Steps on the Road to Equality

As we celebrate this year's International Women's Day, Dr. Adan Yousuf Abokor highlights the groundbreaking gender work being carried out by Nagaad, one of Progressio's partner organisations in Somaliland.

Wairimu Munyini was impressed. After just three months working with women in Somaliland, she witnessed something she wasn't expecting. Determination. Desire. Anticipation.

"I have continued to encounter the tenacity of Somaliland women in going about activities that they believe in. And this tenacity cuts across age, class and status," she says.

Wairimu is a Progressio development worker in Hargeisa, Somaliland. Since taking up her post in 2006, she has witnessed small but positive steps towards increased female political participation - and the momentum continues to grow.

Somaliland is an internationally unrecognised country, but one where women have played a major role in helping to promote peace, reconciliation and construction after Somaliland declared independence from Somalia in 1991. Today women are even the country's primary breadwinners.

Yet, Somaliland women are still desperately under-represented at the highest levels of government - only two of 82 elected members of the lower level parliament, the House of Representatives, are female. At local government level, only three of 330 elected councillors are women. The Guurti (House of Elders) comprises 82 unelected male members.

Part of the problem stems from the fact that women were traditionally excluded from decision-making. Somaliland's clan system - based on families having the same male ancestors - does not deem women to be full members.

Add to this traditional cultural views which view women as unsuitable for public office and high levels of female illiteracy and it's easy to see how men have been given the opportunity to create myths and misconceptions about the rights of women in Islamic society.

Women's exclusion from the political and social spheres of society goes hand in hand with economic exclusion and poverty. In fact, women can be powerful drivers of development.

Waimiru has been working with Progressio partner Nagaad, an umbrella organisation of women's groups based in Hargeisa, to bring about a shift in the status quo. As Amina Warsame, Nagaad's director says: "Once women are empowered, society can move on."

Since 2001, Nagaad's 'women in decision making' project (WDMP) has established a platform to advocate for greater political participation. Through conferences and training sessions, civic education programmes, grassroots meetings and sensitisation campaigns, the project has increased awareness of human rights and the need to ensure women's involvement in all areas of society.

The first, tentative results of this work are now starting to take hold. Women now possess at least formal equality enshrined in the Somaliland constitution from 2001. And all the three political parties have had women as members and candidates and continue to do so.

Somaliland expects to hold its local and presidential elections this year. Already, nine women from the region of El Gavo have expressed an interest in standing for office. The WDMP is currently in the process of identifying and profiling potential female candidates in all the six regions of the country to support their campaigns.

There is undoubtedly a long way to go. Last year, efforts at getting the Electoral Law amended to make provisions for a quota system for women and minority groups were defeated after the Guurti rejected the proposal on what was seen as fairly spurious grounds of equality for all.

But Wairimu Munyinyi says women are slowly taking a stand to show they can succeed against all odds; the WDMP has not given up on lobbying for a quota despite the disappointment of last year.

"The way I see it, the time has come for women to refuse to be subjected to double standards when it comes to their quest for leadership positions," she says. "I am yet to hear of any man being accused of wanting to destroy the family unit simply by expressing interest in a leadership position. Why the same interests are interpreted subjectively when they come from women cannot be justified.

Somaliland women now need to defend their interests on the same basis as men do: they are the mothers, sisters and daughters of those very men that challenge their right to leadership and decision-making."

Dr. Adan Yousuf Abokor is Progressio's Country Representative in Somaliland, where he oversees the activities of 11 Progressio development workers.