About Deqa

Deqa Yasin has more than 20 years of experience in the promotion of human rights, peacebuilding and conflict resolution in civil society and government.

Deqa was born in Merka and raised in Somalia. To complete her university studies, she later moved to the city of Turin in Italy in the late 1990s, where she worked as a cultural mediator and Youth Centre Coordinator at the Alouan Youth Centre. In this role, she supported cultural integration for second-generation immigrants, including assisting them in regularising their legal status to enable them to access their rights to education and employment. She helped found the Comitato di Solidarietà con il Popolo Somalo (the Solidarity Committee with the Somali People) in the Piemonte Region to raise funds in aid of people affected by the civil war in different parts of Somalia. 

Deqa moved to the city of Toronto, Canada, in the early 2000’s and worked as a civil servant for the Government of Canada, providing social services to the most vulnerable Canadian citizens for close to 10 years. 

On her return to Somalia in 2012, Deqa joined IIDA Women’s Development Organization (IIDA) as the Operations Manager. At IIDA, she set out to use opportunities offered by Somalia’s ongoing state-building process to promote the rights of marginalized groups in the country, including women, children, and persons with disabilities. She played a pivotal role in the constitution-making process of Somalia and the development of laws and policies with the Federal Government of Somalia between 2013 and 2016. It was during her work with IIDA that Deqa represented the civil society in the New Deal for Somalia.

In 2016, Deqa was elected to serve as Deputy Chair of the Federal Indirect Election Implementation Team (FIEIT), where she played a central role in increasing women’s representation in the two houses of the 10th Federal Parliament of Somalia from 14% in 2012 to 25%. 

Deqa was subsequently appointed Minister of Women and Human Rights Development of the Federal Republic of Somalia and served in this capacity from March 2017 to October 2020.  In this role, she led Somalia in the ratification process for the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD), prioritising the disability agenda in government, launching several initiatives on disability rights across the country, among others. 

During her tenure as Minister, Somalia reduced a 35-year backlog of outstanding reports to the UN human rights treaty mechanisms. These included the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), and UN International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). 

Seizing windows of opportunity in Somalia’s state-building process, Deqa brought together women from all spheres of life across the country to develop the Somali Women’s Charter to articulate the shared demands for women’s rights in the constitution, electoral laws, and beyond. In this unprecedented document, the women of Somalia call, inter alia, for laws upholding their security and a 50 % quota for women in all public institutions.  On the legislative front, Deqa led MoWHRD in drafting bills designed to protect the rights of the vulnerable groups in Somalia. These included Child Rights Bill, Anti Female Genital Mutilation Bill, Sexual Offences Bill, and Disability Bill. She also spearheaded the completion of the establishment process of the Independent National Human Rights Commission (INHRC) in compliance with the Paris Principles and the National Disability Agency (NDA). The commissioners nominated as part of this process included the highest percentage of female commissioners in the history of Somalia. In 2018, under her leadership, Somalia, for the first time, assumed a seat on the UN Human Rights Council.

In addition to her work in Somalia, Deqa actively engaged in the advancement of global norms, strategies and policies on human rights, peacebuilding and state-building. In 2019, she served as a member of the Sounding Board of the World Bank Group’s first strategy for Fragility, Conflict, and Violence (FCV) – chaired by the CEO of the World Bank Group. In this position, she provided strategic and operational guidance for the WBG’s engagement in FCV settings, including providing lessons learned and best practices on inclusive peacebuilding and state-building. She was also part of the advisory team for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) study on “Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment in Fragile and Conflict-Affected Situations”. The study reviewed donor engagement with gender equality and fragility, and suggested concrete steps that donors could take to help strengthen policy frameworks and the quality of their support.