Forms of SGBV
- Rape
- FGM
- Forced/Early Marriage
- Domestic Violence
- Sexual Exploitation
- Attempt rape
Objectives in Protection
- Protect the rights and livelihoods of extremely vulnerable individuals especially IDP women, youth an elderly.
- Promote group discussion amongst IDPs and stakeholder.
- Reduce vulnerability of the IDPs by providing Vocational skills and create a source of income.
- Protect the Rights of Children and Advocate for their rights.
- Investigate, document, monitor and advocate for the abused children.
- Reduce FGM practices on girl child among rural communities.
- Promote awareness on HIV/AIDS and its consequences among CoDHNet’s targeted project areas.
- Integrated protection and livelihoods approach in the target areas.
Women who are likely to fall victims of SGBV:
Young girls that work as maids and live with host communities are extremely likely to be raped. And the sad thing about these women (girls) is that its difficult to come to know that they are victims. These young girls can suffer in silence for a long time or endanger themselves by running away from the host communities and their families.
Girls/Women who collect fire woods from the bush and sell in markets or just use it for fire wood at home for cooking purposes: Some girls/women work for their families and sell fire wood in the market. They go out to the bush to collect fire wood- that is when they fall victims of SGBV
Girls/Women who live in the IDP Camps: A group which is extremely vulnerable are the IDP’s. We have came to know that in Afgoye, sometimes men will come the IDP camps in search of a woman to seduce and this mentality mostly leads to rape incidents, especially when women go out to relieve themselves in the near woods.
Revenge Rape: there are times where revenge rape takes place and it affects women who are not necessarily minority but the incident affects them the same way.
Besides the series of rapes women suffer in the country there are also some other SGBV incidents such as Domestic Violence that affects not only women who are married but also the young girls who work as maids within the host communities.
FGM practices are also another SGBV violation to young girls in the country. This myth has violated and continuous to violate a numerous young girls in the country.
Coping Mechanism
There is a numerous ways victims cope with the situation and the problems. There are three major problems faced by the victims when they are raped. A) The physical injuries that has been inflicted upon the victim. B) The fear of stigmatization- not only the victim has this fear, but the family of the victim as well and C) The psycho social problem the victim faces
- Time healing: Some families keep the victim at home and don’t take them to hospital or/and don’t take any further actions in terms of healing or helping the victim heal. These families expect time to heal and resolve the problems
- Marriage: There are families that resort to arranged marriage after the girl/women is being victimized. They either marry the girl out to a cousin who volunteers or if the family is lucky they will find the perpetrator and ask him to marry the girl he’s raped. This is popular coping mechanism because even elders will recommend this after the rape incident
- Move away from the area: victims and their families move away from the area the incident took place in fear of stigmatization
- Clan Members help financially: In some rare occasion clan members come together and help the victimized girl/woman financially so that family can give the victim proper care
- NGO help: Some Local NGO’s such as CoDHNet do provide some form of limited help to SGBV victims especially when the case is fresh. CoDHNet does advocate for SGBV victims but to persecute perpetrators is a bit difficult in all over the country as most of perpetrators are extremely armed or/and are from strong clans.
Completed and Planed Interventions
CoDHNet has recently completed 1) GBV awareness thought engaging GBV Cup Sports for Promotion peace and integrated activities: Organizing, youth peace sports competitions between youths from host Community and IDPs in Mogadishu at Hamarjajab district. 2) Community outreach in the host community for Community awareness dialogue participated community members, CEC/teachers and students at Lan-Aber Primary School of Lan-aber village at Beled-Hawa District of Gedo region 3)End Violence against women and girls targeted IDPs and Host community members including women groups, youths, elders, religious leaders, GBV actors, girls, women, men and boys Conducted campaign session through provision of T-Shirts, Caps and Head scarfs at Beled-Hawa Town of Gedo Region 4)Community awareness forum and football tournament for Community campaigns of early forced marriage, FGM and GBV awareness participated local authority elders, youths, women groups and sport football teams at Beled-Hawa District of Gedo Region Somalia.
CoDHNET also planned a protection programme (Community based emergency intervention in favour of IDPs population Banadir and Gedo regions in South Somalia”) this programme will targets the Female headed households, children, youth and EVI’s (Extremely Vulnerable Individuals). The aim of the programme is to collect information on the IDP’s regarding livelihood, protection, sanitation etc. CoDHNet is planned to build a total of 4 structures (Two women centres and Two youth centres) in Mogadishu (KM7)and (One women centre and One Youth Centre) in Beled-Hawa District. All centres will equip with materials, for instance: women centres will receive tailoring machines plus a trainers. Youth centres will recieve cupentary machine with trainers and all trainees will get educational materials i.e. books, boards, pens, art material, sport clothes and a sport trainer for six months. We have also created child friendly spaces with the women centres in KM7. This includes research on SGBV but no further actions are currently planned to be implemented in regards to SGBV.
Other actors working in this cluster
In (Mogadishu KM7) (the most dangerous and sensitive areas in the country) there are two many partners running programmes and its difficult to know who is doing what as there is no proper coordination. However we have not come across any organisation working on SGBV in this particular area.
Cases of SGBV
As the information is extremely sensitive in regards to the cases and what happened to the victims, CoDHNet will not publish the information in the website.
CoDHNet’s objectives of the protection programme aims to prevent physical and mental violations; to provide victims with medical/material and counselling assistance; to promote the general safety of the IDPs and Vulnerable persons, more so the children by ensuring that there are child friendly spaces within the community and to influence the formulation of policies and laws in the communities or the Government. CoDHNet’s protection programme also integrates with Livelihood, WASH and Education sectors to ensure an all rounded protection mechanism. The protection programmes in achieving its objectives includes the following components:
1. GBV prevention
GBV prevention activities aim to ensure the protection of the IDPs and Vulnerable persons especially women and children. This is achieved through: Construction and rehabilitation of protection community centres to act as protection points for the women, Youth and the most vulnerable community members for conduction of informal education classes and training and gathering venues; Focus Group discussion in Mogadishu KM7 and Beled-Hawa District, Focus group discussions for the community members on topics that affect them; and Sustaining and supporting the Protection community Centres through the creation of community based committees on protection violations especially for SGBV related cases.
2 GBV responses
GBV Response activities aim to assist the vulnerable and the violated persons in the community to cope and overcome the psychological, emotional, physical and economical problems that they undergo. This is achieved through: Improving health/ clinical/ psychosocial support and referral system and follow ups for the victims especially the Sex and Gender based victims; organising self help groups or individual support session within the community by the community members themselves with the help of community health workers; Sustaining and supporting the Protection community Centres with roving mobile community health workers and psychosocial counsellors; and Provision of material assistance and medical fees to the GBV survivors
3. advocacy and capacity building
Community Development and Humanitarian Network (CoDHNet) aims to empower the communities with life saving information and life skills knowledge which ensure that the communities are self sufficient and less exposed to vulnerable situations that make them succumb to protection violations. This takes the form of trainings, awareness campaigns, advocacy messages and vocational trainings.
The activities include: Improving the life skill knowledge through skill training activities (Tie and dye, carpentry, etc) and through adult education and vocational trainings which are aimed at improving the chances for employment especially for the youth; Airing messages through radio on prevention of violence against women and other related messages to help promote the prevention and response mechanisms in the cases of either witnessing or being directly involved; Staff trainings on how to identify the EVIs, how to support the community and IDP victims in case of violations and the referral cases and GBV IMS; Improving awareness and knowledge on social and legal issues to equip the community with life saving information to help them prevent and respond to the protection violations, other topics include; social rights, MRE, Gender equality, migration risks and opportunities and hygiene and sanitation promotion among other
4. GBV coordination
Community Development and Humanitarian Network (CoDHNet)is the member of GBV Working Group. With this, CoDHNet is mandated to participate, contribute and share anupdated information through monthly GBV meeting as well as to bring all the stake holders together including the community elders, other local organizations and the IMAMs to discuss how protection violation cases manifest themselves in society, the effects of these violations to the family members and more so the victims, possible resolution mechanisms and strategies; and the way forward for the community in dealing with the various protection violations in the communities.
