by Mary Harper
Sisters of Somalia was filmed during Ramadan 2012, a time I was also in Mogadishu. The images matched what I saw in the city. The film was more honest than most TV reports, which focus either on the ‘bad story’ of Mogadishu as ‘the world’s most dangerous city’, or the ‘good story’ of members of the Somali diaspora rushing back to set up businesses and go to the beach. Images for both stories are readily available, depending where you point your camera. You can choose to film smashed up buildings and men with guns. Or you can film well-dressed Somalis eating lobster in shiny new beachside restaurants, against a background of happy people splashing in the turquoise blue of the Indian Ocean.
It was refreshing to watch a film that focused on Somali women. Men dominate the political and public social spaces in Somalia. It is often difficult to tell women’s side of the story. This is something I have struggled with, even as a female journalist who has reported on Somalia for more than 20 years. Somali women are not invisible, but they are often denied a voice. They can be reluctant to talk to the media.
Sisters of Somalia dealt with a delicate and difficult subject, usually off limits in private conversation, let alone on camera. It did so with grace and respect, without descending into ‘disaster pornography’. The film gave a voice, not only to the confident and powerful head of Save Somali Women and Children, Asha Hagi Elmi (who is also a Member of Parliament and wife of the Somali prime minister), but to displaced women who have been raped. Sisters of Somalia was filmed before Asha Hagi Elmi became an MP, and it sometimes seemed as if she was using the film as part of a political campaign.
It was the detail of the film that hit the hardest. The images of flimsy shelters with nothing but a piece of cloth for a door, no protection against a potential rapist. The ‘dignity kits’ distributed to displaced women and victims of sexual violence, which contain soap, sanitary towels and clean clothes in good condition. Such clothes offer vulnerable women a form of protection, unlike the old, torn clothing they usually wear. A ripped dress can be an invitation to rape.
I first heard about the ‘dignity kits’ from Halima Ali Adan, a young woman who works for Save Somali Women and Children. She appears in the film, speaking frankly about sexual violence. I met her in London during a panel discussion on Somalia, where she also spoke openly about the issue. The audience was large, with people of many nationalities, including Somali men and women, young and old, modern and traditional.
As she spoke, the atmosphere became electric. This was a taboo subject. One woman stood up and shouted, “Who is doing the raping? It can’t be Somali men. Somali men don’t rape”. Halima stood brave and strong, calmly replying, “It is Somali men. Old and young. Most go unpunished. Their victims have to walk past them every day”.
The audience then demanded that the Somali men on the panel speak about rape. They hesitated. Then one male panelist stood up and said the rapists should be castrated. Another explained there were customary punishments for rape, whereby compensation was paid to the victim’s clan and/ or the rapist had to marry the woman he had violated in order to ‘maintain her dignity’.
In March this year, the pressure group Human Rights Watch issued a report, Hostages of the Gatekeepers, which documented rape and other forms of sexual violence against women in the displaced camps of Mogadishu. The report said the security forces were responsible for much of the sexual violence. It said the Somali government had made some impressive statements about the issue, but had done little to change the situation on the ground.
In February this year, a woman in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, was given a one-year jail sentence after she accused members of the security forces of raping her. Her crime was making a false accusation and insulting a government body. The sentence was later overturned on appeal.
Sisters of Somalia was about more than sexual violence. It had a sense of history, with Asha Hagi Elmi returning to her former university, devastated to find it had become a camp for the displaced. Or as she put it, “a paradise lost”.
The film also gave a flavour of the hope that has come to Mogadishu after more than two decades of conflict. Asha Hagi Elmi said, “I can smell the peace”, as if it wasn’t quite there yet, but was waiting, tantalisingly, just around the corner. This was something I also felt in the city. It was a feeling I had never before experienced since my first trip to Mogadishu in 1994. It was as if people were willing peace to come, with growing numbers realising there was more to gain from peace than war.
Yet the final frame of the film was problematic, given the complicity of the security forces in sexual violence. In front of a picture of displaced Somali children appeared the words: ‘THE SOMALI GOVERNMENT IS COMMITTED TO DEALING WITH THE ISSUE OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN’. Sentimental music played in the background.
In conclusion, Sisters of Somalia gave a more true and balanced portrayal of life in Mogadishu than many other media reports. It showed the good, the bad and the ugly. That there is a possibility of peace, but also ongoing violence, including that against women, which has for many years remained a largely unexplored and damaging secret.
Mary Harper is Africa Editor at BBC World Service News and the author of ‘Getting Somalia Wrong? Faith, War and Hope in a Shattered State’ (Zed Books). Her website is www.maryharper.co.uk. You can follow her on Twitter @mary_harper.