Minority Somali women in camps targeted for rape - rights group

[Somalina]

Written by: Megan Rowling

24 Nov 2010 17:37:00 GMT

 

 

LONDON (AlertNet) - Somali women from minority groups uprooted by conflict are targeted for rape because men believe there will be no redress due to the women's low social status, researchers for Minority Rights Group International (MRG) say.

A report on discrimination and abuse of Somalia's ethnic and religious minority groups, released on Wednesday, says minority women in particular "suffer egregious abuse in the context of displacement".

Last year the researchers visited camps for people driven from their homes by violence, located in Somalia's northeastern semi-autonomous region of Puntland, and were told of "a disturbing and persistent pattern of rape of minority women, perpetrated by majority men and sometimes by members of the Puntland police, army or security service".

"Tens of thousands of minorities have been displaced from south-central Somalia due to the civil war," MRG Executive Director Mark Lattimer said in a statement. "Now they are vulnerable to renewed abuse."

 

The report notes that all Somalis - whether from majority or minority groups - have suffered "immense violations" of their human rights for decades, from the torture and political oppression of the era of military dictator Mohamed Siad Barre to today's humanitarian crisis, caused by nearly 20 years of intermittent civil war and frequent drought in the Horn of Africa country.

 

But it says the situation is worse for minorities than for other groups because, unlike the majority population, they lack protection from the lawless nation's traditional clan structure.

There are four main clans in Somalia that have dominated politics, the economy and urban life since independence in 1960, the report says.

The country's minority groups, however, have struggled to gain a voice. The Bantu, made up of descendants of former imported and runaway slaves, and indigenous farmers, are Somalia's largest minority.

The other minorities are occupational groups who traditionally carried out crafts, such as blacksmiths and leatherworkers, or ritual tasks like genital mutilation; the Benadiri who constitute mercantile communities of Arab origin living mainly in southern coastal cities; and religious groups, including a small population of Christians, as well as minorities within Islam.

 

The report notes that statistics regarding minorities are speculative and disputed. But in line with a 2002 U.N. estimate that they accounted for around a third of the population, MRG says they may number up to 3 million of the estimated 9 million Somalis today, including the self-declared state of Somaliland.

 

The report says majority clans continue to exclude minorities from politics and economic opportunities, deny them access to justice, and punish couples who inter-marry.

And minority groups affected by conflict also told MRG researchers they receive relatively little humanitarian aid, with majority clans able to secure a larger share because of their dominant social status.

The report also says hardline Islamist group Al-Shabaab, which controls much of the south, has targeted minorities because of their religious practices, particularly Christians, citing local media reports of killings - including beheadings - and the desecration of graves by Al-Shabaab.

 

"WE ARE DESPERATE"

Mariam Yassin Hagi Yussuf, a Somali researcher based in Italy, who interviewed women at the Puntland camps last year for the MRG report, told AlertNet the problem of sexual violence affects women from all groups, but minority women have less chance of obtaining justice, leading men to think they are easy prey.

"The minority women said they seemed to be more vulnerable because there will be no revenge for it, or there will be no justice at the end," she said. "Minority women are often displaced or living in slums, and they are vulnerable anyway, so they are more exposed to the problem."

The report contains accounts from several minority women of horrific and repeated sexual violence against them and other female members of their families.

 

One widowed Benadiri woman living with her daughters in a camp in the coastal city of Bossaso in Puntland described how, seven months earlier, two men had entered her hut, beaten her and raped one of her daughters in front of her. When she reported the incident to the police, one of the men was arrested, but he was freed the next day and came back a few weeks later.

"He raped me in revenge for reporting him to the police. I did not report to the police this time. I need medical treatment for the physical damage," the report cites the woman as saying. "My daughter is pregnant now, from the same man who raped her mother. We are desperate. Someone take us away from this land!"

 

In another case, a 50-year-old woman of the ******** minority group (historically known as ******) living in Bossaso tells of how her daughter, 14 at the time, was snatched by six men in military uniform on her way to the market, raped until she passed out, and dumped - barely alive - in the same spot.

"After five years she still has problems while urinating ... My daughter is seriously injured and she needs medical intervention. If we had been from another clan we would have been given compensation but we are just 'poor ******, who nobody cries for'," says the woman, who has tried to get journalists to investigate the incident. :mad: :mad:

 

Managers of one camp in south-central Somalia told Yussuf that between three and five cases of rape were being reported every one to two weeks, but she says many women stay silent about sexual violence because of the stigma. To grasp the true scale of the problem, more effort is needed to document cases.

 

Yussuf also urged international and local organisations to work together to put in place a justice system that is accessible to women of all groups, as well as raising awareness about abuse and discrimination against minorities.

"International organisations are (in Somalia) to provide aid, but the more these issues come out, they will understand them better, and start to focus their interventions on minority groups," Yussuf said.

[Qodax Qorax]

Very sad.

 

When will we realize that the true injustices are committed by ourself. And those are the ones we can solve. But as long as these injustices prevails, we cant do nothing about the ones committed by others.