Sexual violence, unreported rapes another legacy of the war in Somalia

Sexual violence is widespread in Somalia and rarely prosecuted. If anyone is punished at all it is often the victim, not the perpetrator. When it comes to rape cases in the socially conservative Horn of Africa nation, blaming the victim is the norm - and there have been no consequences for uniformed attackers. Like much else that is broken in Somalia, the causes of the pervasive rape can be found in the decades of anarchic conflict that began in 1991 and continues in some parts of the country today.

Rape is not getting less, but people are talking about it. The government, the family, the clan, none of them want to talk about it. But women are coming out to speak.

Fartuun Adan, who runs the Elman Peace and Human Rights Centre in the Somali capital Mogadishu

After 14-year-old Fatima was raped by a tuk-tuk driver, she was arrested, detained for a month and raped repeatedly by a police officer, according to the child and her aunt. A slight girl no more than five feet (150 centimetres) tall, she lives in one of the squalid camps for the uprooted that dot the city. The UN children’s agency UNICEF says young women and girls in the camps are “systematically preyed upon”, frequently by armed personnel. Somalia’s draft constitution includes provisions for new laws on rape, sexual violence and female genital mutilation, and sets the minimum age for marriage at 18. But political progress is slow, and the legislation is yet to be passed.

Africa Somalia