2005

Influence of Kenyan Female Leaders Felt in Somalia
November 17, 2005 - (WOMENSENEWS) For 15 years, Kenya has been trying to write a new constitution to replace the one that British colonialists helped to draft after the country's 1963 independence.

Somaliland Women Take on New Roles
May 3, 2005 - (IRIN) The old Somali adage, "A mother's purpose is to be a cook, laundrywoman, nurturer and wife to her husband," describes to some degree the traditional role of the women in Somaliland.

On a Mission Against Tradition
April 8, 2005 - (IPS) Hawa Aden Mohamed was only eight when she experienced the brutal pain of circumcision. Performed in a small Somali village, the operation was carried out without anesthesia, using only basic cutting tools and thorns.

2004

New Government Falls Short On Gender Equity
December 16, 2004 - (Inter Press Service - Johannesburg) For women in Southern Africa, it's 30 percent. Further north in Somalia, the target is a more modest 12 percent. Even so, this goal is not being met.

Women and Peace Processes in IGAD
November 01, 2004 - (African Women Journal) Women involved in the Intergovernmental Agency on Development (IGAD) meetings urge their governments to put an end to civil conflicts in the Horn of Africa. They also call for greater involvement of women in the peace processes, as this will enhance economic development.

Flying the flag for Somali peace
October 7, 2004 (BBC - UK) - Somalia's only female air force pilot has been waging a one-woman peace campaign, since the last attempt to choose a government in 2001. She attends every major function, holding the Somalia flag aloft and wearing a dress made from the flag. Somalia has been without a functioning national government since 1991.

Somali Peace Talks Won't Be Derailed, Says Minister
September 15, 2004 - (The Nation - Nairobi) Women's under-representation in Somalia's transitional parliament will not derail the country's peace
process, a Cabinet minister said yesterday.

SOMALI GOVERNMENT MUST EXCLUDE RIGHTS ABUSERS, AMNESTY SAYS
Friday, July 30, 2004 - (UN Wire) As talks are underway in Nairobi for a transitional Somali parliament, Amnesty International wants assurances that warlords and those with records of human rights abuses will not get any power in the new government, the East African Standard reports.

JOY AT SOMALI HOSPITAL REOPENING
July 16, 2004 - (BBC News) The Somali capital's biggest hospital has reopened after 14 years. The Banadir hospital in Mogadishu will provide free health care for women and children. It has been mostly financed by Somali businessmen.

NEW BOOK REVEALS DRUG-FILLED SEX PARTIES ON U.N. MISSIONS
May 27, 2004 – (UN Wire) A tell-all book by two U.N. employees and one former U.N. staffer details regular drug-induced Friday night sex parties in Cambodia and peacekeeping forces comprised of convicts and mental-asylum inmates who were often drunk on assignment and raped local women at will, the Washington Times reports.

U.N. MISSIONS PAINTED AS BOOZE-SOAKED ORGIES
May 27, 2004 – (Washington Times) A book by three current and former U.N. employees about peacekeeping operations portrays wild parties with alcohol and drugs, and convicts and mental-asylum inmates passing as soldiers.

CAMPAIGN AGAINST FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION LAUNCHED IN SOMALIA
March 10, 2004 – (UNWire) Four networks of women's organizations launched a campaign Monday to end the practice of female genital mutilation among Somali women, 98 percent of whom are thought to have undergone the ritual.

'THE TIME HAS COME TO DISARM. LAY DOWN YOUR WEAPONS'
January 26, 2004 – (The Guardian) In the school hall in Berbera, a sweltering Somali port on the Gulf of Aden, the audience is jam-packed and sweating. Women swathed from head to foot in bright colours chatter noisily and wipe their faces with the ends of their scarves as they wait for the ceremony to begin. On the wall posters declare: "The time has come to disarm! Put down your weapons!"

SOMALI WOMEN MORE ENGAGED IN DECISION-MAKING
January 22, 2004 – (afrol News) A new survey suggests that Somali women now are slightly more involved in household decision-making than before the civil war that started in 1991. However, still only 20 percent of Somali women say they are allowed to make decisions on household spending.

U.N. OFFICIAL CONDEMNS MURDERS OF SOMALI WOMEN, CHILDREN
January 27, 2004 – (UN Wire) U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Somalia Maxwell Gaylard yesterday condemned recent murders of women and children in clan-related conflicts in southern Somalia and called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.

SOMALIA: UN RELIEF OFFICIAL CONDEMNS MURDERS OF WOMEN AND CHILDREN
January 26, 2004 – (UN News) Condemning the recent murders of women and children in clan-related conflicts in southern Somalia, a senior United Nations official today called for the perpetrators to be brought to justice.


2003

SOMALI WOMEN FOLLOW PEACE TALKS ON WEB
September 18, 2003 – (IPS) Slowly, but effectively, the Internet is empowering women in Africa to follow events as they have never done before.

SOMALILAND LEADS CHARGE FOR AFRICAN WOMEN
August 6, 2003 – (BBC) The foreign minister of the self-declared republic of Somaliland has told the BBC she believes a number of Africa's problems would be eased if there were more women leaders on the continent.

WOMEN SLOWLY MAKING POLITICAL INROADS
July 14, 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.

FOR SOME SOMALI WOMEN OPPOSING GENITAL MUTILATION HAS A PRICE
July 7, 2003 – (UNHCR) Hawa Aden has been called a witch. She and her women colleagues have been labeled traitors to Somali culture and the Islamic religion, and had Friday sermons preached against them in the local mosque. They've been bombed, had their car destroyed and part of their compound torn down by angry local residents.

SOMALI REBELS TARGET CHILDREN, SAYS UNICEF
June 23, 2003 – (UN Wire) UNICEF Somalia representative Jesper Morch on Friday condemned the killing of three girls in Baidoa, central Somalia, last Wednesday and the June 11 hijacking of a bus carrying 37 children, among other recent incidents in the country.

SOMALI WOMEN HOPEFUL FOR NEW GOVERNMENT, DESPITE SETBACK
June 19, 2003 - (IPS) Somali women have been longing for a government that will guarantee them security and a sense of belonging.

WOMEN ACTIVISTS CALL FOR PEACE
June 10, 2003 – (IRIN) Sixty women peace activists in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, have appealed for the restoration of peace and stability in the city.

ITALIAN WOMAN WINS UNHCR AWARD FOR WORK WITH SOMALIS
April 16, 2003 - (IRIN) The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) has named an Italian woman as the winner of its annual humanitarian award for her work with displaced Somalis.

MEDIATOR OF SOMALI PEACE PROCESS URGES WOMEN TO PLAY STRONG ROLE
April/May 2003 (UNIFEM Currents) The mediator of the Somali peace process, Bethwel Kiplagat of Kenya, urged Somali women to play a strong part in the peace process. “This continent and Somalia will not develop if you freeze such a great asset as women,” said Kiplagat at the peace conference recently concluded in Kenya. Somali women at the conference called for women to be included in all stages of the peace process. They agreed to advocate for at least 25 percent representation of women in the new institutions, including parliament. They voiced these concerns at a three-day workshop for women delegates, supported by UNIFEM in collaboration with UNDP and the regional body, Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD).

For more information, contact Nyaradzai Gumbonzvanda, UNIFEM Regional Programme Director for East and Horn of Africa at nyaradzai.gumbonzvanda@undp.org

SOMALI WOMEN PEACE DELEGATES LOBBY FOR THEIR RIGHTS
March 28, 2003 - (IRIN) Somali women attending the ongoing peace conference in Nairobi, Kenya, have called for women's rights to be included in all stages of the peace process.

UNICEF STRESSES PROTECTION OF WOMEN, CHILDREN AS KEY TO FUTURE OF SOMALIA
February 20, 2003 – (UN Wire) UNICEF said yesterday at a meeting of donors in Nairobi that the key to Somalia's future lay in the survival and protection of women and children and noted with optimism that peace talks aimed at ending more than a decade of anarchy were moving forward.

ENGAGING MEN TO HELP FIGHT VIOLENCE AGAINST REFUGEE WOMEN
January 27, 2003 – (UNHCR) Since she fled her war-torn homeland more than 10 years ago, Somali refugee Zahara Mohamed Ali has learned a brutal lesson: "When you are a refugee, you become subject to all kinds of violence. You can always be mistreated."

2002

STARLIN ABDI ARUSH, PEACE ACTIVIST AND AID WORKER WHO FOUGHT SOMALIAN TRIBALISM TO BRING A MEASURE OF HOPE TO HER COUNTRY
November 4, 2002 - (The Guardian) - Whether negotiating with warlords, setting up hospitals or chairing her Somalian homeland's Olympic committee, Starlin Abdi Arush, who has been murdered in Nairobi aged 45, often seemed a lone voice of good humour and good sense. Some diplomats spoke of her as the first president of a new, democratic Somalia, but she eschewed such ideas of power. She died on her way to observe the latest peace talks between Somalia's warlords . It seems that Starlin was the victim of a robbery; an ironic end for a woman who lived through the nihilistic battle of Mogadishu in 1991, and for whom confrontations with gunmen were a daily ordeal.

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