The Contribution of Women to Peace and Reconciliation

The new gender roles and relations that have emerged from the political
disintegration and the violence need to be recognized and maintained
in the post-conflict stage. Somali women’s experiences, particularly their
new identities as the primary providers and their important contribution
to peace-building and recovery, needs to be recognized, valued and supported
by both national and international institutions. Somali women’s
contributions to maintaining the basic survival of their families, peace
and recovery hold the potential for transforming post-conflict Somalia.
It is thus pertinent to place women at the centre of all peace-building,
state-building and post-conflict transformation efforts.
Somalia desperately needs genuine and continuous support from the international
community. The international community needs to stop seeing
Somalia purely as a project for logistic band-aid exercises. Somalia
is a nation ravaged by prolonged militarized violence and political insecurity.
Resolution of the protracted conflict in Somalia will require a new
mind-set and engagement which moves away from the project and piece -
meal mentality, to a holistic, genuine and solid approach, so that the
scourge of the protracted violence in Somalia can be tackled successfully.
The people of Somalia must also be provided with the opportunity
to reconcile. They need to be the given space to sort out their differences.
Grassroots peace-building also needs to be supported. In the
past, every time something promising has emerged in Somalia, both internal
and external forces have failed to nurture that opportunity, and in
most cases, have acted to destroy it. Peace projects designed outside
of Somalia will not work, and will not bring stability, only more violence
and mistrust among warring groups. Somalis must be in the front seat
of the reconciliation process.
There is also need for neighbouring countries such as Ethiopia, Kenya
and Djibouti who are attempting to “solve” the conflict in Somalia to become
genuine peace partners, and not simply opportunists who add
more fuel to the ongoing conflict by arming various groups. A peaceful
Somalia will not only be beneficial to its people, but also to other nations
in the Horn of Africa.
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