Human Rights and Democracy

Impunity is the underlying cause for all types of the human rights violations in Somalia and the major human rights violations and abuses widely persist in Somalia include; gender and domestic violence, rape, restrictions on freedom of assembly, restrictions on right of citizens to peacefully change their government, restrictions on civil liberties, child abuse mainly recruitment of child soldiers, extrajudicial killings, disappearances, cruel and unusual punishment, harsh and life-threatening prison conditions, arbitrary arrest and detention, denial of fair trial, trafficking in persons, abuse of and discrimination against minorities, restrictions on workers’ rights and child labor.

The democratization process in Somalia has been invested by the different international donors since 2000 during Arta conference in Djibouti, but no major remarkable achievements up to date, because in reality most of the interventions invested so far were missing the key ingredient of the of the democratization process that is inclusive and democratic dialogue. The current democratization process in Somalia is highly focusing on empowerment of the regional and federal government institutions that seems empowering of government led by the major tribes shared the power for their strong position during the civil war and marginalizing more to those marginalized during the civil war due to their weak position. Therefore, the underlying cause is complete absence of inclusive and citizen participation in the democratization process especially in areas of the constitutional reform, judicial reform and institutional reforms. Furthermore, democratization process based on clan power sharing has limited women and youth inclusion of both houses of parliament with only one women and one youth male being elected in the current upper house of the 54 members.  

RAAS Interventions on Human Rights and Democracy.

1. Human rights and gender mainstreaming in to the social, political and economic developments in Somalia through awareness, education, research and advocacy for the development of policies and legislations on human rights in Somalia.
2. Promotion of gender equality through protection of women and girls from sexual and gender based violence (SGBV) and empowerment of women and girls in education, economic and decision making at all levels.
3. Promotion of community based and inclusive dialogue on peace and reconciliation through promotion of truth, justice and forgiveness (TJF) approach.
4. Promotion of research and dialogue on Somali traditional ruling systems (XEER) to revisit harmful areas on human rights and linking or to meet the conventional rule of laws and good governance.
5. To build synergies and provide “One-Stop-Shop” strategy to the democratization process in Somalia through creation of total transformation campaign network (TOTCAN), which is a plat form for the collective experiences and resources of like minded multi-actors including individual Somali citizens and CSOs.