• Human Rights in Somalia

    Somalia’s long-running armed conflict continues to leave civilians dead, wounded, and displaced in large numbers, although the Islamist armed group al-Shabaab lost ground in 2012. Both al-Shabaab and the forces arrayed against it—a combination of Somali government security forces, troops with the African Union Mission in Somalia, Ethiopian government forces, and allied militias—committed abuses, including indiscriminate attacks harming civilians and arbitrary arrests and detentions. In areas under its control, al-Shabaab administered arbitrary justice and imposed harsh restrictions on basic rights. Improving security remains a serious challenge for Somalia’s new government, which came to power in August, at the end of the political transition period.

  • Farhia, a Somali woman who is now eight-months pregnant, was deported to Somalia from Saudi Arabia on January 29, 2014 after working for 10 years as a domestic worker. The Saudi authorities have deported at least 12,000 people to Somalia since January 2014 without allowing any to make refugee claims. Mogadishu, Somalia. February 8, 2014.
    © 2014 Samer Muscati/Human Rights Watch
    Saudi Arabia: 12,000 Somalis Expelled
    Saudi authorities have deported more than 12,000 people to Somalia since January 1, 2014, including hundreds of women and children, without allowing any to make refugee claims. Saudi Arabia should end the summary deportations, which risk violating its international obligations not to return anyone to a place where their life or freedom is threatened or where they face other serious harm.
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      Apr 19 2010 - 10:12

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    World Report 2013: Somalia
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Somalia

  • A First Step Toward Ending Somalia’s Rape Epidemic
    Feb 20, 2014
  • Dispatches: Meet 1 of the 12,000 Somalis Expelled from Saudi Arabia
    Feb 20, 2014
  • Saudi Arabia: 12,000 Somalis Expelled
    Feb 18, 2014
    Saudi authorities have deported more than 12,000 people to Somalia since January 1, 2014, including hundreds of women and children, without allowing any to make refugee claims. Saudi Arabia should end the summary deportations, which risk violating its international obligations not to return anyone to a place where their life or freedom is threatened or where they face other serious harm.
  • Somalia: Women Shouldn’t Live in Fear of Rape
    Feb 13, 2014
    Somalia’s new cabinet should urgently adopt meaningful reforms to confront rampant sexual violence, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Over the past year, women and girls endured high levels of rape and sexual abuse, including by government soldiers, in Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu.
  • Q&A: What it's Like Researching Rape in Somalia
    Feb 13, 2014
    Samer Muscati, who researches the plight of women in conflict and emergency situations, recently spent time in one of the world’s most dangerous cities: Mogadishu, Somalia. There, he researched the crisis of sexual violence against women for a report, “Here, Rape is Normal,” and was part of a team that interviewed more than two dozen women. Muscati talks to us about women in Somalia, how rape is a horrible symptom of a greater problem, and ways to advocate with a government in a war-torn country that can barely exercise control over its capital city.
  • Somalia: Big Promises, Scant Change
    Jan 21, 2014
    The Somali government during 2013 failed to address the human rights crisis in the capital, Mogadishu, and elsewhere in the country, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2014.
  • Justice on the Horizon
    Dec 28, 2013
    Thanks to a ruling on December 13 from the European Court of Human Rights, thousands of mig­rants and asylum seekers arbitrarily detained in Malta each year may finally have a way to challenge their imprisonment.
  • Memo to The Hague: Somalia is Not Safe
    Nov 27, 2013
  • This Thanksgiving, Remember Today's Refugees
    Nov 26, 2013
    This week, millions will set out for Thanksgiving, a holiday that celebrates how refugees from religious persecution found freedom in a new land. I’ll be one of those traveling. Of course, I’ll be travelling legally, with the right paperwork. Most of us can't imagine how much harder it is to cross international borders if you can’t get your papers in order. Yet millions of people fleeing war and instability, or fearing persecution from their own government, don’t have the luxury of applying for passports and waiting for visas.
  • Dispatches: Deported to Danger in Somalia
    Nov 19, 2013
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