Care2
Saturday, August 17, 2013
“I was alone,” remembers 14-year-old Hoda*, recalling that evening
in January 2013. “My father is a police officer, and he was working
that night.” Hoda was in the bathroom preparing for bed, while two
armed men quietly broke into her house. A man of 75 years and his son
then hid under her bed.
When Hoda returned to her room, the men emerged
and began to rape her. Eventually her screams were heard by
neighbours, who came to her aid, detaining the men, who are now in
prison awaiting trial.
Such situations are common in Somalia. Ever since the outbreak of
civil war in 1991, the country has been enveloped by sectarian and clan
violence and foreign military intervention. In 2011, African Union
forces supported by the United Nations ousted the militant Islamist
group Al-Shabaab and have been tasked with maintaining public security
and stability for the democratically elected government. While open
fighting is no longer the norm, for the people who live here, daily
life is still dangerous. For women and girls, who often bear the brunt
in post-conflict situations, violence remains an ever-present threat.
To help survivors overcome their trauma, UN Women is supporting a
community healing project being run by the Somalia Youth Development
Network (SOYDEN). The director of the project, Adan Bare, recalls
seeing Hoda sitting at the back of a trauma healing session, ashamed to
tell her story. He spotted her and asked a female staff member to
speak to her privately.
“Rape is a serious taboo among Somalis, but she [Hoda] is a brave
one,” says Adan. “She came forward and she realized there where many
others like her. When you speak out you find that you are not alone.”
SOYDEN has been training community leaders to understand trauma and
facilitate healing in the Benadir Region, which includes Mogadishu and a
long stretch of Somalia’s Indian Ocean coastline. Eighty people, most
of them women, were trained in Benadir to conduct two community healing
forums in each of the region’s 32 districts.
Hoda says she attended the healing session because she believes the
community must be aware of the crimes taking place. She says that her
experience isn’t unique in Mogadishu. “While children in other parts of
the world struggle for education, we struggle to recover from the
shock of rape and murder.”
Adan himself is an ethnic Somali from Wajir, a town in northeastern
Kenya, close to the border with Somalia, where clan divisions
contributed to armed conflict in the 1990s. He says that the collective
nature of the sessions helps overcome clan allegiances and encourages
women’s involvement in decision-making processes: “It gives strength to
women to see that they can talk about their problems in front of men.
This is very important. We had the same problem where I came from –
reconciliation can’t be successful unless women are engaged and
involved.”
During the training sessions, many of the women leaders being
trained themselves felt compelled to share their experiences with
trauma, and the sessions became impromptu healing sessions. Adan
remembers one woman in particular: “For five years she was silent, a
single mother who was humiliated and abused by the family of her
son-in-law. When she came to the training, she finally spoke and we had
the district peace committee intervene to resolve the case by bringing
it out into the open,” he recalls. “Once one woman told her story,
others joined in, and by the end they all came together to give moral
support, singing, hugging and praying together.”
Osman Moallim, SOYDEN’s Director, says they work with existing
local institutions in each district, such as peace committees. “We
target the women members of the peace committees. They each have a
minimum of four women, as well as elders and religious leaders.”
Osman says working with religious and clan leaders is important in
order to confront traditional notions of guilt and the social stigma
attached to women who have been sexually assaulted, who are often
considered unfit for marriage.
“The true Islamic position is that a raped woman is innocent. It’s
the traditions that say she can’t be married,” Osman explains. “The
religion is stronger though, and after our training, every Friday,
these religious leaders begin preaching that raped women are innocent.”
News about SOYDEN’s approach is proving successful and they have
recently been asked to train the country’s newly-elected
parliamentarians so that they too can assist trauma survivors.
“In Somalia, traumatic experiences have happened to people from all
walks of life, no matter if you are rich or poor, even parliamentarians
themselves have had these experiences and can benefit from the
training. It doesn’t only help those in pain, it facilitates social
reconciliation, one of the six pillars of the Somali Government,” says
Adan