Source: UNIFEM

Date: 22 Nov 2005

The five young women sat in the make-shift meeting "room" of the internally displaced persons (IDP) camp ready to talk to us about their experiences over the last two months as peer psycho-social counselors. They came from different IDP camps in the Bosasso area of Puntland, Somalia, and had attended UNIFEM's training workshops on providing assistance to victims of gender-based violence (GBV) and persons infected with HIV/AIDS.

We had set up the meeting to check on the women's progress in reaching out to victims of violence. We also wanted to hear how they were faring with raising awareness about violence and HIV prevention in the camps, and the main challenges facing them as they carried out their work.

One major challenge soon became glaringly obvious, as we sat in the soaring 36-degree Celsius heat, listening to the opening words of welcome by the camp's chief elder. As he spoke, more and more men joined our little group, standing together and occasionally casting meaning-laden glances at the women. It was clear that the women, already timid and nervous, were not going to be able to speak freely.

After the introductory niceties, Safiya*, who seemed to have been designated the group's speaker, described how she had not "seen" anyone yet with HIV. She did, however, meet an older woman who told her she had been raped at knifepoint in her home by a man from the same camp. "I explained the dangers of STI infection to her and asked her to go to the hospital to be treated. I also told her to report the rape to the police," she said. When Safiya tried to follow up on the case a few weeks later, the woman was nowhere to be found. She had gone to the doctor, but despite being told to come back for a check-up, she never did. Apparently, the police had arrested the rapist, but let him go when he denied the crime.

Another woman, Aliya* chimed in at this point with the "case study" she had come across recently. Her neighbour, a young woman, had gone to the cinema one evening and been attacked by six men who had dragged her to the beach (typically unfrequented by Somalis in Bosasso) and gang-raped her. She had come crying to Aliya who helped her to collect money from neighbours to get hospital treatment and make a police report. "I talked to her about her shock and I told her not to go to the cinema anymore," she told us. Meanwhile, the police had apparently arrested the six men, who allegedly were not from the camp. They had let four go and kept two for further questioning. The case was referred to the camp elders who finally resolved the issue by getting the perpetrators to pay compensation for the woman's medical treatment. No one was jailed.

Further probing on our part about the cooperation of the police revealed that, although they were generally quite responsive to reports of violence, even from IDPs who are generally looked down on by town-dwellers, the number of convictions actually made were next to nil. The process by which GBV issues are traditionally resolved through the cultural systems practiced in Somalia offer some clues as to why. Typically, when a woman is raped, the "problem" is settled by a meeting between traditional leaders, the woman's husband or family, and the perpetrator's family. They proceed to negotiate the monetary value of the "damage" done to the victim's husband/family's honour, whereupon compensation is paid accordingly. If the victim is married, the rapist can sometimes be jailed if her husband refuses to accept compensation. In cases where the victim is unmarried, marriage of the victim by her rapist is the accepted solution. At no time is the victim consulted or even present at these meetings.

Denial when it comes to violence against women is rife in Somali society. It is a reaction to the deep stigma attached to sexual violence because of the dishonour it is supposed to bring on the victim's family. It is also a reaction to the lack of an effective justice system in the country and poor law enforcement structures that allow impunity to persist unchecked. According to the chief elder, who curtly corrected Safiya's recounting of her story, "All the men who do GBV are not from inside the camps, they are from outside," he said, while other men around him nodded. "The problem only affects women, and we have a limited role - all we can do is tell the police. According to Somali tradition, men cannot go to see a woman who has been raped, so we need to have women visit her and then provide us with the information," he added.

We had doubts about the perpetrators only coming from outside the camp, and about the true number of cases of violence being reported. It is a well-known fact that gender-based violence is rampant in IDP camps, and yet we were only hearing about two cases of rape in the last two months. After pressing the point a little, another male elder told the story of his neighbour, whose elderly mother had been forced out of the house at gunpoint and raped. The man had taken his whole family and fled the very next day. This was the last "case story" we were told on GBV.

As for HIV infections, all the counselors admitted that there was strong denial in their communities about the disease, so it was very difficult to identify anyone and counsel them. But they did seem to be getting a positive reaction at least to their awareness raising activities, they said. They also felt that they needed much more training on HIV/AIDS, and how it linked to GBV, so they could answer people's questions - the women did not seem to understand that you could not tell someone infected with HIV by just looking at them.

Later, we heard from a midwife from the Bosasso General Hospital, who had also attended the training for peer counselors. She said she did not see that many cases of GBV, even though she and other midwives she knew were aware that they occurred frequently. "If women who have been raped do come to us, we test them for HIV, and give them some antibiotics for pain. We also tell them to go to the police. IDPs very rarely come; last month I only saw one case," she said. The biggest problem for her was the lack of medicines — "We have very little emergency contraception, and we do not have ARVs at all. The problem with trying to counsel victims is that if you don't have medicine to give them, they won't come back so you can follow up, or even come to you in the first place. They are too ashamed."

The midwife and other Somali women from our partner organizations who were present insisted that "GBV did not happen to young girls." It only happened to those above 19 years of age, and usually occurred in public places, like the cinema and market. If the victim was unmarried, she would typically marry her rapist to settle the matter. When we asked if that would only make things worse, since he could then rape her again, we received a resounding "But no, because she's now married to him!"

According to Hendrica Okondo, UNIFEM's programme manager for Somalia, although it is an uphill task, there have been some positive markers along the way. "Five years ago, we could not even mention the word rape," she said. "Now 'GBV' has become a word, part of everyday language. Everyone we work with, both men and women, acknowledge that it is a huge problem in Somali society." But, she added, "To Somalis, GBV still only means 'rape' however; nobody will speak about female genital mutilation (FGM) which is widely practiced, or domestic violence — these do not count as GBV. And when it comes to HIV/AIDS, it is doubly difficult to get people to speak about this.

"Still, at least the issue has now been moved into the open a little, and we are able to work with women to provide some assistance to victims. The peer counselors also tell us that they have been connecting with each other to share their experiences and practices in dealing with the issues. We are making a breakthrough in terms of creating a 'community of support' — this is a first step in reducing denial and stigma, and eventually, we hope, in tackling the biggest challenge, impunity."

* Names have been changed to protect identities.

This article was contributed by UNIFEM's Somalia team.

___________________________________________________________________________________