sheegina .
Somaliland waxy uga horreysa dawladda Somaliya waxa weeye , markey lugaheeda ku istaagtay bay gaaladi lacagta ay ku caawiso Somaliland u soo dirtay .
Qofka Somalilander ku wuxu oghahay in dawladiisu mid u ISAGU qayb ku leeyahay tahay ma'ogtahay ? Lacag la'aan ba lagu dhisay , lacag la'aan bay ku soo bislaatay , ama ku soo cimri gaadhay . Tan Somalia , tii oo aan fadhi ka kicin ba , ayuu hadeena intaasu shisheeye faro ku dhex leeyahay.
Bal aniga waxaad ii sheegtan sideed ku qancin kartan shacabka duleedkaas in dawladaasi tahay mid ummadaas oo dhan u wada sinaan doonta?
Marka la rabo in wax "long term" ah la dhisto, waxa wacan in runta la isku sheego .
He is the bad guy and I am the good guy , haddaanad nuclear bomb sida maraykan ka u japan ugu riday aanad lahayn , weligaa meel ku gaadhi maysid

[SahanGalbeed]

Anigu markaan si walba u eegay , waxaan aaminsanahay in al shabaab-tu meel aanay xaaran hore jirin , so ba degi karayn .
Dad baa taageersan al shabaab. Wax wada waalan iyo dhiig-yacab ma wada ah dadku , yacni Ilaahey baanan sida ka ba dhigin dadka.
Xabad -xabadan is qarxisa , mid iyadu nafti hore uga quusatay weeye e , waxaad ii sheegtan , maxay Sucudiga u qabsan waayeen ? maxay Somaliland u qabsan waayeen ?
Jaanjaanka ayuun ba ku odhanaya , de al qacida waa iska fikrad sucuudi oo waddan- kooda ayay ka la fogaanayaan waalida , ina Godane na de isagu na idoor oo .... de waa iska caynka
NO! Meel u nidaam qof waliba o bani aadan ah ku qanci karo laga helayo , al qacida ma ba soo istaagto . Meeshii rabshad hore jirtay ayuun bay ka soo dhex toosta .
Haddaba su'aasha aan u hayo dadkan taageersan TFG-da waxay tahay , ummadan somaliyeed e al shaabaab idin ka raacday sideed u qancin kartan?
Ma' daaro lagac ajnabi idiin soo shuubtay baad dhisaysaan , mise "corruption"ka ayaad wax ka qabanaysaan ?
Ma Lido baad kubad u ciyaar tagaysaan , mise qabyaalada ayaad sal u yeelaysan ?

Wax farta cid kale ku fiiqda oo kolba mid uun xumaan ku sheegta ayuun baan arka anigu e , wax ummada isku keeni karta idin ka ma dhex arko

[Somaliman50]

has it crossed your mind that perhaps militiamen who claim the name of Alshabaab committed this vile act?

Alshabaab whether you hate them or love them, they go by strict policies and such disclipline wouldnt allow them to abuse people so freely like this. in any case Ilaah hanaga qabto mujrimiinta falkaan ku dhacay

[Teeri]

has it crossed your mind that perhaps militiamen who claim the name of Alshabaab committed this vile act?

Alshabaab whether you hate them or love them, they go by strict policies and such disclipline wouldnt allow them to abuse people so freely like this. in any case Ilaah hanaga qabto mujrimiinta falkaan ku dhacay

Bulshit, 10 Alshababs raped a 13 year old girl in Afmadow a fortnight ago, when the elders complained they said all the men have disappeared, yeah as if, this proves that alshababists dont punish their own men for this vile acts yet are hypocrites when it comes to those they rule

[Teeri]

has it crossed your mind that perhaps militiamen who claim the name of Alshabaab committed this vile act?

Alshabaab whether you hate them or love them, they go by strict policies and such disclipline wouldnt allow them to abuse people so freely like this. in any case Ilaah hanaga qabto mujrimiinta falkaan ku dhacay

of course, they are innocent sheiks aren't they?

[udun]

we believe you, jeffrey, we really do.

I like Jeffrey's article

FAH, I think you did not get Gaajounit's point. He is indirectly saying we don't believe the stuff that Jeffrey written.

[LobsterUnit]

we believe you, jeffrey, we really do.

I like Jeffrey's article

FAH, I think you did not get Gaajounit's point. He is indirectly saying we don't believe the stuff that Jeffrey written.

Udun, Jeffrey is no different from the likes of Richard Burton. A read an article he wrote a while and he took a dig at Somali women by saying that, although, they are covered in their country, he allegedly danced with them in hotels abroad, whilst playing hip-hop music.