The organization’s researchersspoke with dozens of women and girls who felt at risk of sexual violence. Some of them, one as young as 13, had recently been raped. Most victims said they hadn’t reported the attacks to the police because they feared being stigmatized and had little confidence in the authorities’ ability or will to investigate.
“Women
and children, who have already been forced to flee their homes because of the
armed conflict and drought, now face the additional trauma of living under
threat of sexual attack,” said Donatella Rovera, Amnesty International’s Senior
Crisis Adviser.
“Many of
the women we met live in shelters made of cloth and plastic sheeting which
provide no security at all; in the context of the lawlessness which generally
prevails in the country and the lack of security in these camps, it is hardly
surprising that these horrific abuses are occurring.”
One
14-year-old girl living in a displacement camp in Mogadishu was raped in the
shelter where she lives as she was recovering from an epilepsy attack in late
August.
She told
Amnesty International: “I woke up to find a man who was undressing me and I
tried to scream but he grabbed me by the throat and so I could not scream. My
cousin (aged 4) woke up and he told her to be silent. He did his business and
then ran away.”
The
girl’s grandmother told Amnesty International the neighbours who had been woken
by the girl’s scream saw a man aged about 30, wearing a kikoi (a traditional
loin cloth) and carrying a bakor (a walking stick with a hand-grip), leaving
the shelter and running away.
Another
woman, a mother of five, told Amnesty International that she managed to fight
off an armed man who entered her shelter and tried to rape her in early August.
During the struggle she sustained gunshot wounds to both her hands. She was
three months pregnant at the time of the attack and lost her baby as a result.
Though
camp residents went to the police to report the attempted rape, the police
failed to investigate.
Investigations,
prosecutions and convictions for rape and other forms of sexual violence are
rare in Somalia, so survivors have little incentive to file complaints with the
police. Some women have faced additional abuse and stigmatization if they do
report the crime.
Police
practices in Somalia often compound the stigma associated with survivors of
sexual violence who can be subjected to insensitive and intrusive questioning.
Few female police officers are available to deal with sexual assault cases in
spite of their frequency.
According
to the United Nations, there were at least 1,700 cases of rape in IDP
(internally displaced persons) settlements in 2012 in Somalia, with at least 70
per cent of these being carried out by armed men wearing government uniforms.
Nearly a third of the survivors are reported to be under the age of 18.
“The
inability and unwillingness of the Somali authorities to investigate these
crimes and bring the attackers to justice leaves survivors of sexual violence
even more isolated and contributes to a climate of impunity in which attackers
know they can get away with these crimes,” said Donatella Rovera.
“Concrete
action must be taken to ensure justice for the victims and to send a strong and
unequivocal message that sexual violence cannot and will not be tolerated.”
Two decades of conflict and periodic drought have forced hundreds of thousands of Somalis from their homes into sprawling, overcrowded camps for displaced people where security is lacking and humanitarian conditions are dire. Though security conditions have improved, there are still over a million people displaced within Somalia today.
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Somalia: Rape and sexual violence a constant threat for displaced women
Women and children living in Somalia’s makeshift camps for displaced people face a high risk of rape and other sexual violence, Amnesty International said today after returning from a research trip to the country.