A race against time': the new law putting Somalia's children at risk of marriage
Thursday September 3, 2020
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The new bill has been fiercely criticised after MPs realised that it was different from a sexual offences bill unanimously adopted in 2018 by ministers but not enacted, which sought to prevent child marriage, and effectively criminalise a wide range of sexual offences.
Last year, the speaker of the house returned the draft bill, which has been in development since 2013, to the cabinet requesting changes. It remained dormant until two weeks ago when a new version was introduced under a new name: the sexual intercourse related crimes bill.
"It is completely unacceptable,” says Sahra Omar Ma’alin a member of the parliament’s human rights committee. "We have to protect the rights of our children. We have asked the deputy speaker to bring back the original bill, which we had been working on for so many years. It was such a comprehensive document that provides women the dignity and protection they deserve.”
Somalia’s current political instability and the forthcoming general elections makes it difficult for Ma’alin and civil society organisations to keep the pressure on for human rights.
The country is now run by a caretaker government after prime minister Hassan Ali Khaire was ousted in a vote of no-confidence in July.
"It is a race against time as the parliament’s mandate is going to end in a few months,” says Ma’alin. "The fate of our children is being politicised. Some politicians are using the bill as a campaign tool. They attempted to carry out the voting in the same manner they used to remove the former prime minister – in just a seven-minute debate – but we will never allow that to happen.”
In 2015, Somalia
ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which the UN
applauded as a significant achievement for the country’s 6.5 million
children.
"It is a shocking development, given that 2015 was a
watershed moment for Somalia,” says Brendan Ross, chief of child
protection at Unicef Somalia.
"Unicef has been supporting the
Somali government in domesticating that convention. To see a piece of
drafted legislation which allows for the marriage of young girls once
they are ‘sexually capable’ is astonishing in 2020. We are certainly
opposed to that and the UN is unified on that.”
It took Mohamed
five months to convince her parents to allow her to get divorced. Her
former husband was addicted to chewing khat, the stimulant leaf common
in east Africa.
"He would spend the little money he gets on khat
instead of buying milk for our hungry children,” she says. "He took
advantage of the support he had from my family. But I was relentless and
kept on demanding until I was finally relieved.”
Although her
parents welcomed her home, Mohamed has to support her children. Her
father can only do so much, as he is already struggling to put food on
the table for his other 10 children and two wives.
Mohamed now
ekes out a living selling tea on the street, putting up with the stigma
associated with being a single mother. "My priorities in life have
changed. My main mission now is to build a better future for my kids so
that they never experience what I went through.”
A race against time': the new law putting Somalia's children at risk of marriage
Fardowsa Salat Mohamed was 15 when her cousin asked her parents for her hand in marriage. Her father did not hesitate to say yes. When Mohamed objected, her father asked her to choose between "a curse and a blessing". "That was not