Dekha Ibrahim Introduction In the town of Wajir, in north eastern Kenya in 1993, a young Somali woman hid her first child under the bed to protect the infant from bullets that flew through the town each day in a fierce local inter-clan war. When she discovered that she had been hidden under a bed […]

Establishing a communication bridge between warring parties to help bring reconciliation and peace can be a vital stage in the process of transition from war to peace. It is a role women are well positioned to take on due to their position within the clan structure, and for which women are politically valued.14 Women are […]

Because war-makers from Siad Barre onwards have used the clan system as a weapon and a shield, a person’s fate has largely been determined by his or her clan identity. Numerous Somali women, including many of the contributors to this book, are partners in exogamous marriages and therefore do not belong to the clan of […]

Clan identity is patrilineal and it is for life; you belong to your father’s clan and this does not change when you marry, for either a man or a woman. Having said this, there are differences for men and women. For a man the paramount clan relationship, sense of identity and loyalty is with brothers […]

From birth all males will be members of a diya group. For men it is at this level that collective action takes place and the political and social implications of clan membership are most clearly defined. A man’s security, and that of his property, depends on his diya group membership. A single diya group may […]

Traditionally the collective and individual obligations and responsi­bilities under the clan system provide protection against random killings or attacks by one group against another in relation to war or conflict. If a man or woman is killed or injured by another, revenge or compensation will be sought. Other than in acts of individually motivated violence, […]

All people of Somali ethnicity2 will belong through patrilineal descent to one of the six kin-based clan families that make up a con­federation of genealogically related clans (Lewis 1961). A clan is thus a group of people who claim descent from a common ancestor and who trace their blood relationships through the male line.3 The […]

Judith Gardner with Amina Mohamoud Warsame ‘Only a fool will not consult his wife and seek her opinion.’1 This chapter was compiled largely from material generated during a workshop held with the book’s contributors in October 1997. The participants whose viewpoints and analysis this chapter represents are: Noreen Michael Mariano, Zeynab Mohammed Hassan, Rhoda M. […]

The Boroma Grand Conference on Reconciliation was described as a make-or-break event in the creation of the Somaliland state. Opened on 24 January 1993, it was attended by representatives of all Somaliland’s clan families. It had an open time frame and in the event lasted nearly four months. The main items on the agenda were […]

A reconciliation and peace conference attended by elders and clan members of the warring sub-clans was held in October 1992, in Sheikh, a town between Berbera and Burao. In accordance with custom, women were not present as participants or mediators but as one man put it: Women were the wind behind the peace conference from […]