Ooh Dear

[nuune]

 

what is this gunman doing up there while Yeey is waving a goodbye Salaam to Beydhabo, come'on, no need for this, even on planes, this is a bad image!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

the president is going to Libya for Conference of the Sinsaad Ceen Saad countries.

[Fiqikhayre]

 

What is this girl doing? Is she really a camera women, if so how&why? Really strange this isn't what we need right now, girls moving into Media and technology!

 

Picture taken International Village Hotel in Boosaaso at the welcoming ceremony of the Speaker of Parliament Shariif Hassan Sheikh Aden!

 

[ June 02, 2006, 23:12: Message edited by: Admin ]

[Castro]

Originally posted by Sakhar:

What is this girl doing? Is she really a camera women, if so how&why? Really strange this isn't what we need right now, girls moving into Media and technology!

WTF? You ask "how&why" she's a camera woman? Which is more important to you? The how or the why?

 

With brothers like you on her side, she needs no enemies. :rolleyes:

[Fiqikhayre]

^ I don't want a woman carrying a camera on her shoulders, trying to film powerful, influential and heavily guarded people in Somalia, whilst being not properly dressed on top of that.

 

Where's the hijaab and is this a really good place for a woman to be, or you want "your" sister to work in, surely not.

 

My views are very clear about women moving into media, I truelly am against women voicing their voices as news presenters and broadcasters.

[Jacpher]

You want her to wash his underwear instead? Or you oppose to that as well?

[Dhogor]

It's Africa, do you expect Yey to have some sort of CIA forces with him.

[ZOLA]

sakhar..it does not seem like the POWERFULMEN have a problem with the female camera woman. wake up bro coz in todays world women have moved into the media a very long time ago.

this is not an all male site..ur views or remarks about women might often the female members of this site. think about that next time.

 

A.A

[ZOLA]

often=offend..typo

[Xarago]

Originally posted by Sakhar:

^ I don't want a woman carrying a camera on her shoulders, trying to film powerful, influential and heavily guarded people in Somalia, whilst being not properly dressed on top of that.

War hedhe go and get life..!

[Faheema.]

Originally posted by Sakhar:

 

What is this girl doing? Is she really a camera women, if so how&why?

No no no, Waa shaqaalaha imika cusub ee ka mid ah "Woman with the World on their Shoulders" waa lasoo kiraystaa..they carry anything from camera to foostad biyo on their shoulders. Perhaps you should do a documentary on them, I hear they're increasing by the day. :rolleyes:

[Naxar Nugaaleed]

SOMALIA: Feature - Women slowly making political inroads

 

NAIROBI, 14 Jul 2003 (IRIN) - In the past, Somali women have not had a significant role in politics, but there are now signs that the trend is slowly changing. Although they only make up a small minority at the peace talks currently underway in Kenya - with 35 women out of 362 official delegates - this tiny step is seen as progress.

 

Many of the women at the current talks come from privileged groups which have been able to spend time abroad during part or all of the 13-year civil war.

 

Sarah Ndegwah manages the Somali Women's Resource Centre at the talks. Somali women used the centre to produce a brochure about their agenda titled, "Women for Peace and Prosperity for All in Somalia".

 

A recurring theme in the women’s agenda is 25 percent representation in the new government. "We want people to know that women are also capable," Ndegwah told IRIN. "These are educated women who know what they're doing - lawyers, engineers - and they can also be part of the reconstruction of Somalia."

 

CHANGING MEN'S ATTITUDES

 

The women remain optimistic that traditional male attitudes will change, starting with their male counterparts at the peace conference.

 

Asha Abdalla, a minister in Somalia's Transitional National Government (TNG), noted that while most men at the talks had shown support for women’s increased involvement, this had not yet been translated into overwhelming backing for the women’s agenda.

 

Ibrahim Aan Hassan Kishbur, a delegate from the ********* Resistance Army (RRA), told IRIN that women’s participation was important. "Women should play a big role, because if they are missing from the conference, women’s needs will also be absent," he said.

 

While many men favoured bringing the issue of women’s representation to a vote, they nevertheless voted against allocating 25 percent representation to women. Instead, delegates agreed on just 12 percent of seats in the new parliament for women - only slightly more than they were allocated at the Arta, Djibouti conference in 2000 which ushered in the TNG.

 

"This is impossible because Somali women are more than half the population," Asha contended.

 

STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

 

But to some, this small amount is a start. Somali-born Zahara Ashkir Guled has worked as a consultant on gender issues for several international organisations and is attending her first peace conference.

 

She said it was unlikely that anyone would become aware of the women’s agenda unless women were present at political meetings. "You cannot raise your voice unless you are in the room," Zahara told IRIN.

 

Zahara, like most women at the talks, said she represented women and civil society, rather than any clan or political faction. She said this enabled women to maximise the number of seats they were allocated as a group.

 

Asha, and others, said women had not been given sufficient credit for their crucial role in Somali society, especially during the war. "For the last 13 years, women have been the breadwinners, they were supporting the family, from outside and inside Somalia. The man was absent," she noted.

 

She called on the international community and the media to give greater priority to the input of women in the peace process. "It looks as though they are listening more to those warlords than to regular people like the civil society, like intellectuals, like the women's groups," she stressed.

 

And despite the persistent obstacles, a few women are making their presence felt in ways that would have been unlikely, if not impossible, a decade ago. Asha Abdalla recently announced her candidacy for president of Somalia.

 

"Hopefully this is the time when a woman can challenge a man," she said. "I think Somalia needs a change."

 

 

[ENDS]

[Naxar Nugaaleed]

NAIROBI, 14 Jul 2003 (IRIN) - In the past, Somali women have not had a significant role in politics, but there are now signs that the trend is slowly changing. Although they only make up a small minority at the peace talks currently underway in Kenya - with 35 women out of 362 official delegates - this tiny step is seen as progress.

 

Many of the women at the current talks come from privileged groups which have been able to spend time abroad during part or all of the 13-year civil war.

 

Sarah Ndegwah manages the Somali Women's Resource Centre at the talks. Somali women used the centre to produce a brochure about their agenda titled, "Women for Peace and Prosperity for All in Somalia".

 

A recurring theme in the women’s agenda is 25 percent representation in the new government. "We want people to know that women are also capable," Ndegwah told IRIN. "These are educated women who know what they're doing - lawyers, engineers - and they can also be part of the reconstruction of Somalia."

 

CHANGING MEN'S ATTITUDES

 

The women remain optimistic that traditional male attitudes will change, starting with their male counterparts at the peace conference.

 

Asha Abdalla, a minister in Somalia's Transitional National Government (TNG), noted that while most men at the talks had shown support for women’s increased involvement, this had not yet been translated into overwhelming backing for the women’s agenda.

 

Ibrahim Aan Hassan Kishbur, a delegate from the ********* Resistance Army (RRA), told IRIN that women’s participation was important. "Women should play a big role, because if they are missing from the conference, women’s needs will also be absent," he said.

 

While many men favoured bringing the issue of women’s representation to a vote, they nevertheless voted against allocating 25 percent representation to women. Instead, delegates agreed on just 12 percent of seats in the new parliament for women - only slightly more than they were allocated at the Arta, Djibouti conference in 2000 which ushered in the TNG.

 

"This is impossible because Somali women are more than half the population," Asha contended.

 

STEP IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION

 

But to some, this small amount is a start. Somali-born Zahara Ashkir Guled has worked as a consultant on gender issues for several international organisations and is attending her first peace conference.

 

She said it was unlikely that anyone would become aware of the women’s agenda unless women were present at political meetings. "You cannot raise your voice unless you are in the room," Zahara told IRIN.

 

Zahara, like most women at the talks, said she represented women and civil society, rather than any clan or political faction. She said this enabled women to maximise the number of seats they were allocated as a group.

 

Asha, and others, said women had not been given sufficient credit for their crucial role in Somali society, especially during the war. "For the last 13 years, women have been the breadwinners, they were supporting the family, from outside and inside Somalia. The man was absent," she noted.

 

She called on the international community and the media to give greater priority to the input of women in the peace process. "It looks as though they are listening more to those warlords than to regular people like the civil society, like intellectuals, like the women's groups," she stressed.

 

And despite the persistent obstacles, a few women are making their presence felt in ways that would have been unlikely, if not impossible, a decade ago. Asha Abdalla recently announced her candidacy for president of Somalia.

 

"Hopefully this is the time when a woman can challenge a man," she said. "I think Somalia needs a change."

 

 

[ENDS]

[STOIC]

I don't want a woman carrying a camera on her shoulders, trying to film powerful, influential and heavily guarded people in Somalia, whilst being not properly dressed on top of that.

 

Ladies and gentlemen pretend you hear infused television situation comedies with a canned laughter the moment you finish reading the above sentences..Muwahahaa...

[Naxar Nugaaleed]

The role of Somali women in the home has somewhat changed in Canada. Redefinition of traditional and cultural roles have merged, in which Somali men were the breadwinners and women the homemakers. Women and female relatives assumed most of the housework and childbearing duties. Men were the heads of households, and took most of the financial responsibilities.

Due to the breakdown of the traditional support systems that were available in Somalia, abusive relationships among married couples as well as between parents and children are increasing in the Somali community. There are increasing incidents of violence within families. However, the lives of Somali women revolve around their families. Political, social and economic concerns are dealt within the presence of all family members.

 

Unlike Canadian women, Somali women live in extended families. They mainly take care of their elderly parents as well as their children and relatives. The sociological term for these women is the "Sandwich Generation".

[Naxar Nugaaleed]

The better half

BY BASHIR GOTH

 

23 January 2006

 

 

DOWN the years, African women have been powerful in all realms of life except in leadership and decision-making positions. They have been powerful breadwinners, inexhaustible child bearers, patient mothers, dutiful wives, family hut builders, relentless farmers and firewood collectors.

 

 

The picture of the African woman hauling heavy loads of carriage on her head, water container on her back and a child on her chest; while trekking miles and miles under rainy weathers or simmering heat and dusty environments, with her man shamelessly strolling beside her with only a stick in his hand, reflects the epitome of her servitude.

 

Since time immemorial, African women have also been the glue that bound the society’s fabric and extended bridges between feuding clans. As daughters of one clan and wives of another, they always have been goodwill ambassadors and peace messengers at times of war, sometimes at the risk of losing their own life. Even in today’s urbanised African societies, women constitute the backbone of the family income and the national economy. Women vendors selling all kinds of merchandise, foodstuff and animal products dominate the African open markets. Many of them also work as domestic servants to earn a few more bucks to send children to school and keep their vagabond and spendthrift men at bay.

 

The World Bank Report 2006 cited that: “African women play an increasingly important role in the economy, both as paid workers and as care providers. African women’s contribution to food security on the continent accounts for about 70 per cent of agricultural activities, 50 per cent of livestock care taking, 50 per cent of agricultural storage activities, 100 per cent of food processing, 80 per cent of water fetching, 80 per cent of fuel and wood gathering, 100 per cent of food preparation, and 60 per cent of food commercialisation.â€

 

Notwithstanding their revenue generating power, women in Africa still remain the symbol of misery. Their men not only rob their hard earned pennies and waste them on drugs and satisfying their unfettered libido, but also bring home sexually transmitted diseases, thus making African woman the face of Aids as commented by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in an article in 2002.

 

According to UNDP’s Millennium Project Report of January 2005, more than 40 per cent of women in Africa do not have access to basic education, a woman living in Sub-Saharan Africa has a 1 in 16 chance of dying in pregnancy or childbirth compared with a 1 in 3,700 risk for a woman from North America, while 60 per cent of adults living with HIV in southern Africa are women. Despite such insurmountable suffering and obstacles, African women have come of age and thanks to international support and recognition for their magnanimous role in society have taken very bold strides in approaching the echelons of power.

 

It was “a political coincidence of the rarest breed†according to one commentator, that Africa has celebrated the election of its first woman President the same day that the German Bundestag had inaugurated Angela Merkel as its first chancellor in history on November 23, 2005. The overwhelming victory of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (66) as Liberia’s and Africa’s first woman President must have stirred the souls of the millions of toiling African woman and inspired the more millions of African school girls dreaming of a life better than that led by their mothers.

 

In South Africa, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka drew smiles from many African women when she was appointed as the country's first woman deputy President, raising hopes that she could be South Africa's first woman president in 2009 if President Thabo Mbeki decides to steps down. The most tangible step for women’s political empowerment in Africa, however, came when the African Union (AU), made the decision to narrow the gender gap in its top decision-making positions and elected five women and five men as AU commissioners in 2003. This was followed by the election of Ms Gertrude Mongella as the head of the AU’s Pan-African Parliament, which boasts 25 per cent women membership. Ms Marie-Angélique Savané also leads the African Peer Review Mechanism, an offshoot of the AU, which oversees standards for good governance.

 

Women’s snail movement to the continent’s political leadership started with Elisabeth Domitien, who served as Prime Minister of Central African Empire during the years 1975-1976. Since then women have been inching towards the continent’s male-dominated top political posts. Those who came close second included Maria do Carmo Silveira, current Prime Minister of Sao Tome and Principe who was appointed in 2005, Luisa Diogo, Prime Minister of Mozambique 2004, Maria das Neves, Prime Minister of Sao Tome & Principe (2002-2004), Madior Boye, Prime Minister of Senegal (2001-2002), Ruth Perry, Chairman of State Council, Liberia (1996-1997), Silvie Kinigi, Interim President of Burundi (1993-1994) and Agathe Uwilingiyimana, Prime Minister of Rwanda (1993).

 

In a defiant note of refusal to be left behind, women of my country in Somaliland had also their moment of joy and celebration on 29 September 2005 when Ikran Haji Daud Warsame made history as the first Somali woman to win a seat in public parliamentary election. Though internationally unrecognised, Somaliland also took credit for becoming the first Horn of African country and the first African-Islamic state to have a woman as a foreign minister. Edna Ismail has since then spearheaded the country's quest for attention with exceptional finesse.

 

As a country predicted by the eminent Kenyan-American Prof. Ali Mazrui in early 1980s to be the first African nation to have a woman president, Somalia’s closest call to such feat came in 1997 when Radiya-Roda, a woman from the then breakaway Somaliland, threw in her gauntlet for the country’s presidential race against a veteran politician and an independence hero. Although Radia-Roda barely made it beyond her announcement of intent, it was Asha Ahmed Abdalla’s vying for presidency in war-torn Somalia that had refreshed Prof Mazrui’s prediction in people's minds, while reflecting the African woman’s unrelenting will to reach for the skies despite the walls around her.

 

In the social development field of which women were always at the forefront albeit being invisible, African women’s moment of glory came when Kenyan environmentalist and human rights campaigner Wangari Maathai won the Nobel Peace Prize, thus becoming the first African woman to have won such a prestigious international accolade since the creation of Noble Peace Prize in 1901. The most rewarding aspect of the award was that Dr. Maathai was honoured for issues that were close to the heart of African women over the centuries. The Noble Committee hailed Dr Maathai’s great achievements for the environment, human rights, gender equality and against poverty as important seeds for world peace. This was an international recognition of the African woman’s historical attachment to land and her record as a peacemaker.

 

African women’s age-long role as bread winners also got international recognition through the UNDP honouring of Ms. Edith Wakumire of Uganda for her work in poverty reduction at the local community level in October 1998 in commemoration of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. These women of steel not only represent as apostles of change for the war and poverty infested continent but also signify the dawn of a new Africa where women carry the flagship of peace and prosperity.

 

Bashir Goth is an African journalist based in Abu Dhabi. He can be reached at

bsogoth@yahoo.com