text: Decades of war have divided Somalia into three regions, each with its own government. What they share are the challenges to prosecuting sexual assault. In south-central Somalia, which includes Mogadishu, Somalia’s largest city, survivors of sexual violence have particularly scant hope for justice. The U.N. counted 1,700 rapes between January and November 2013 in Mogadishu; the total number of rape convictions that year in all of south-central Somalia was two.
  “You’re more likely to be arrested for reporting than are your perpetrators,” says Antonia Mulvey, founder and executive director of NGO Legal Action Worldwide, an NGO that works to prevent sexual assault and improve justice outcomes for survivors. “The climate for impunity is very large.”
  Today, though, Mulvey and her organization think they’ve found the solution: a one-stop center where victims can report their crime to police while also receiving medical care, legal counsel, and psychological support. Though viewed as crucial to finding justice for survivors of sexual abuse in Mogadishu, setting up the center will be a tall order in the region, where there is barely any law enforcement, a history of abuse of women, and a tradition that mandates rape be dealt with by local clan elders rather than the official justice system.
  But a model for success is 450 miles away in the city of Hargeisa, the capital of a region of Somalia known as Somaliland.
  Read the full article at TakePart.
  This article was featured on the Huffington Post Honor Roll and by the Solutions Journalism Network, which named the piece among the Best Solutions Journalism of 2015.
  May 5, 2015 April 29, 2020 Jacob Kushner Tagged gbv, human rights, rape, sexual violence, solutions journalism, somalia