By: Yusuf M Hasan
Somalilandsun – The international community has been asked to enhance Gender based interventions in the country where women are faring better as compared to 1996.
This is per the deputy minister, Ministry of Labour and Social Services-MoLSA Ms Shukri Harir during a presentation to the Somaliland High Level Coordination meeting in which she said Education leads sectors where major achievements have been garnered while political leadership lags far behind
Graphics courtesy of MoLSA
Progress in education from gender perspective
Primary students disaggregated by gender for the school year 2012/2013 indicate that there were 95,578 girls in primary school from the total of 119,453
Secondary School 2012/2013 girls 12,306 Total 39,238
Non-formal Education 2012/2013 girls 20473 Total 31853
Technical Vocational Education 2012/2013 girls 1376 Total 2,622
University graduates 2012/2013 girls 2000 Total 5256
Teaching Staff
Primary school Female 1393 Total 7298
Political Office
Candidates in the 2012 Local Council elections Desegregated by Gender
Gender Based Violence
1. FGM is the predominant form of GBV in Somaliland. Its prevalence rate is estimated over 90%
2. Rape has been on the increase over the past years as evidenced by following chart (Source: Baahikoob statistics and WAAPO)
Challenges
• Involvement of traditional leaders in solving GBV, problems gives more chances to perpetrators to escape from the formal legal system.
• Discriminatory traditions against women in politics.
• Preferential treatment is given to boys in education.
• Gender disparity in primary, secondary and tertiary education.
• Inadequate qualified female teachers ( Role models)
• Women do not have equal control and access to resources at all levels. ( Household to national levels)
Way Forward
• Engendering SDF and SSA. Alongside mainstreaming, specific measures targeting women should be developed.
• Implementation of National Gender Action plan.
• All forms of violence against women to be prevented and response adequately.( Rape, domestic violence, FGM etc)
• Enhancing women’s access to Justice ( Public awareness raising, capacity building for law enforcing agencies on women’s rights, legal aid provision, advocacy for women’s representation in judiciary, law reform etc)
• Promotion of women’s participation in decision making and politics (elected bodies, civil service and political parties etc) Introduction of a quota system in electoral laws.
• Gender mainstreaming: Building the capacity of gender machineries (Inter-agency gender coordination mechanism, Focal points, MoLSA and CSOs)
• Increasing number of girls accessing education at all levels.
• Public awareness raising on importance of girl child education.
• Increase the number of female teachers.
• Capacity building and Economic empowerment for economically impoverished women ( marketable skills, micro-credit schemes, institutional building for women groups, etc).
• Enhancing women’s equal employment opportunities and eliminating discriminatory practices in employment and promotion in private and public sectors ( engendering and enforcing labor and civil service laws etc).
