Mogadishu's Hollow Human Rights Victory
Another week, another 'win' for the diaphanous sovereignty of Somalia's federal government. On 8 October, the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) endorsed a resolution restoring Somalia's authority to manage its human rights obligations, following months of concerted lobbying by Somali diplomats. Amid a brutal land clearance campaign that has displaced tens of thousands in Mogadishu, the UNHRC has somehow deemed that now is the correct moment to conclude the UN independent human rights expert's mandate to scrutinise the dire state of affairs. And-- as if to celebrate the announcement of reclaiming 'sovereign' oversight-- two Himilo TV executives who have covered the land clearances were arbitrarily arrested in the capital, the latest in a string of concerning detentions as Villa Somalia seeks to quash any scrutiny.
The scale and depth of the human rights crisis in Somalia is difficult to overstate, with the country ranking poorly on issues from women's liberties to freedom of expression to minority rights. Decades of internecine conflict have left indelible scars on Somali society, with women and children bearing the brunt of the profound social conservatism and violence now pervasive across the country. In turn, external scrutiny from the UN and others-- though alone unable to turn the prevailing tide-- has played a role in maintaining at least a degree of pressure on the federal government and devolved administrations on such issues, even if they have only paid the merest of lip service. But now even lip service is no longer required, as the federal government assumes responsibility for domestic oversight of human rights. It has already approved a transition plan for 2025-2026, which includes the new Independent National Human Rights Commission (INHRC), likely with the intention of securing funding from a well-meaning international partner.
Yet even before the dust has settled from the Minister of Family and Human Rights Development, Khadija Mohamed Al-Makhzoumi, celebrating the "historic decision," controversy has already erupted over the INHRC. Rather than civil society or human rights experts, the commission is instead made up of career politicians and government allies, seemingly placed in the INHRC simply to dispense some patronage rather than tackle the nettlesome issue of human rights in Somalia. Opposition politicians-- including Gedo lawmaker Mursal Khaliif-- have criticised the commission, arguing that it is yet another unconstitutional body and approved in a lawmaking session "devoid of parliamentary procedures." Sovereignty, showmanship and-- above all-- resources are the languages of this government, and little else besides.
In this vein, the rights-- or lack thereof-- of internally displaced persons in Somalia have become a particular political flashpoint this year, with Villa Somalia overseeing a rapacious land clearance campaign in Mogadishu. According to a recent UN estimate, over 142,000 people have been uprooted from their homes, often with no warning, as the federal government has auctioned off vast tracts of public land. Many of those violently displaced from this disused public land, be it former schools, military bases or hospitals, hail from Somalia's most marginal and disenfranchised clans, forming a peri-urban underclass that has been exploited by the ruling elite and more dominant clans for years. Expecting the government's new commission to critique such policies of its paymasters —particularly with apparently no single minority clan commissioner —is farcical.
Among the most disenfranchised of all are the Jareer Weyne-- otherwise known as the Somali Bantu-- who are descended from the riverine farming communities from southern Somalia, predating the migration of Somali nomads, and the enslaved peoples from East Africa. For decades, the Jareer have been limited to Somalia's most menial jobs, be it house cleaning, hawking, or farming. Racism and discrimination towards the Jareer is commonplace, with the slur of 'addoon,' meaning slave, still widespread and miscegenation with clans of higher 'nobility' discouraged-- often violently. And positions within government for the Bantu are few and far between-- with their only senior military commander, General Sheegow Ahmed Ali, dying in ignominy in prison in April 2025 on flimsy charges. But beyond the Jareer, equality for other lower-caste clans remains a distant aspiration, with these communities routinely coming off worse in everything from clan-based blood negotiations to political appointments. And for years, Al-Shabaab has been able to successfully tap in and exploit such discontent and grievances, recruiting many of its rank-and-file fighters from more disenfranchised clans.
But there was perhaps no clearer sign of the irresponsibility of lifting international scrutiny on human rights than Somalia's recent ratification of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child at the beginning of October. Although one of the very last African Union member states to do so, the adoption of the Charter obligates the country to align its laws and policies to protect children's rights to essential services such as education and healthcare, as well as outlaw abuses such as child marriage. And yet, that same week, the Ministry of Family and Human Rights Development offered a concerning 'clarification,' detailing that the charter's "blanket ban on marriage under 18 conflicts with Islamic law, which permits marriage based on religious criteria rather than age."
Over several years, conservative Islamist elements within successive federal governments and across Somali society have continued to grow in stature and influence, dissuading any concerted response to the litany of human rights violations faced by women and girls. Most infamously, the Sexual Offences Bill in 2018-- which promised to outlaw child marriage and finally criminalise a raft of sexually violent acts-- was pulled from parliament due to opposition from hardline clerics, including those affiliated with the shadowy Salafist movement, Al-I'tisaam. Today, Somali law remains a hodgepodge of the wildly outdated Somali Penal Code, xeer —the body of clan-based oral jurisprudence, which overwhelmingly favours men, and Sharia courts, including those under Al-Shabaab.
The national outcry to the discovery that an 8-year-old girl was married to an adult man earlier this year barely elicited a whisper of response from Mogadishu, which prefers to aggressively police what it deems as lewd on social media. Not only is gender and sex-based violence against women and girls rampant, but rates of female genital mutilation are among the highest in the world, with nearly all women having undergone the procedure. Greater protections for boys as well are urgently needed, with Puntland particularly facing enduring criticisms of the executions of minors, with four boys under 18 sentenced to death last August for their alleged involvement with Al-Shabaab.
And these are widespread issues just under the control of the government or federal member states. Al-Shabaab, too, shows little regard for the rights of children, routinely coercing young boys into jihadism as a tax on clans under their control. At the celebrations of Eid al-Adha earlier this year, the militant group published images of dozens of children clad in jihadist garb with imitation guns. Long gone are the days of women wearing the traditional guntiino or elegant dhirac — in towns like Jilib and Jamame, they are instead expected to don the full niqab when outside. Instead, years of growing Islamic conservatism and clanism have wrought hell on those at the bottom of Somalia's deeply hierarchical society.
Insisting upon its paper-thin sovereignty may have scored the federal government another PR 'win' about 'Somalia Rising,' but scouring the news in just the past two weeks give a far better reflection of the administration's priorities-- displacing Mogadishu residents, preparing to launch fresh offensives in Gedo, 'clarifying' the rights of children, and detaining critical journalists. But it bears restating that the federal government does not administer Somalia beyond the confines of Mogadishu, so how precisely it might oversee a human rights mandate anywhere else in the country - except perhaps through press statements and social media posts from Villa Somalia — is unmoored from reality. Somalia's reclamation of its human rights mandate is less a symbolic milestone in its state-building trajectory than another blow to scrutiny-- at a time when it is needed more than ever.
The Somali Wire Team
