Somali Women Bear Superhuman Burden

[ensho]

http://www.truth-out.org/somali-women-bear-superhuman-burden/1313430342


-snip about first relief UN aid shipment in 5 yrs.-

"We have heard very sad stories of women having to abandon their children along the way because
they were too weak to carry them," Andreas Needham, a public information officer for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Somalia (UNHCR), told IPS.

-snip-

As Matthew Johnson, a press officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), told IPS, "Under Somali culture, women face the extra burden of societal expectations that they bear the primary duty to care for and sustain their families, especially children and the elderly, which is a superhuman burden in times of extreme scarcity and insecurity."

What has been declared the worst famine in the last 60 years in the area has so far cost the lives of more than 29,000 children and left another 640,000 malnourished.

-snip-

"As they flee Somalia to safety, women and children are passing through areas where armed groups and bandits roam, only to arrive in crowded and potentially dangerous camps. The protection aspects of this crisis are acute and life-threatening. Gender-based violence (GBV) like rape, domestic violence and female genital mutilation is a significant issue in all parts of Somalia," he told IPS.
-long snip-
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and Somali men rape, abuse, murder them. well, I wouldn't call them men.