By Somalicurrent
Somalilandsun – Rape cases in Somaliland increases according to the ministry of Interior of the area.Interior minister of Somaliland Ali Mohamed Waran-Ade said that only Friday (27th September 2013) the police has received eight cases of rape,
including rape against children under the age of ten.
The minister said that they are investigating the culprits of the shocking acts against the women.
Last year, 195 rape cases reported to the police, 67 out of that number were children under the age of ten and 19 years old boy, according to Baahi-Koob, a sexual assault referral office of Somaliland’s Ministry of health, Hirad radio in Hargeisa reported.
“Rape violations are increasing every month and year,” said Baahi-Koob programme manager Abdikadir Ahmed Mohamed who talked to Sabahi website a month ago. He said 30% of reported cases were gang rapes and 55% of the victims were under 15 years old.
Baahi-Koob says that they have recorded 104 cases of rape in Somaliland during the first four months of 2013.
According to a local source, women from minority tribes in Somaliland suffer the most gang rapes.
South Somalia rape cases
In southern part of the horn of Africa country, the rape is higher then the reported cases in Somaliland.
Amnesty International report released August this year said that women and children living in Somalia’s makeshift camps for displaced people face a high risk of rape and other sexual violence.
According to the United Nations, there were at least 1,700 cases of rape in IDP Camps 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.
Most victims don’t report the rape cases to the police because they fear being stigmatized and had little confidence in the authorities’ ability or will to investigate, Amnesty says.
“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.
“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,”
“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.”
Somalia had no central government more than two decades, famine, drought and civil war made the lives of ordinary people tough, but now hope returns to the country after the election of the country’s first president and permanent government in September last year.
