Fsnau-Post-Gu-2012-Technical-Report

Among the Mogadishu IDP women, food aid is the primary
source of food and income, followed by casual work, then
petty trade. The dependency on food aid was greater for
women in female-headed households.
Mogadishu’s urban poor have much more income diversity
than the city’s IDPs. This is a reality for women and for men.
The primary source of income for urban men within femaleheaded
households was skilled employment, paying much
better than the petty trade and casual work done by urban
women. The gender gap: a dominance of men in the formal
and women in the informal economy.
Like in the South, poor urban men and women in Somaliland
and Puntland are both obliged to earn money or food.
However, the gender dynamics in the north are different.
There was no notable gender gap in participation in the
northern economy. There is a sharp difference, however,
in income diversity as men have more income options than
women. This is also reflected at the household level. More
northern households headed by women, than men, were
restricted to one source of income.
Casual work is the primary income source for men and maleheaded
households across the north. This was especially
true in the northwest, experiencing an influx of diaspora and
foreign investment. Here casual work was also the key source
of income for women as well as female-headed households.
In the northeast, by contrast, women were less active in
casual work. This was reflected in northeastern womenheaded
households identifying different key sources of
income: they reported higher participation in skilled/salaried
work and petty trade than casual work. Both men and women
in the northeast have significant dependence on petty trade.
Education
There was a higher number of boys in school in all eight IDP
settlements surveyed. A higher percentage of boys attend
schools from both male and female headed IDP households.
Gender Dynamics in Migration
The main obstacle for going to school is the high cost of
school fees. This was a bigger barrier for girls especially in
female-headed IDP households which depend more on girls’
paid and unpaid work.
In the North there is much higher school attendance of both
girls and boys, with highest participation in urban areas.
There is a consistent gender gap, however, with higher
numbers of boys attending primary school. As in the south,
high fees are the biggest barrier for both girls and boys
attending school.
Women’s growing presence in salaried work in the Northeast,
mentioned above, in part reflects greater female literacy in
the north.
Coping strategies.
In all IDP (north,central,Mogadishu) settlements households
headed by men often resorted to eating less and less
preferred foods. However in the urban areas households
headed by women most often went to these extremes.
Vulnerability and resilience from a gender perspective
– Rural Findings
Analysis of the focus group discussions in rural areas
revealed that poor men decide on the expenditure of income
from most sources. The exception: poor women usually
decide on expenditure of the income they earn from the
sale of milk and ghee, hide and other livestock products.
This data is, however, poorly weighted: focus groups all had
either all-male participants or a majority of men.
Men are consistently identified as the owners of camels
and cattle, with very few exceptions, and owners of a larger
percentage of the family shoat flock. Shoats have the greatest
mix of shared, men’s and women’s ownership.
In rural areas, there is often shared decision-making on how
to spend income from gifts and remittances.
Normal migration in pastoral and agro-pastoral communities temporarily splits families. In crisis, migrating farther separates
husbands and wives for longer. Poor women and poor men, each driven to help feed their families often have little choice but to
live and work separately. Family splitting along gender lines is fundamental to Somali resilience and coping. Common examples:
in pastoral communities, men and older boys herd all healthy camels, cattle and shoats long distances in search of water and
pasture while women, the small children, elderly and sick stay behind with the weak animals; in areas like Bay agro-pastoral, men
migrate with camels and leave women to care for their family, their cattle and shoats; women and children move to IDP camps
while men migrate with livestock; men travel to urban centers or abroad for work, while women remain to sustain families, or the
opposite where women head to urban areas for petty trade while men protect their grain stores or livestock.
All normal and abnormal migration has gender dynamics. Most critical are differential access to milk, which is the major source
of nutrition in Somalia. Forced migration also separates men from women and their normal safety net. This brings different risks
to men, women, girls and boys. One example that surfaced during the post-Gu assessment: in Hargeiza, NGOs identified the
emergence of adolescent boy gangs threatening poor women’s urban livelihoods. Women active in petty trade as well as streetcleaning
or selling qaat after dark are becoming prime targets for robbery, eve teasing and rape.
The good Gu rains have eased abnormal migration which, in turn, has reduced the prolonged family splitting triggered by last
year’s famine. Where the situation is stabilizing, families are reuniting. Rebuilding camel and cattle herds as well as shoat flocks
devastated by the famine will take more good rains and good harvests. In the interim, stressful family separation and the related
protection issues that arise when social safety nets are weakened, remains a reality for many.
FSNAU Technical Series Report No. VI 48
Issued October 18, 2012
Gender Analysis
79