UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous (Front) speaks during a Security Council meeting at the UN headquarters in New York, on Feb. 22, 2023. (Loey Felipe/UN Photo/Handout via Xinhua)
In Somalia, women's representation fell, sexual violence increased, and the Sexual Offences Bill adopted unanimously by the Council of Ministers five years ago has still not been passed by Parliament. Instead, its opponents are pushing for alternative legislation that would legalize child marriage, a senior UN official said.
UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 22 (Xinhua) -- UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous on Wednesday regretted the retrogress in women's political participation and the rise in sexual violence in Somalia.
Women's political participation and leadership is a pre-requisite for more inclusive societies, for finding solutions to lasting peace and achieving sustainable development. In the last few years, Security Council members have raised the importance of the 30 percent quota for women politicians and new legislation on sexual violence, she said.
Yet, the quota in Somalia was not met, women's representation fell, sexual violence increased, and the Sexual Offences Bill adopted unanimously by the Council of Ministers five years ago has still not been passed by Parliament. Instead, its opponents are pushing for alternative legislation that would legalize child marriage, omit the age of consent, reduce the types of admissible evidence, and take away the rights of survivors, she told the Security Council in a briefing.
In the 2016 elections, women's representation had jumped from 14 percent to 24 percent and there was a commitment to reach 30 percent in the next elections. Instead, the number of women in both chambers declined from 80 to 67. The decline in women's representation is not limited to the results of the last election. Only 13 percent of current members of the Cabinet are women, despite advocacy efforts during government formation talks, she said.
Conversely, rates of sexual violence have registered an alarming increase since 2020. They doubled then, compared with 2019. And they have continued to rise as the worst drought in many decades is having a devastating impact on all Somalis, and women and girls are disproportionately impacted.
A family shares a meal in Baidoa district, Somalia, on Jan. 20, 2023. (Photo by Abdi/Xinhua)
CARE International recently found a 200 percent increase in gender-based violence cases among people displaced by the drought compared with the previous year. In UN Women's recent assessment of the impact of the drought, it found that women take on increased economic burdens, skip meals, find themselves separated from or abandoned by their husbands, and are more vulnerable to sexual assault as they travel longer distances to fetch water and firewood.
Yet, much of this goes unpunished. UN Women data indicate that 80 percent of sexual and gender-based violence cases do not reach the judiciary, and when they do, they are often met by male judges in a system where less than 1 percent of judges are women, she said.
Bahous asked the Security Council to make specific demands with regard to women's political participation.
"That includes participation not only in elections, but also in the stabilization agenda that is a key current priority for the federal government and federal member states of Somalia. It includes participation in the civil service, the constitutional review, the reforms of the justice and security sectors, and all efforts related to peace-building, state-building, preventing violent extremism, early warning, transitional justice, and humanitarian aid," she said.
"It is only when women are included in all areas of public life that we will have a chance at peace and at ensuring that we support the rebuilding of a society that is resilient to future shocks," she said. ■
