Amnesty: Sexual Violence Endemic in Somalia
Displaced Somali women and girls are especially vulnerable to sexual assault.
Friday, August 30, 2013
Amnesty International said two decades of conflict have allowed sexual
violence to become endemic in Somalia. The human rights group says most
victims don’t report the attacks to authorities, fearing stigma.
Amnesty says rape and sexual violence are a constant threat in Somalia,
especially for displaced women and girls. Senior Crisis Adviser
Donatella Rovera said researchers spoke with dozens of victims, one as
young as 13, in Mogadishu and in camps for the displaced.
“Obviously, the humanitarian conditions are terrible and the lack of
security is very prevalent. And this is a particular problem for women
and girls because they are very much exposed to rape and sexual
violence,” she said.
The United Nations reported in 2012 there were at least 1700 cases of
rape in Somali settlements for internally displaced people . At least 70
percent of the attacks, it said, were carried out by armed men wearing
government uniforms.
“Perpetrators are very rarely brought to justice. Victims of these
attacks are then stigmatized within Somali society. So the combination
of the fear of the stigmatization and the lack of confidence that
reporting their case would lead to any justice means that in the
majority of cases the victims don’t even report the cases to the
police,” said Rovera.
She said that police “do not have the capacity nor the political will”
to provide the protection needed to prevent such attacks – or to bring
those responsible to justice.
Many of the women who were attacked live in make-shift shelters, with
just a piece of plastic for a door. There’s no protection from rapists,
who usually attack in the night. She told the story of one woman, who
has four children and was abandoned by her husband.
“She told me that she was asleep in her little shelter when a man came
in. He had a knife. It was night. She kept quiet because he threatened
to kill her. The children were sleeping next to her. He raped her and
then he went away. And she told me that she had not told anybody because
she was afraid that if she spoke to the neighbors about what had
happened to her they would just laugh at her or say bad things about
her.”
Amnesty International’s senior crisis adviser said a lot “can and must
be done” to solve the problem. She admitted it’s very difficult because
the government controls only part of the country. Many other areas are
controlled by armed groups and militias, such as al Shabab.
“But certainly where government forces are present, it is crucial that
they take concrete measures to first of all to ensure security – and
notably, if we talk about the IDP camps, the camps for displaced people,
where most of the rapes and sexual violence occur. And secondly, more
needs to be done to follow up on those cases, which are reported,” she
said.
Rovera said, “The inability and unwillingness of Somali authorities to
investigate these crimes – and bring the attackers to justice – leaves
survivors of sexual violence even more isolated.” She added, it also
contributes to a “climate of impunity in which attackers know they can
get away with these crimes.”
