Protection

“We are abused by others because we have no money and no power. Others take advantage of our poverty and displacement. We are new to this area where we have been displaced and we have no means of surviving or even who to report to when we are abuse. Some also trade sex for survival, protection and identity/acceptance in the local community”

A testimony by a vulnerable IDP woman talking to WOCCA community worker described the level of vulnerability and hopelessness of women in the IDP camps in Middle Shabelle

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Endless and aimless fights in Mogadishu have caused massive exodus of innocent people mainly women and children to the outskirts of Mogadishu seeking for a more secure environment. These people mostly end up in IDP camps. The majority of the fleeing women and children tend to head to Afgoi, Bal’ad, Jowhar, Mahaday and Warsheik where they face more harsh lives and are exposed to a number of violations from the host communities as well as militias and gunmen.

Women and children that end up living in the IDP camps occasionally face a number of violations such Sexual Gender Based Violence (SGBV), deprivation of food or rights to obtain humanitarian aid, children are exposed to child labour and are deprived from rights to go to school, the youth also are another vulnerable group that are affected by the general crisis.

SGBV Survey
WOCCA team has recently launched SGBV survey using three relevant forms designed to retract information from the very individuals that are involved in the courses of SGBV violations whether it’s the victims, the perpetrators, the TPs, focus groups etc. The forms did not retract enough information, at least not as much as WOCCA wanted to get however it gave us enough information that allowed us to understand the extend of the problem.


Some of the findings of the survey is as follows. (Please remember that sensitive information are not shared in this website)

Forms of SGBV

• Rape
• FGM
• Forced/Early Marriage
• Domestic Violence
• Sexual Exploitation
• Attempt rape

SGBV Victims
Who is likely to be a victim varies across the age. In Middle Shabelle and of course across the country women in different ages become victims to SGBV. There are young and old victims but the majority of victims are from 13 years, sometimes even younger, to 45 years old. This is the most vulnerable age group that can be victims of SGBV. We have an SGBV case in Jowhar where a lady of the age of 49 (current age 52) was raped and developed psychosocial problems. Young girls from the age of 5 to 12 do frequently fall victims to the myth of FGM.

Women who are likely to fall victims of SGBV:
Young girls that work as maids and live with host communities are extremely likely to be raped. And the sad thing about these women (girls) is that its difficult to come to know that they are victims. These young girls can suffer in silence for a long time or endanger themselves by running away from the host communities and their families.

Girls/Women who collect fire woods from the bush and sell in markets or just use it for fire wood at home for cooking purposes: Some girls/women work for their families and sell fire wood in the market. They go out to the bush to collect fire wood- that is when they fall victims of SGBV

Girls/Women who live in the IDP Camps: A group which is extremely vulnerable are the IDP’s. We have came to know that in Middle Shabelle, sometimes men will come the IDP camps in search of a woman to seduce and this mentality mostly leads to rape incidents, especially when women go out to relieve themselves in the near woods.

Revenge Rape: there are times where revenge rape takes place and it affects women who are not necessarily minority but the incident affects them the same way.

Besides the series of rapes women suffer in the country there are also some other SGBV incidents such as Domestic Violence that affects not only women who are married but also the young girls who work as maids within the host communities.

FGM practices are also another SGBV violation to young girls in the country. This myth has violated and continuous to violate a numerous young girls in the country.

Coping Mechanism
There is a numerous ways victims cope with the situation and the problems. There are three major problems faced by the victims when they are raped. A) The physical injuries that has been inflicted upon the victim. B) The fear of stigmatization- not only the victim has this fear, but the family of the victim as well and C) The psychosocial problem the victim faces

• Qur’an: When one is inflicted with horrible physical and psychosocial damage, families tend to immediately resort to Qur’an- they keep the victim at home, call imams and recite the Qur’an on the victim on a weekly basis and hope for the best that the condition of the victim gets better.
• Time healing: Some families keep the victim at home and don’t take them to hospital or/and don’t take any further actions in terms of healing or helping the victim heal. These families expect time to heal and resolve the problems
• Marriage: There are families that resort to arranged marriage after the girl/women is being victimized. They either marry the girl out to a cousin who volunteers or if the family is lucky they will find the perpetrator and ask him to marry the girl he’s raped. This is popular coping mechanism because even elders will recommend this after the rape incident
• Move away from the area: victims and their families move away from the area the incident took place in fear of stigmatization
• Clan Members help financially: In some rare occasion clan members come together and help the victimized girl/woman financially so that family can give the victim proper care
• NGO help: Some Local NGO’s such as WOCCA do provide some form of limited help to SGBV victims especially when the case is fresh. WOCCA does advocate for SGBV victims but to persecute perpetrators is a bit difficult in all over the country as most of perpetrators are extremely armed or/and are from strong clans.

On-going Interventions
WOCCA has recently completed a protection programme (Community based emergency intervention in favour of IDPs population Middle-Lower Shabelle regions in South Somalia”) with Intersos/UNHCR. this programme targets the Female headed households, children, youth and EVI’s (Extremely Vulnerable Individuals). The aim of the programme is to collect information on the IDP’s regarding livelihood, protection, sanitation etc. WOCCA has built a total of 12 structures (Four women centres and four youth centres) in Afgoi and (Two women centre and Two Youth Centres) in Jowhar. All centres are equipment with materials, for instance: women centres received tailoring machines plus a trainer. Youth centres received educational materials i.e. books, boards, pens, art material, qur’an books, sport clothes and a sport trainer for six months. We have also created child friendly spaces with the women centres in Lower-Middle Shabelle. This includes research on SGBV but no further actions are currently planned to be implemented in regards to SGBV.

Other actors working in this cluster
No other actor has ongoing programmes in Middle Shabelle. However Intersos is planning to enhance and further their existing programme (which came to end on January 2009) with the focus on reducing the vulnerability of women to SGBV. They want to do this through support to vocational training (focusing IDP’s).

In Lowe Shabelle (Afgoi) (the most dangerous and sensitive areas in the country) there are two many partners running programmes and its difficult to know who is doing what as there is no proper coordination. However we have not come across any organisation working on SGBV in this particular area.

WOCCA team speaking to tps’s	Speaking with SGBV Victim
WOCCA team talking to women groups in their settings (Biassa)	Speaking with women communities in Biassa
Focus Groups sitting and discussing the SGBV issues in centres build by WOCCA with the help of UNHCR/Intersos	Focus Group’s in the Galadi IDP

Cases of SGBV
As the information is extremely sensitive in regards to the cases and what happened to the victims, WOCCA will not publish the information in the website. Would you require the cases please request by emailing us at Jowhar@woccaorg.com