I see them as second-class citizens.

Hinda Abdi Mohamoud

Chief editor of Bilan, Somalia’s first all-women media house

MOGADISHU

As the seemingly endless cycles of droughts, floods and conflicts continue to batter Somalia’s population, ever-growing numbers of people are fleeing to the outskirts of urban areas, especially the capital Mogadishu. The United Nations estimates that more people will live in towns and cities than in rural areas by 2026. Mogadishu is said to be the second fastest-growing city in the world, largely due to the massive influx of displaced people, 79 per cent of whom are women and children.

According to a report by the US-based rights group Refugees International, most of the millions of people fleeing from rural to urban areas in Somalia are not going home, not now and not ever. Some have lived in makeshift camps for more than three decades.

Many of the 4.3 million people internally displaced (IDPs) in the country have to find new ways of making a living. Most have lived as farmers and pastoralists. Their skills do not translate to making a living in the city. They have to start all over again.

Thirty-one-year-old Fatima Mohamed Iise arrived in the Asal IDP camp in June 2023 with her seven children. The camp is home to about 800 families and is one of the newest settlements to spring up on the outskirts of Mogadishu. 

She fled from Qoryoley district in southern Somalia’s Lower Shabelle region after drought killed all her livestock. Her husband stayed behind to protect their home and few other remaining belongings.

“We had a very good life as pastoralists. We had about 40 cows”, she says. “Now we have none so I had no choice but to come to Mogadishu with my children.”

There was no humanitarian assistance available for Iise and her family when she arrived at Asal camp. She panicked as she had no idea how to feed herself or her children. Other women who arrived at the camp before her urged her to go to surrounding neighbourhoods and hunt for work. 

“My nine-year-old daughter and I go out early every morning to look for work,” she says. “The only jobs we can find are laundry work and tidying up construction sites which pay between $1 and $1.50 a day. This is not enough to pay for basic necessities but it’s better than nothing at all.”

“We only have countryside skills and nobody needs these in the city.”

Residents of Asal camp do not have regular jobs. Like Iise and her daughter they go out every morning in search of day labour. The most common forms of work women find are cleaning people’s houses, doing their laundry and washing up in restaurants.

Children start working from the age of four or five. Girls wash dishes, boys shine shoes or work in restaurants.

The irregular money they earn, between $1 and $2 a day when they find work, keeps them trapped in a cycle of poverty.

“I use my earnings to buy rice, beans or maize meal. We eat once a day at lunchtime,” says Iise. The rest of the time we drink tea. My children and I go to sleep on empty stomachs.”

Like other female IDPs, Iise faces the additional challenge of harassment from men, especially members of the security forces, camp managers and others in positions of authority. Rape is common in IDP camps where shelters made from sticks, plastic and old clothes offer no protection from predators. Women and girls are also approached by men asking for sexual favours in return for food or employment.

“Men come to me offering to help me find a job or get some food,” says Iise. “Then they say they want something in return. They either want sex or to marry my daughters.”

Seventy-year-old Hawa*[1] and her three-year-old granddaughter have been living in Asal camp for seven months. When she first arrived, she was one of the few lucky people to receive some humanitarian assistance. But supplies dried up in May after she refused a request for sex from one of the men managing the camp and controlling the distribution of aid. 

“No sex, no food,” she says. “The circumstances of my life now are beyond anyone’s imagination. It is hard to believe the reason why I no longer receive food aid but that is the truth.”

“The camp manager asked me to engage in some misbehaviour if I wanted food,” says Hawa. “I asked what he meant and he said he wanted sex. I was shocked and angrily I rejected him. Since then I haven’t received a single grain of food.”

Hawa says demands for sexual favours are becoming increasingly common in Mogadishu’s IDP camps.

“Some girls and women agree to have sex with these men,” she says. “It is so sad.”

Women and girls also face sexual harassment in their workplaces, especially those who clean restaurants and shops.

“The male shopkeepers and their staff offer women food and extra money in return for sexual favours,” says Hawa. “The situation is better for IDPs who work in people’s houses because it’s women who stay at home while men go out to work.”

“The employers who are kindest to us are older women. They sometimes give us extra money.”

Now that she no longer receives aid, Hawa leaves the camp every morning to hunt for cleaning work in construction sites and restaurants. Sometimes she does laundry for families in nearby neighbourhoods. 

She usually takes her granddaughter to work with her. Sometimes she leaves her in the care of other women in Asal. 

One of the most desperate women in the camp is S’iido Hassan Moalim. She was forced to abandon her nomadic life in Kuntuwaarey district in Lower Shabelle after drought dried up the land and destroyed all her livestock. Moalim is not married and she has never had children. She is sixty-six years-old and her eyesight is extremely poor.

“I live here alone,” says Moalim. “I believe I am the poorest person in this camp. I cannot see, I cannot work and I have received no voucher cards for food aid.”

Moalim’s neighbours sometimes share what they have with her but often she has nothing.

“The weak have no rights,” she says.

“The residents of this camp who benefit are those who accept the demands of the men in charge. I cannot do that because I am old and I respect my culture which forbids such activities.”

 

“Nobody respects young girls and women,” says Moalim. “The men call on them anytime they want. When their needs are satisfied they give them money or food.”

Iisho Mukhtar Adam arrived in Asal camp at the end of June 2023 after fighting in Kuntuwaarey district forced her to flee her home with her three young sons. She started working as a cleaner and laundrywoman almost immediately and manages to buy some food for her children with her earnings.

“I wash the clothes and clean the houses of people who are better off than me,” she says. “I earn between $1 and $2 a day. I work long hours in order to manage the life of my family as best I can.”

Adam explains how IDPs who work in people’s houses are occasionally beaten by their employers who sometimes accuse them of stealing their property.  

“At the end of the day, some people say they don’t have money to pay us and that we should come back to following day to collect it,” she says. “Others don’t pay us at all. They have no respect for us. Most employers look down on us but some more educated people treat us as humans.”

She says there is nobody to call on for help. The police tend to be busy dealing with Mogadishu’s endless security threats. Many are corrupt. 

“Nobody listens to us,” says Adam. “The only thing to do is tell the media about our plight and hope that somebody with the power and resources to do so will help us.”

She says she has heard about the sexual abuse of other women and girls in the camp. 

“I have not yet been asked for sexual favours,” she says. “Most people keep silent about it because they know that if they complain they will be expelled from the camp.”

People living in one of Mogadishu’s oldest IDP camps, known as Allah-dhowr, suffer similar problems to those in Asal. Rahma Mohamed arrived there with her husband and four children in January 2022 after drought killed the family’s livestock in southern Somalia’s Kuntuwaarey district.

Mohamed and her husband get up early every day and walk to the surrounding neighbourhoods in search of work. They leave their children with fellow camp residents.

“Often the people I work for pay me less than what we agreed on,” she says. “We might agree on $5 but at the end of the day they only pay me $3.”

Although she is regarded as an outsider by residents of Mogadishu, Mohamed has no intention of leaving.

“Despite being viewed as a refugee by the people of Mogadishu, I want to establish my own small business here to support my family.”

IDP children also suffer prejudice.

15-year-old Asmo Abdi Farah Ahmed went to koranic school in Mushaan district before drought forced her to flee to Mogadishu in 2023. Now she works alongside her mother as a maid and washerwoman.

“The children in neighbourhoods surrounding our camp go to school and play together,” she says. “Sometimes they make fun of me for not going to school. They say I am just a ‘village kid’”.

Even those who have lived in Mogadishu for years are looked down on and seen as temporary residents.

“Although some have lived in the city for years, I hesitate to consider them as full residents,” says Sayid Omar, a Mogadishu resident. “I see them as second-class citizens, even if they settle permanently and integrate into city life. It’s true that people in the capital come from different backgrounds but this doesn’t automatically grant them equal status or opportunities within the city.”

“People here still consider me a displaced person, a refugee, even though I have lived here for 16 years,” says 60 year-old Mukhtar Abdalla Abdow. He fled his home area of Janaale more than 30 years ago, first to the central city of Galkayo, then to Mogadishu. “I consider myself a local resident,” he says.

Refugees International says “Many long-standing IDPs more closely resemble urban poor and have a different set of needs than new arrivals.”

Another resident of Mogadishu, Juweeriya Mohamed Ibrahim, has a more welcoming attitude to IDPs.

“I see them as normal people who came here because their lives were threatened by floods, drought and conflict,” she says. “For me, if they have lived in Mogadishu for more than five years, I consider them to be residents just like me.”

“Others often say they are second-class citizens. I firmly believe they are not.”

Bilan is Somalia’s first all-women media team. Funded by the European Union through UNDP and hosted by Dalsan Media Group, Bilan shines a light on the issues women care about and offers a platform for women’s voices.