The Surprising City Where Rape Victims Are Finding Justice

But a model for success is 450 miles away in the city of Hargeisa, the capital of a region of Somalia known as Somaliland. Mulvey has seen the one-stop system work there—she helped set it up. When Mulvey arrived in Hargeisa in 2007, as an adviser to the United Nations Development Programme’s Rule of Law program, she found herself in a country where the obstacles to prosecuting sexual assault were many, and resources she could apply to doing so were few. Somalia was in the midst of a civil war; sexual violence, as in Mogadishu today, was frequent, and punishment for such crimes was rare.

Sexual assaults were rarely even reported. Absent a straightforward legal mechanism for prosecuting cases, seeking justice falls to the survivor's family, which seeks restitution from the family of the perpetrator based on Xeer, a traditional legal system that dates back centuries. Read Full Article

Somaliland: Risking torture for a better life abroad

Hargeisa, Somaliland - Outside his two bedroom house made of tin in the heart of Hargeisa, capital of the breakaway Somaliland region, Kosar Dhool cuts an exhausted figure burdened with events far heavier than his slim frame can bear.

The father of five has been receiving phone calls from his son, Hamza, who has been captured and held for ransom by human smugglers in an unknown location in Libya.

"He called to say they are going to take out his kidneys and sell them for money if I don't pay the $2,100 ransom," Dhool told Al Jazeera, sitting on a plastic chair under a tree that barely provided shade from the boiling midday sun. 

Hamza, 18, is a bright high school student with much promise ahead of him. He is well-liked in his neighbourhood and everyone here is in a state of shock at his capture. 

For the past two years, Dhool had been working extra shifts to save up enough money to send Hamza to university in the hope he would then be able to help the family support his younger siblings. 

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Obama's Pick to be US Ambassador to Somalia Withdraws

President Barack Obama's pick to be the first American ambassador to Somalia in nearly 25 years has withdrawn her nomination, the White House told lawmakers on Monday, an unexpected suspension in U.S. plans to deepen ties with the African nation plagued by violence and instability.

An administration official said Katherine Simonds Dhanani, a career diplomat with experience serving across Africa, turned down the nomination for personal reasons and that Obama will have to find another candidate. The official spoke on a condition of anonymity without authorization to speak on the record.

The U.S. Embassy closed in 1991 when Somalia's government collapsed in civil war, prompting the deployment of a U.S.-led U.N. peacekeeping mission. American troops withdrew from Somalia in 1994, months after the humiliating “Black Hawk Down” debacle when Somali militiamen shot down two U.S. helicopters. Read Full Article

"The Message of Berbera Community", New Book Authored by Hussein H Hassan