Papal_Guard
Solstice
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'Most of the men are your enemies': one woman's crusade in Somalia
Ibado Mohammed Abdulle is a counsellor, friend and campaigner for women made refugees in their own country by the impact of climate crisis
www.theguardian.com
Ibado Mohammed Abdulle, who oversees three displacement camps in Somalia’s Sool region, works to prevent violence against displaced women. Photograph: Will Swanson
The long, black hem of Ibado Mohammed Abdulle’s diya drags in the sand, creating mini tornadoes of dust under her sandals. At a circular fence of waist-high thorny bushes, she knocks on the metal sheet serving as a makeshift door. A woman’s face, partially hidden by a bright green hijab, appears. “Salaam Alaikum,” Abdulle says, “peace be upon you.”
Holding up a hand to the armed guards tasked with accompanying the visiting charity staff following her around the displacement camp, she instructs them to stay outside.
“We don’t want to scare her,” she says.
Abdulle, 48, was living in the desert town of Oog in northern Somalia in 2016 when drought turned the region to dust, driving thousands of families from their homes. Now she makes daily visits to one of three sprawling displacement camps outside the town to campaign for vulnerable women and girls. Once a climate refugee herself, she knows what their lives are like.
“I tell them to gather in groups when they go out,” Abdulle says. “That most of the men are your enemies, so don’t go out alone so you can be safe from the violence and the rape, especially at night-time.”
In Somalia, climate change is driving rape, sexual violence and intimate partner violence. Droughts linked to climate change ravage the landscape with increasing frequency, hurting families who depend on farming and herding animals.
The spike in regional violence against women and girls takes two forms: domestic violence against women who have become family breadwinners , and sexual violence against women and girls who have migrated to camps near crowded urban centres.
WEATHER DIFFERENT=I RAPE WOMEN
