Somali women who have been raped face not only the physical and psychological trauma of rape but also the likelihood of rejection by their families. A strong cultural stigma is attached to rape in Somalia, as elsewhere. In numerous cases, families have begged UNHCR officials to take their young daughter to another camp after she has been raped because of the stigma on the family.57 In other cases, once a woman is raped she is ostracized by her husband and isolated from her family.
Hibaq, a forty-year-old woman, was raped by three unknown assailants in the middle of the night at Liboi camp in March 1993. She was sleeping in her hut with her three children ages twenty-one, ten and eight years. She told us:
I live in a compound with my husband and his second wife, and I was woken up by a torch shining in my face. I asked who it was, and they told me to shut up. There were three men dressed in black with white scarves around their heads. One of them had a gun. They dragged me out of the house and then searched the house for money. They couldn't findany so they dragged me back inside and began beating me. I started crying and screaming "God is great, God is great and my God is watching you." They said "Fuck your God." They slapped me on my ears, and even now I can't hear in one ear. No one came out to help me. They were too scared. Then all three raped me in my own house while my children were there. One of them held a gun at my throat while the other raped me, and then they changed places. For one hour they raped me, and then they left and went to another house.58
When Hibaq's husband discovered that she had been raped, he sent her out of the compound where the family was living and took her belongings, including her food ration card. For approximately one month, she was sleeping in different places, unable to collect her food ration, and forbidden by her husband from seeing her children. When the UNHCR learned of this case, its personnel convened a meeting in April 1993 with the committee of elders at the camp and negotiated the return of Hibaq's food ration card and access to her children.59 Hibaq's husband, however, refused to have anything to do with her, and she now lives alone in a separate hut in Liboi camp. At the time of our interview, she still suffered from sleeplessness and sharp pains in her ribs where she was beaten.
For fear of being stigmatized, Somali women refugees who are victims of rape often refuse to acknowledge publicly that they have been raped, even when medical evidence indicates that the attack occurred. In other cases, women do not seek medical assistance or file a police report because they do not want it known that they were raped. Between July 18 and 24, 1993, four refugee women who were raped refused to allow a doctor to examine them.60 In the medical center at Liboi camp, the hospital documented thirty-nine cases of rape from late 1992 to mid-1993. The UNHCR's consultant on sexual violence documented thirty other cases that took place during the same period that never came to the attention of the medical center.
Most women who have been raped only go to a doctor if they suffer other injuries from being beaten, knifed or shot, and even then, many do not mention that they were raped. In some cases, the women do not perceive therape itself as an injury. Hibaq told us that she saw a doctor after she was raped, but only because she had been beaten so badly that she could not hear. However, she never told the doctor that she had been raped.
On occasion, if a rapist is identified as another refugee, the families settle the case through the elders with the rapist's family paying "blood money" in compensation for the crime committed. Unfortunately, the settlement is usually negotiated on behalf of the woman by her male relatives, sometimes against her wishes, and the settlement money often remains with the male relatives.
57 Interview with UNHCR official, Nairobi, Kenya, July 16, 1993.
58 Interview, Liboi camp, Kenya, July 19, 1993.
59 Interview, Fauzia Musse, Liboi camp, Kenya, July 19, 1993.
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