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FMR 64 Climate crisis and local communities 25

June 2020 www.fmreview.org/issue64

Climate crisis, gender inequalities and local response
in Somalia/Somaliland

Amy Croome and Muna Hussein

Various factors intersect when looking at the gendered effects of climate crisis on local
communities in Somalia/Somaliland.
Climate-related shocks and humanitarian work in urban centres. This has caused a
crises are closely inter-linked. As climate shift in gender roles and is perceived by
change becomes more extreme and some men as a threat to their role. In some
unpredictable, hundreds of thousands of cases, men leave their families to look for
people living in poverty in Somalia are work in the cities, join the military, leave
already paying a heavy price. As well as to escape clan violence, or die by suicide.
facing a fragile political situation after the Divorce rates have risen and female-headed
collapse of the government in 1991, Somalia households have become more common.
has experienced recurrent droughts which Caring and domestic work, traditionally
have in turn increased clan conflicts. In the responsibility of women and girls,
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2018, 547,000 people (3.6% of its population) have become more demanding and time-
were newly displaced by extreme weather consuming. Both firewood and water are
events and it is expected that in 2020 6.3 increasingly scarce, resulting in women
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million people will face acute food insecurity and girls walking longer distances to
and 5.2 million people will be in need of collect these resources. Girls are asked to
humanitarian assistance, of which 1.72 support the increased daily domestic work,
million people will be internally displaced. 3 resulting in more girls dropping out of
Gender inequality in Somalia/Somaliland school. Furthermore, when parents cannot
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in general was already very high before the afford to register both boys and girls in
current climate crisis: women have less power school, they prioritise boys’ education.
and participation in economic, educational Resource scarcity has also increased
and political spheres, and gender-based clan conflicts as more groups compete over
violence, early girl-child marriage and female land, water and pasture. This is especially
genital mutilation are all prevalent. Now, dangerous for men, who can easily become
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climate shocks – creating resource scarcity victims of revenge killings or armed clashes,
and stress on livelihoods – have shifted and consequently limits their freedom of
many cultural norms in Somali society and movement. Evictions and land disputes
are having an impact on gender dynamics. arising when people are displaced also
The loss of livestock because of drought cause violence, affecting mostly men.
has resulted in men being unable to secure Other forms of gender-based violence,
income for the family. This is causing tension such as rape, have also been on the rise.
and conflict in households and driving Women feel vulnerable at water points,
domestic violence towards women and open defecation areas, livestock grazing
children. Many men also turn to chewing areas, areas where they collect firewood,
the stimulant qat, which all communities on roads to markets and in their homes
interviewed reported as increasing domestic (because of lack of safe shelter and lighting).
violence. Domestic violence has also increased Perpetrators are men both from within and
as women have, in many cases, become the outside the community. Seeking justice for
breadwinners – either through keeping sexual violence or rape remains difficult as
and selling goats, becoming street vendors confidentiality is compromised when cases
in camps for internally displaced people are reported in the community, the informal
(IDPs) or in villages, or by taking up casual court system often imposes small fines on