Women Helping Women: Somalian Famine Refugees Find Relief in Neighboring Kenya

The people of Somalia are in need of so much. They need a stable government – or any government at all, really, having basically been without one for the past two decades. They need jobs, income, clothing, medical care.

But perhaps right now, more than anything, they just need a little rain.

An East Africa drought continues to plague Somalia and neighboring countries, causing a famine that’s estimated to have cost tens of thousands of Somalian residents their lives thus far. But thanks to a for-women, by-women program in northeast Kenya, some 2,700 Somalian women and their families have found a bit of relief.

Womankind Kenya, along with partners such as MADRE and Zenab for Women in Development, has provided food, water and anti-diarrheal medicine to these women and their families, in addition to counseling and medical services to women who have survived rape or robbery during the trek to Kenya.

“We counsel women who arrive traumatized from sexual violence, from being uprooted from their home communities, or from burying a child along the way,” said Hubbie Hussein al-Haji, pictured above, executive director of Womankind Kenya. “We ensure pregnant and breastfeeding women emaciated from famine receive the nutrition and health care they desperately need.”

Hussein al-Haji says the famine could be somewhat lessened if regional resources were adequately and sensibly used.

“While the worst drought in six decades has destroyed crops in the northeast, very close by in the south of Kenya, the farms are green and plentiful,” she said. “People are growing wheat, vegetables and more. But this locally-grown food is not getting to the people who need it. Meanwhile, the price of staple crops like rice, corn and wheat is shooting up. Drought means that poor people can no longer raise their own food for lack of water. If the prices go up, they can’t buy food either.”

In the meantime, women-focused partnerships will continue to help as many famine escapees as possible. MADRE recently utilized one of its partner organizations, a group of women farmers in Sudan, to deliver a crucial supplement to Womankind and the refugees it supports. Hussein al-Haji says that in addition to this help from outside organizations, creating more sustainable, locally grown food sources will be key to aiding famine victims and preventing future outbreaks.

Tunisia: Longing For A Place To Call Home

Since the outbreak of war in 1991, Somalia has been left with no central government. Located in the Horn of Africa, this east African country has managed to maintain an informal economy based on livestock, remittances from its expatriate community, and the telecommunications sector. However, two decades of civil war has disrupted many lives and forced many Somalis to flee their country in search of asylum.

Sixty-three year old Hawiyeh Awal is one of them. Eighteen years ago Hawiyeh embarked on a treacherous journey through the desert with her daughter after violence, which claimed the lives of her entire family, and caused severe damages to both of her hands.

"Both of my hands were hit during a gun battle and they were unable to save my small finger on my left hand. My right hand suffered many fractures. After losing my family it was hard to ignore the situation anymore," Awal told Her Blueprint. "The government in Mogadishu wasn't doing anything to protect us and I needed to find safety for me and my daughter."

Relying on middlemen, Hawiyeh was able to survive a four month journey through the desert to finally reach her destination in Libya. For eighteen years, she managed to rebuild her life working as a domestic worker for Libyan families but then the civil war broke out.

When we met, Hawiyeh was sitting outside her makeshift tent with her daughter and grandson as they tried to find a bit of shade from the Tunisian desert's scorching sun. She was sitting on a white bucket that she had turned upside down to function as a temporary chair, while her daughter -- who is in her late twenties -- nibbles at the couscous mixed with onions and tomatoes they were given for lunch.

"I'm scared that I'm going to die in this hot desert," she explains. "I have diabetes and I've lost more than eight kilos since coming here because of the hot weather."

Like many other migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers from Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, Hawiyeh was once again uprooted from her fairly stable situation and forced to flee to Libya's North African neighbor of Tunisia by bus several months ago.

"The situation was getting really bad. Many families were being held up at gunpoint in their homes and robbed," Hawiyeh adds. "I started to worry for my daughter because she is without a husband and emotionally I just couldn't bear going through another war."

Tens of thousands of individuals have crossed Ras Ajdir border crossing to the under-equipped and under-staffed Shousha refugee camp in Tunisia with what little belongings they manage to salvage. For many, Libya was a relatively stable economy where one could find modest work or flee political violence due to Muammar Gaddafi's Pan African stance in the 1990's, which opened the country's borders.

Now many just wait for another border to open.

"My daughter and I can't bear the situation in this camp anymore because all we do is sit and wait. We're just hoping to be resettled in a safe place where I can find medical treatment because here we must first get approval from the Tunisian military in order to access any kind of healthcare," Hawiyeh adds. "The problem is that the West decided to bomb Libya in order to protect people but also decided to close their borders so no one is interested in protecting us. We're trapped here."

Arab Women Challenge Western Media

CAIRO May 18, 2011 (Her Blueprint) – Though demonstrating, taking risks, mobilizing, suffering and standing side by side with men in the uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North Africa, Arab women are also challenging the Western media to acknowledge their voice.

From Tunisia, to Egypt, to Yemen and Morocco, women have been at the forefront of the Arab Spring revolutions.

Yemeni women, who represent a third of the thousands of anti-government protestors demanding an end to Ali Abdullah Saleh’s thirty-year rule, are shattering traditions that go back centuries.

“I myself came from a conservative family but my grandmother used to have more freedom in the way that she dressed, talked and dealt with men than I have now,” said Samia al-Haddad, Program and Human Rights Officer for the Yemeni Organization for Development and Rehabilitation in an interview with Her Blueprint.

According to al-Haddad, women’s rights became stifled after the 80’s.

“If you see the footage and the video coming from Yemen and you will see all women veiled in black and this was not the image of women in the 80’s before the expansion of Salafists and Wahabi movements came from Saudi Arabia.”

Hibaaq Osman from Somalia is the CEO and Founder of Karama. She says that the Western media was shocked to see women out on the streets, raising their voices, protesting for democracy and walking side by side with men for a unified cause – political reform and equal rights.

“You have to understand the psychology of the Western media. They want to see a weak, meek and covered woman,” Osman told Her Blueprint.

According to Osman, it’s about time that the West take a good look at themselves before pointing the finger.