No Redress: Somalia’s Forgotten Minorities

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This report documents the neglected situation of Somalia’s minorities. It aims to raise awareness of the continuing severe violations of their human rights, so that they can move from exclusion and poverty towards a future of dignity, equal opportunities and non-discrimination alongside their fellow citizens.

http://minorityrights.org/wp-conten...ad-912-Click-here-to-download-full-report.pdf

When I was at school my teacher did not know that he had a Midgan in the class, so he went on with his lesson on minority clan culture and tradition.

He said that the Midgan are different from the rest of the society, they belong to an inferior culture. They lack language skills and eat different bad quality food. I did not react at all but all my schoolmates were shocked. I just waited till the end of the lesson and then ran home. I told my mother and sister. The teacher did not realize the moral damage that his speech had on me. He probably never thought he could have a minority student in his class.


A 17-year-old Madhiban told MRG of how she got shot when gunmen arrived at the scene of a contested mixedmarriage wedding celebration in Hargeisa:

I was shot about a year ago. I was going home from school when I stopped to look at a wedding celebration. I knew there was a wedding of a Musse Deriyo man and an Issaq woman. As I was watching the celebration outside the gate of the house, armed men approached me. They came out of big cars. I got scared and ran away, they shouted at me to stop but I did not listen to them. They shot me in my arm. That was the last time I went to school. I am now afraid of going out. My arm still hurts and it is not functioning properly. All I remember is that I fainted. I do not know what happened after that. I heard that other people were also wounded

I thought I had come to a safe place here in Bossaso, but I was raped again in 2007. I was collecting garbage when one man called me and asked me to wash his clothes for payment. I accepted, but as I entered the house I realized it was a trap. Two other men were in the house and they all they raped me. One of them is now the father of my two-year-old daughter.

Twenty-nine-year-old Bantu woman, Bossaso

I am a minority and I am disabled. The amount of verbal abuse I face every day is unbearable. I already have enough challenges in my life and do not need people to abuse me because I am Tumal and disabled.

I live in a small two-roomed slum house. Life is very hard. We often face discrimination in the society we live in [i.e. from majority clans, who are mainly Hawiye in Mogadishu]. The passengers insult me. When they want an excuse to yell at me, they tell me to stop the vehicle when it is exactly where they want to alight, and since the bus cannot just come to a halt, I have to stop a few steps away from where they told me to stop. Then insults and shouts come at me in their dozens. My people are given names and despised. Sometimes, I would prefer to work with a wheelbarrow [as a porter], which is common among my people in Mogadishu, so I could share with them these problems.

40-year-old Bantu bus driver.

Life is hard for everyone in Mogadishu, and our lives are continuously under threat. But we also have the burden of discrimination and daily humiliation. I am somehow used to it, but I feel anger and sadness when I think that even my children go through this discrimination. We are used to the heavy jobs that others do not want to do. If you are a Madow, you have to work hard because nobody will help you in this society. If I have an accident with another car, it is always my fault and I am insulted. My wife works as a maid. Once, she was arrested and beaten up in jail. She was accused of stealing a gold chain and there was no evidence. They finally released her and the gold chain was eventually found somewhere else. This is our life; we are discriminated against in our own country.

Forty-year-old Bantu bus driver, Mogadishu

I know a girl from the Hawadle clan who got married to a Madhiban man. They were neighbours in Beletweyne but her family did not accept her choice. She has five children; three boys and two girls. Her parents no longer consider her as their daughter and severed contacts with her. She loves her parents and wants to visit them but she fears they might harm her for her choice of husband. Realizing the ordeal, her loving husband decided to divorce her so that her ‘dignity is restored’.

I got married to a man who is Majerteen [a Darod clan]. When I gave birth to my baby, my mother-inlaw asked him to divorce me. He was reluctant for a while, but she threatened to disown him, so he decided to divorce me instead of losing his family. After the divorce, I moved to Mogadishu from Bossaso where I live hopelessly, losing my loving husband and family.

Madhiban woman living in an IDP camp in Mogadishu
 

Tukraq

VIP
So you support the expulsion of oromo and Somali Bantu?
Yes for Oromo, Somali Bantu(not to be confused with all other Bantus) as there name states are Somalia though along with cadcads, you can’t just expel your former slaves lol, just like in America we have to deal with it and assimilate them which they already are deen language and dhaqan wise
 
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