LOOMA OOYAAN – NO ONE CRIES FOR THEM: THE PREDICAMENT FACING SOMALIA’S MINORITY WOMEN

USWO Organization - Somaliland: Minority Somali women and girls are particularly vulnerable to sexual violence due to poverty, marginalization and discriminatory attitudes, but this is often ignored by the authorities and the clans, say Minority Rights Group International (MRG) and IIDA Women's Development Organization in a new report. The report, Looma Ooyan - No one cries for them: The Predicament Facing Somalia's Minority Women, says the perpetrators of these abuses include members of dominant clans, militias and security forces, as well as men from minority communities.

SUPPORT TO PROMOTION AND IMPROVEMENT OF GENDER EQUALITY AND INCLUSION OF MINORITY WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT PROJECT

There has been a touchable improvement on minority women’s rights so far reached and achieved after the implementation of the project first phase on October to December 2014. The outputs of the project previous phase has resulted in and caused the enlargement of minority rights activist groups, pressure groups; as well as, potential women’s rights advocates who represent lead module of gender equality and stand for empowered minority women targeting to raise up their role in the society and in the way forward be widely heard around the country and make addressing their rights as a national democratic and sensitive issue.

COMMUNIQUE ISSUED BY HIGH PROFILED DELEGATES FROM GOVERNMENT OF SOMALILAND AT THE END OF NATIONAL GENDER SOLIDARITY FORUM

Hargeisa: Today Wednesday 28 Jan 2015, USWO organization; in collaboration with IIDA organization, held a national gender solidarity forum on exposing minority women's role in political participation first time in history at Maansoor Hotel - Hargeisa in Somaliland.

COMMUNIQUE ISSUED BY HIGH PROFILED DELEGATES OF ONE DAY NATIONAL GENDER SOLIDARITY FORUM IN SOMALILAND

Hargeisa: Today Wednesday 28 Jan 2015, USWO organization; in collaboration with IIDA organization, held a national gender solidarity forum on exposing minority women's role in political participation first time in history at Maansoor Hotel - Hargeisa in Somaliland. This communique was issued at the end of national gender solidarity forum launched by USWO organization at Maansoor Hotel – Hargeisa, Somaliland. The participants of this meeting include senior officials from political parties, respected human rights activists from civil society groups, government ministers, religious and traditional leaders.

50 MINORITY WOMEN HAVE BEEN TRAINED ON MINORITY RIGHT ADVOCACY SKILLS, POLITICAL PEACE PARTICIPATION, COUNTRY DECISION-MAKING AND ENHANCING GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT IN SOMALILAND

USWO organization: 50 minority women, selected as active community committees from Daami A&B Minority IDP camps in Hargeisa, have been trained on minority rights advocacy techniques, political peace participation, country decision-making and enhancing the equality of gender and women's rights empowerment in Somaliland.

USWO PROJECT: SUPPORT TO THE PROMOTION OF GENDER EQUALITY AND WOMEN'S EMPOWERMENT IN SOMALILAND FUNDED EUROPEAN UNION (EU)

On 1st October 2014, USWO signed a new project on "Support to the promotion of gender equality and women's empowerment in Somalia/land funded by the European Union (EU) to Minority Rights Group International (MRG) and managed by and in partnership with IIDA Women's Development Organization (IIDA).

AWARENESS DRAMA PROJECT ON UNDOCUMENTED MIGRANTS CROSSING THROUGH SOMALILAND

Looking for a better life and many other reasons irregular migrants from Ethiopia and South Central Somalia cross the Gulf of Aden into Yemen while a large number of migrants from Somaliland go through Ethiopia and Sudan to reach Libya and Mediterranean Sea to Italy through. As both routes are dangerous and risk-full, robbery, rape, detention, torture and human rights abuses.  On the journey, some of the migrants die in the sea, others disappear while few saved migrants face hazardous working conditions, refused promised wages and physical abuse.

MARYAM MURSAL: SOMALI LEGENDARY MUSIC, VOCALS AND COMPOSER IN REAL WORLD RECORDS

Maryam Mursal was born in January 1, 1950; grew up in Somalia in a Muslim family with four daughters and has been active in somali music since 1980s.

As a teenager, she broke with tradition and began singing professionally in Mogadishu. She performed in nightclubs and her brand of music, featuring a mix of blues, soul, Somali and Arabic influences, and known as Somali jazz, became popular across the country. Performing primarily solo, she also collaborated with Waaberi, a 300-member music and dance troupe associated with the Somali National Theatre. Later, after having criticized Somalia's then ruling military government, she was banned from singing for two years, and made her living driving a taxi.

During the subsequent civil war in her homeland, Mursal and her five children moved to neighbouring Djibouti, where she found asylum in the Danish embassy. It was this odyssey that provided the germ of her solo recording The Journey, with guitars, sequencers and back-up vocals from Peter Gabriel.