Disability is a significant enduring impact of the civil war in Somalia and the ongoing armed conflict with Al-Shabaab. Ensuring that persons with disabilities have the opportunity to participate on an equal basis with others and exercise control of their lives requires actions ranging from legal and policy reforms to disability rights awareness and promotion of disability inclusion in public and private sectors. Nonetheless, these actions cannot be fulfilled without the prioritisation of the necessary resources for their implementation. However, as a conflict-affected country, Somalia is presented with multiple competing needs and national priorities. Thus, in an environment where many issues are worthy of prioritisation, the challenge lies in deciding which ones to prioritise for action.
When I took office in April 2017, I was approached by a number of Organizations of Persons with Disabilities (OPD), many of whose members I had worked with for years as a civil society activist in Somalia. The OPDs advocated and called for clear priorities by the government that included:
All of these demands were adopted as part of the Ministry of Women and Human Rights Development (MoWHRD’s) priorities.
Normative Framework
On 2 October 2018, Somalia signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), becoming the 178th country to do so. In April 2019, the 10th Parliament started the ratification process as documented on the Parliamentary Website, (Parliamentary Bill Sharciyadda – 2019). The Convention was ratified on 6 August 2019.
Implementation
On 10 December 2017, I led the development of the National Disability Roadmap, ‘Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities and Disability Rights in Governance & Development Processes 2017–2019′, a baseline that led to the second Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities and Disability Rights – Road Map 2020-2023.
To support the MoWHRD’s work, I appointed a Disability and Inclusion Advisor to recommend and assist the Ministry in building staff capacity on disability and inclusion issues, as well as lead in the implementation of our commitments on disability rights. This was the first appointment of a designated disability advisor in the history of the Somali government ministries. It was our view that hiring a Somali with a disability would be an important signal of the Ministry’s commitment to equality of opportunity and a direct challenge to the pervasive stigmatisation and negative stereotyping of people with disabilities. The gesture necessitated making the ministry’s physical infrastructure accessible to persons with disabilities and served as an awareness-raising strategy on the need for inclusion of persons with disability in government.
Between June and December 2018, the Council of Ministers and the Federal Parliament approved the National Disability Agency Establishment Law (which was documented in The Parliamentary Website, (Parliamentary Bill Sharciyadda – 2018), paving the way for the President to sign it into law on 31 December 2018. Under the leadership of my Ministry, the bill was drafted pro-bono by Advocate Tahliil Haji Ahmed, a prominent Somali legal expert with over 40 years of experience, a practising lawyer and a former Court of Appeal Judge in Somalia. The roles and responsibilities of the National Disability Agency include formulating, developing and implementing the Somali Government’s plans for persons with disabilities, ensuring that persons with disabilities have roles and responsibilities and equal access to available opportunities on an equitable basis with others, among others.
In 2019, I led the development of the Somalia Rights of Persons with Disabilities Bill with a view of domesticating the CRPD. This was the first bill dedicated to directly protecting the rights of persons with disabilities. By the time I left the ministerial post, the draft bill was pending before the cabinet of ministries to be voted on. As a minister, I was deeply committed to the principle of involving people, including children, in the development of laws and policies that affect their lives and concern them. In this spirit, two members of OPDs were hired to lead and facilitate the national public consultations on the draft disability law. I regularly engaged with OPDs to ensure that they were always actively involved in the development and implementation of legislation and policies. Most importantly, they were an integral part of the decision-making processes that concerned them.
The initiation and development of the above laws and the disability roadmap would not have been possible without the active involvement and staunch advocacy by the community of people with disabilities and their representative organisations, as highlighted in the Pre-consultations on the Disability Rights bill in #Kismayo with FMS DPO’s leading to The Development of the National Disability Bill.
Knowledge Generation, Advocacy and International Engagement
In 2020, as part of the CRC reporting process, I led the development of A Rapid Assessment of The Status of Children With Disabilities in Somalia, which helped the Ministry identify knowledge gaps in and provide vital primary data on juvenile disability in Somalia.
To raise the profile of this vital commitment, I co-hosted, together with the United Nations’ Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the first side event for Somalia at the 42nd regular session of the United Nations’ Human Rights Council in Geneva. The event’s theme was ‘Making the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities a Reality in Somalia: The Road Ahead’. It was designed to discuss the implementation of the CRPD in Somalia, while ensuring at the same time that increased efforts in Somalia were based on the overarching and underlying principles of inclusion and gender equality, independence, full participation, equality, and human dignity.
To advance our international engagement, we participated in the Global Disability Summit in London, where Somalia made several pledges to advance and protect the rights of Persons with Disabilities and in 2019, in the Oslo Conference on the Mine Ban Treaty, focusing on mine survivors and other persons with disabilities.
The promotion and protection of disability rights is a key part of the responsibilities of the Ministry of Women and Human Rights Development, and it was my privilege to prioritise disability as a key agenda for Somalia. Despite the many challenges involved, we made good progress, as highlighted in the Disability Rights Activities Chronological Overview. However, much remains to be done to ensure dignity and respect for all persons with disabilities.
Publications
I led in the development of the following publications:
» Somalia Women’s Rights » The National Union of Somali Journalists » Women, Peace, Security and Development » Human rights in in Somalia » 41st Regular Session Human Rights Council » 35th Meeting, 39th Regular Session Human Rights Council » Women’s Charter at 63rd Commission on the Status of Women event in New York » Centrality of Gender Equality to National Cohesion and Sustainable Peacebuilding » Women, Peace, Security and Development