The Somali community in the UK: What we know and how we ... - ICAR

The Somali community in the UK 

What we know and how we know it 

By Hermione Harris 

Commissioned and published by 

The Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees in the UK (ICAR) 

June 2004


What we know and how we know it 

is published by 

The Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees in the UK (ICAR) 

International Policy Institute 

King’s College London 

A project funded by a respected anonymous donor 

to whom we are extremely grateful 

First published June 2004 

ISBN 0 9547024 4 1 

Copyright © King’s College London 2004 

King’s College London 

Strand 

London WC2R 2LS 

United Kingdom 

Contact details for ICAR 

t: 020 7848 2103 

e: icar@kcl.ac.uk 

www.icar.org.uk 

ICAR is an independent information centre that exists to promote understanding of 

asylum and refugees in the UK context and to encourage information-based debate 

and policy making. 

The copyright of this publication is owned by King’s College London. The views 

expressed in this report are those of the authors alone and do not in any way represent 

the views of the donor or King’s College London. 

2 The Somali community in the UK

Table of contents 

Foreword 4 

Introduction 6 

The Somali community in the UK 6 

Plan of the report 8 

Part I: The invisible community? 

How we know what we know about Somalis 

in the UK 10 

Sources of information about Somalis 


The focus of research 11 

The quantity of Somali research 12 

The significance of type of research for 

knowledge about Somalis in the UK 13 

The search for the ‘Somali voice’ 14 

Somalis as researchers 15 

Methodological problems 16 

Part II: The Somali diaspora in 

the United Kingdom 18 

Map of Somalia 18 

Historical background 18 

The regime of Siad Barre 1969-1990 19 

Continued conflict: 1990-2003 20 

Migration of Somalis to the United Kingdom 22 

Stages of settlement 22 

Entry into the UK 25 

Somali asylum claims in the UK 25 

Determination of Somali 

asylum applications 25 

Decisions on Somali asylum 

applications and rates of refusal 28 

Exceptional leave to remain (ELR), 

humanitarian protection (HP), and 

discretionary leave (DL) 28 

Refusal of Somali asylum applications 28 

Non-compliance 29 

‘Third country’ cases 29 

Appeals 29 

Return of failed asylum seekers 30 

Detention 30 

Resettlement 30 

Family reunion 30 

Concluding remarks 31 

Number of Somalis in the UK 32 

Employment 39 

Education 43 

Youth 48 

Cultural conflict 50 

Health 53 

Mental health 54 

Khat 58 

Women and gender roles 59 

Gender roles - conflict and change 62 

Female genital mutilation (FGM) 65 

Self-help and fragmentation: RCOs and the 

politics of clan 66 

Conclusion 71 

Publications 72 

Somali diaspora in the UK 72 

Audio-visual 78 

Tables and figures 

Table A: Classification of sources 11 

Table B: Subject matter of reports 11 

Figure A: Asylum applications received from 

Somali nationals, 1998-2003 25 

Figure B: Number of initial decisions on Somali 

asylum applications, 1988-2003 27 

Figure C: Initial decisions on Somali asylum 

applications, 1988-2003 27 

Table C: Snapshot of Somali detainees 30 

Table D: Ten largest Somali refugee populations 

at end of 2002 31 

Table E: Grants of settlement to Somalis 32 

Table F: Estimates of Somali population 


Table G: Estimates of Somali population 

in London 34 

Figure D: Map of London boroughs 34 

Table H: Estimates of Somali population 

in London boroughs 35 

Table I: Estimates of Somali population in 

provincial cities 38 

Table J: Achievement of Somali pupils in 

Camden schools 44 


3

Foreword 

ICAR welcomes this report and recommends 

it to policy makers and service 

providers. We hope that it will be of use 

to all who wish to learn more about the 

Somali community in the UK, and to Somalis 

themselves. The report summarises what is 

known about this community, and the part 

played by Somali researchers and Somali 

voices in creating that body of knowledge. 

It uses interviews to clarify the published 

material and illuminate the issues. 

Individual Somalis in the UK have achieved 

a great deal. Research shows that many are 

from professional and business backgrounds, 

and as a group are characteristically resolute 

and determined to help themselves. Nonetheless, 

many suffer from a series of severe 

and often interrelated handicaps in settling 

in the UK, linked to the circumstances of 

their flight. There is little evidence to indicate 

the gradual integration of Somalis into 

the British labour force, more of occupational 

and social downgrading. Dedicated 

and specific services are required in order 

for them to fulfil their potential. 

This report does not offer specific recommendations, 

but several priorities emerge. 

Priority 1: Accurate data should be collected 

on this group by local authorities, 

the Office of National Statistics and/or the 

Home Office. 

Somalis have settled in the UK in quite large 

numbers in recent years. Some settled here 

in the nineteenth century, others have arrived 

as asylum seekers since the troubles in 

Somalia of the 1980s. Although an established 

part of the UK population, there is 

no single agreed figure for Somali numbers 

nationally or regionally. The 2001 Census 

figure for Somalis-born London inhabitants 

is less than half the figure estimated in two 

recent studies. We need to know how many 

people there are of recent Somali extraction 

in the UK and where they have settled. 

Priority 2: Somali youth projects should 

be established to provide dedicated help in 

schools and youth clubs. 

Many young Somalis leave full time education 

unconfident and underachieving. Their 

job prospects are limited. Those born in 

the UK do better than those arriving as 

older children, but not well enough. Most 

fare less well than other new communities 

in the UK. Their family culture and religion 

(all are Muslims) are often felt to be out 

of step with prevailing youth culture in the 

UK. Somali youth are potentially excluded 

from mainstream society, at risk of depression 

and developing mental health problems. 

Some become dependent on khat or even 

attempt suicide. Somali-specific services are 

needed to supplement the government’s 

national integration policies if these problems 

are to be solved. Lack of provision will 

be disastrous in the long term, both for the 

Somalis and the host communities. 

Priority 3: English language classes 

must be provided for Somali families 

Amongst the older generation, poor English 

language leads to unemployment, isolation, 

ill- health and psychological problems, 

especially for women. Parents who cannot 


participate in their children’s schooling pass 

on their disadvantages to the next generation, 

whilst the British economy cannot 

benefit from those with professional skills 

and technical expertise. 

Priority 4: Funding for future research 

should include evaluation of outcomes 

This study shows that Somalis have been 

interviewed and their problems documented 

time and time again. Findings and 

recommendations are repeated, but action 

has been limited. Although there are areas of 

Somali experience that still need research, 

recommendations need to be implemented 

and outcomes evaluated. We hope that this 

report will contribute to a wider understanding 

of the Somali community, to the 

development of appropriate services and to 

the support of Somali initiatives to improve 

their lives in Britain. 

June 2004 


5

Introduction 


Somalis, an invisible community in crisis is the title 

of a Somali organisation’s pamphlet (Somali Relief 

Association, 1992). Another, authored by a Somali, 

is entitled Feeling exclusion? A survey of the Somali 

community in Lewisham; while an article deals with 

Somalis in limbo (Ditmars, 1995). 1 The launch 

event for a recent report on Somali housing (Cole 

and Robinson, 2003) was billed as Social exclusion 

– the Somali experience. These phrases reflect the 

marginalisation which Somalis claim to experience 

in the UK. Given the long association of Somalis 

with the United Kingdom, this obscurity seems 

paradoxical: Somalis have been in Britain since 

the mid-nineteenth century, arriving to work in 

dockyards and to man British ships. Twentieth 

century events in Somalia - once partly a British 

protectorate - have forced others to join them, and 

now Somalis constitute one of the largest ethnic 

minorities in the UK. 

Yet their presence remains largely unremarked by 

mainstream society. A trawl through newspapers 

from mid 2002 produces a clutch of reports that 

Southall’s Asian MP held Somali youths responsible 

for local crime, 2 and a few articles on the practice 

of female genital mutilation (FGM) within the 

Somali community. 3 There is the occasional more 

sympathetic piece, such as the coverage of lone 

asylum children in the Independent on Sunday. 4 

But mainly there is silence and disinterest. A 

media subgroup of the current Somali Community 

Meeting (convened in London by Jeremy Corbyn 

MP) calculated that there had been 741 articles in 

five of the main newspapers covering the murder 

of the young Nigerian Damilola Taylor. The killing of 

a Somali boy, Kayser Osman, merited just 21. 

In terms of the wider society, there is a general 

ignorance about the communities that make up 

a multicultural Britain. The majority of Britons 

1. The same theme is echoed in the titles of British research e.g. Gregory 

(1992), Somalis: the invisible community. Griffiths (2000: 285) also comments 

on this characterisation of the Somali community in the UK. 

2. Daily Mail 4.9.02; The Mail on Sunday 8.9.02. However, there were 

other reports on this story which also included dissenting voices i.e.: Evening 

are hard put to distinguish between Africans and 

African-Caribbeans, let alone to identify a Somali. 

Their country of origin is no longer in the public 

eye as it was during the height of the civil war and 

UN intervention in Somalia in the late 1980s and 

early 1990s (see below p.21). The end of the Cold 

War and the collapse of the Soviet Union reduced 

Somalia’s geopolitical significance, and western 

interest has waned. Simmering violence and 

parochial infighting are not headline material, and 

Somalia has been eclipsed in the news by conflicts 

elsewhere. 

The attention that Somalis may currently attract 

in the streets - an unwelcome visibility - is not so 

much for their nationality as their religion. Through 

their dress and religious practice, older Somalis are 

immediately identifiable as Muslims, as are many 

younger men and women who follow their parents’ 

tradition. The events of September 11th 2001, 

recent fundamentalist activity, and upheavals in the 

Middle East have activated a popular Islamophobia, 

an overlay on hostility towards refugees. The 

current profile of any refugee group affects the 

reception it receives in the country of asylum in 

terms of public sympathy, official acceptance, and 

charitable funding. In Liverpool, Somalis grumble 

that they are being upstaged by newer, more 

publicised, arrivals - such as refugees from the 

former Yugoslavia. 5 

Another issue raised by Somalis to do with their 

public profile is the lack of official consultation 

and Somali involvement in projects directed at 

their communities in the UK. 6 As will become 

apparent, the existence of an enormous number 

of Somali community groups has not ensured 

their representation in local and national bodies 

concerned with their welfare, and there are no 

Somalis in the corridors of power. One official 

Standard 4.9.02; The Guardian 4.9.02; The Independent 4.9.02. 

3. The Daily Telegraph 2.1.03; The Sunday Telegraph 23.6.02. For FGM, 

see p. 65 below. 

4. The Independent on Sunday, 15.6.03. 


esponse to this charge is that the Somali 

community keeps very much to itself; that it is not 

interested in ‘integrating’ or participating in civil 

society. It is true that the first generation of Somali 

seamen always set their sights on return to Somalia. 

They had not envisaged that events at home would 

frustrate their dreams. This voluntary isolation has 

contributed to the character of the community, 

with its strong sense of family and a common 

Muslim identity. The high rate of unemployment, 

coupled with problems of language, has also 

precluded a common route into the wider society. 

But times have changed, and younger generations, 

both those escaping violence at home and those 

born here, have a different relationship to the UK. 

Although often represented in policy documents 

as undifferentiated, Somalis do not form a single 

group defined by their predicaments. To begin 

with, there is the vexed question of the term 

‘community’ - implying cohesion, uniformity, and a 

common consciousness. In a certain context its use 

is justifiable - not only do the majority of Somalis 

have a common language and all share an Islamic 

faith, but the problems they encounter as refugees, 

explored below, are widely shared despite diverse 

social characteristics. But if, in this report as in 

others, this problematic term is used as convenient 

shorthand, it must not obscure the fact that no 

ethnic minority - any more than a native population 

- is homogenous. The basic divisions are those 

in any community, although they will carry their 

own cultural load. Despite present unemployment 

among Somalis, and the popular perception of 

refugees as impoverished economic migrants, 

many Somalis come from the educated middle 

class who could afford to flee. 7 Somali class is a 

fluid concept - households both in Somalia and the 

UK often contain uneducated members alongside 

professionals who share much of the same lifestyle. 

Nevertheless, the experience of a functionally 

illiterate old seafarer or a recently arrived youth 

with no education is not identical to that of a 

university graduate. The implications of gender and 

the development of men’s and women’s roles are 

explored below, as is generation, which combines 

5. Information on Liverpool is taken from sources in footnotes 10 and 

11 and from interviews with the Community Resource Unit of Liverpool 

City Council; the Lodge Lane Somali Women’s Group; the Liverpool Asylum 

Seeker and Refugee Partnership, and the Merseyside Community Centre. 

in different patterns with the age of entry into the 

UK. The older settler communities, the refugees 

from the civil war of the late 1980s and 1990s, and 

the most recent arrivals via third countries, all have 

particular experiences of both Somalia and the UK. 

Some Somalis arrive as adults or elders, some are 

born in the UK. Generation and birthplace affect 

both the orientation towards the homeland, and 

life in the diaspora. 

Area of origin in Somalia is another key variable. 

A refugee from northern Somaliland will have had a 

different background and history from one escaping 

from the south. This combines with the factor of 

clan affiliation, a form of social identification highly 

significant in Somalia and with resonance in the 

UK (see below p. 78). Area of residence in the 

UK also impacts on the refugee experience. The 

density of the Somali presence, the character of the 

neighbourhood, the history of the community, and 

the availability of services differ between London 

boroughs as well as between British cities. Findings 

from Tower Hamlets may not be applicable to the 

newer communities of Harlesden. Somalis may 

also have different immigration statuses which 

in turn affect their relationship to state benefits 

and employment. Asylum seekers awaiting the 

outcome of appeals, or those unsure whether their 

limited leave to remain will be extended, live in a 

greater state of insecurity than those confirmed as 

refugees. 

And then there is the individual experience of 

war. Unless very young, few Somalis in the UK 

have escaped the horrors of armed anarchy, the 

repercussions of a collapsing civil society, or the 

grief of bereavement and family separation. But 

personal stories differ and particular traumas are 

carried to the UK, affecting experience of exile. In 

a condensed overview of Somalis in the UK, these 

nuances may become buried under an essentialised 

representation of the community. But it must be 

borne in mind that history, personal and collective, 

determines both identification and difference for 

Somalis in the diaspora. 

6. Cf. Stokes, 2000: para. 14.4. 

7. Farah (2000) provides an interesting insight into the different exit 

strategies of various sections of the middle class, and the comparative 

experience of the less fortunate. 


7

Plan of the report 

It would take a full scale ethnography of Somalis 

in the UK, based on detailed fieldwork, to analyse 

these particularities. This report is not of that 

scale. Its aim is to examine existing secondary 

sources, not to produce new primary research. 

However, during the research process, interviews 

and discussions with Somalis, together with 

personal participation in Somali events, were vital 

in illuminating the published material and clarifying 

issues, and will be acknowledged throughout. 

Consistent with ICAR’s brief, the purpose of 

the report is to draw together already available 

information, and to comment not only on its 

content but also on its character. Part I therefore 

sets out to examine the nature of existing material 

and comment on how we know what we know 

about Somalis in the UK. The first sections look 

at the type of sources available, and the subjects 

they cover. The next comments on the quantity of 

material that already exists, belying the impression 

that little is known about Somali refugees and 

settlers in the UK. The following section analyses 

the prevalence of certain types of sources - namely, 

reports - while the following sections ask how far 

the material reflects the Somalis’ own voice, and 

consider the role of Somalis as researchers. Finally, 

there is an outline of the principal methodological 

procedures and problems. 

Ideally, these methodological considerations would 

frame Part II: the presentation of research findings 

on Somalis in the UK which forms the body of 

this report. But as the review of the literature is 

incomplete, it is impossible to comment on the 

sources on any one topic, assessing, for example, 

how far material on education or women is 

based on adequate samples or reflects the Somali 

voice. This means that there is some disjuncture 

between the two aims of the report: to critique 

the methodology of research, and to summarise 

its findings. Each section in Part II will, however, 

mention the sources from those consulted found 

to be most useful and point to those that include 

comments and stories from Somalis themselves. 

Details of individual lives flesh out the broader 

picture of the Somali experience, but these 

biographies are played out against a backdrop 

of national disaster in Somalia, the native land. 

Many sources, especially those written by Somalis, 

include an account of the circumstances that have 

torn their land apart and forced them into exile. 

It is impossible to make sense of the particular 

situation of this refugee population, and the 

specific problems it encounters, without some 

understanding of the country and its recent 

history. Part II will start with a brief overview of 

the history of Somalia, followed by an outline of 

Somali settlement. This will include what statistics 

we have, plus relevant aspects of immigration 

legislation, before turning to particular aspects of 

the settlement process. 

Despite much common experience, Somalis have 

particular needs arising out of unique historical 

and cultural circumstances. Too often diversity 

is ignored, and the totality of Somali experience 

elided with that of other communities. However, 

certain issues which are shared with other 

ethnic minorities have not been dealt with in as 

much detail as the particularities of Somali lives; 

the general literature on refugees or minority 

populations has not been scoured either for 

references to Somalis or for background on 

common themes. Racism, for example, is an 

everyday occurrence for many Somalis, but is 

assumed rather than documented in this report 

- although Somalis may suffer particular forms of 

discrimination, institutionalised racism and personal 

hostility are experienced by all black or minority 

ethnic communities. Housing is another area where 

problems are common to low income refugees. 

A recent report has signalled the importance of 

poor accommodation to all aspects of Somali lives 

(Cole and Robinson, 2003). But in what follows 

it is the aspects of the housing problem which 

are most particular to Somalis that have been 

highlighted and incorporated into sections on 

health and on single mothers. 

There are further areas which would merit 

more attention: crime, political empowerment, 

and artistic production, among others. But the 


topics selected are those which Somalis, both 

in interviews and in public debate, 8 most often 

identify as significant to the quality of their lives: 

employment, training, education, youth, physical and 

mental health, khat, women and gender roles, FGM, 

and, finally, the factors that fragment and unite the 

Somali population. 

8. See, for example, Evelyn Oldfield Unit (1997), Somali Conference 

Report and the ongoing Somali Community Meeting (2003) 

hosted by Jeremy Corbyn MP. 


9

Part I: The invisible community? 

How we know what we know 

about Somalis in the UK 

Sources of information about Somalis in 

the UK 

The received wisdom is that material on Somalis in 

the UK matches their public profile - we know very 

little. Researchers often comment on the ‘paucity 

of information’ on the community and the need 

for yet more investigation. In fact there is already 

a wealth of knowledge - ICAR has identified 139 

substantial items on Somalis in the UK published 

since 1990, included in the bibliography appended 

to the report. This list does not purport to be 

exhaustive. Many locally-produced reports are 

never widely circulated, and new material is 

emerging all the time. General works on race 

and ethnic minorities which mention Somalis are 

not included, nor are the internal documents of 

Somali organisations. The bibliography also excludes 

newspaper articles, websites, and films, and leaves 

aside most of the large number of publications on 

the historical, political, and economic background 

of Somalia. 

largely based on accessibility - the report does 

not pretend to provide a comprehensive survey of 

all the literature available. But one of the aims of 

the report was to compile a list of references as 

a resource for future researchers and the Somali 

community itself. Even though not thoroughly 

reviewed, the size of the bibliography nevertheless 

indicates the amount of work that already exists 

on the Somali community in the UK, and belies the 

common assumption of ignorance. 

The 139 sources contained in the bibliography 

which are concerned with Somalis in the UK can 

roughly be classified into the following categories: 

In the short timescale of the project, it was not 

possible to consult more than half of the sources 

available on Somali refugees and settlers in the UK. 

Constraints were not only those of time but of 

accessibility of material. Many documents are hard 

to track down, and some seem to have disappeared 

without trace. This especially applies to reports by 

voluntary or statutory agencies - academic books 

and articles were easier to find, though some 

theses proved elusive. The selection was therefore 


Table A: Classification of sources 

Topic 

General overview of principal areas of 

concern 

Number of reports 

39 20 (51%) 

Physical and mental health 12 4 (33%) 

Employment and training 4 2 (50%) 

Education 3 1 (33%) 

Children and youth 5 4 (80%) 

Migration and repatriation 4 2 (50%) 

Housing 4 1 (25%) 

Khat (stimulant leaves chewed by 

Somalis) 

5 4 (80%) 

FGM 4 3 (75%) 

Women 2 1 (50%) 

Minority Somali clans 2 1 (50%) 

Reports on Somali organised 

conferences 

2 2 (100%) 

Elders 1 1 (100%) 

Local radio 1 0 (0%) 

Consulted (percentage 

consulted) 

The focus of research 

The body of sources on Somalis in the UK can be 

classified as reports, the results of investigation by 

statutory or voluntary bodies. The subject matter 

of these 84 reports can broadly be broken down as 

follows: 

This categorisation is only a rough indication 

of subject matter. The general studies contain 

material on a range of subjects, and issues overlap: 

children and young people with education; khat 

with mental health; women with FGM and so on. 

Indeed the general overviews contained in both 

academic material and reports illustrate how the 

problems that beset Somali refugees and asylum 

Table B: Subject matter of reports 

Type of source 

Number of items (percentage 

of total sources) 

Reports by voluntary or statutory bodies 84 (60%) 41 (49%) 

Shorter articles in periodicals and magazines 13 (9%) 7 (54%) 

Theses (from PhDs to BAs) 12 (9%) 6 (50%) 

Educational packs/booklets 10 (7%) 3 (30%) 

Academic articles 9 8 (6%) 7 (90%) 

Books 5 (4%) 4 (80%) 

Booklets/scripts of personal stories 4 (3%) 3 (75%) 

Academic seminar papers or book chapters 3 (2%) 3 (100%) 

Consulted 

(percentage consulted) 

9. Contained in Journals such as Journal of Refugee Studies, New 

Community, Immigrants and Minorities, Libri and Educational 

Studies 


11

seekers interconnect: education and health affecting 

employment; problems of transferability of skills 

determining loss of occupational status and 

unemployment; lack of work bearing on gender 

relations and the dearth of role models for youth; 

anxiety about family in other parts of the diaspora 

undermining wellbeing; problems with language 

affecting access to services and integration into the 

wider community - and so on. 

Nearly all the material in reports is based on 

research in particular geographical areas - cities 

or specific London boroughs - indicating the 

distribution of the Somali population. Besides 

Liverpool, another such longstanding community 

is the East London borough of Tower Hamlets, 

the focus for 16 of the reports and much of the 

academic material. These early settlers were later 

joined by their families, and since the late 1980s by 

the flow of refugees and asylum seekers escaping 

civil war in Somalia. These later arrivals started 

to spread into other London boroughs (in the 

north and west, together with areas adjoining 

Tower Hamlets) where they are now attracting 

family and friends who are already living in exile 

elsewhere in Africa, or in Europe, the USA, Canada, 

or the Gulf states. Many of the most recent 

reports reflect these trends, looking at other 

areas of London besides the older settlements. 

One such is the report on Refugees and asylum 

seekers in the Learning and Skills Council London 

north area (Thomas and Abebaw, 2002). This looks 

at education, qualifications, and employment of 

refugees in Barnet, Enfield, Haringey, and Waltham 

Forest, and has a subreport on Somalis. Other 

Somali populations reflected in the provenance of 

reports include (in order of number of documents): 

Wales (especially Cardiff), Bristol, Sheffield, 

Birmingham, Manchester, and Leicester. 

The quantity of Somali research 

Why is there such a plethora of studies on Somalis 

- albeit disconnected and inaccessible? The answer 

is suggested by the form in which most research is 

published: reports. Research is generated by 

political and policy considerations; the investigation 

of ethnic minorities is dictated by pragmatism. The 

explosion of the ‘race relations industry’ in the 

1970’s was prompted by the perceived threat to 

public order posed by black immigration. Those 

communities which have not been perceived as 

problematic, or as making particular demands on 

public policy, remain undocumented. The large 

output of information about Somalis stands in 

sharp contrast with some other communities from 

Africa. Take, for example, the Nigerian Yoruba, very 

few of whom are asylum seekers or refugees. The 

documentation on this other large and longstanding 

ethnic minority in the UK amounts to three theses 

on religious organisations and a handful of articles. 

Yoruba students and immigrant workers have not, 

by and large, drawn heavily on state services or 

challenged welfare provisions. In contrast, Somalis 

themselves have been proactive in demanding 

investigation in order to generate policy outcomes. 

Earlier generations of Somali seafarers, forming 

self-contained communities since the nineteenth 

century, also attracted little attention. It was only 

when political events in Somalia during the 1980s 

produced an increasing number of asylum seekers 

needing support from the state that Somalis 

became the focus of concern. Numerous reports 

then appeared documenting their difficulties. Take 

Liverpool, for example, where the longstanding 

Somali seafaring community has been swollen by 

families and new refugees. Over the last decade, 

there have been at least six general studies on 

the Somali population 10 and nine publications on 

specific topics ranging from health and education 

to the foundation of a community radio service. 11 

Somalis have also been included in general research 

on ethnic minorities in the city. 

There are other significant contrasts between the 

Yoruba and Somali experience. While many Yoruba 

are Christian, all Somalis are Muslim. Whereas 

Nigeria’s colonial past has produced an Englishspeaking 

nation, it is only those from the north 

of Somalia (Somaliland) who have had colonial 

connections with the UK and exposure to the 

English language. But Somali refugees to the UK 

10. E.g. Liverpool City Council (nd); Granby Toxteth Community Project 

(1993); Bulle (1995); Xifaras (1996); Yusuf (1986); Stokes (2000). 

11. E.g. Royal Liverpool Children’s Hospital (1991); Mahmoud et al (1992); 

Bullivant et al (1995); Saleh (1995); Liverpool City Council (1996a; 1996b); 

Noor (1999); Lawlor (1999); Hassan (2000). 


since the late 1980s have come mainly from the 

South. This means that their language and culture 

cuts them off from mainstream British society, an 

decreases their access to education and 

employment in their new environment 

The numbers involved, and their particular 

circumstances, have placed demands on statutory 

and voluntary services - and so generated research. 

Why is it, then, that there is still said to be so little 

information on Somalis? One reason has to do with 

the social invisibility of Somalis mentioned above. 

Compare this profile with the African-Caribbean 

community. Both groups suffer racism, but African- 

Caribbeans are perceived to be part of British 

society. Their music and mores have permeated 

British youth culture, whilst behaviour traditionally 

expected of young Somalis conflicts with these 

values. It is not the volume of research on African- 

Caribbeans (although this is considerable) that 

gives them a public presence, but their high visibility 

in the wider society. Somalis too are rendered 

visible largely through their dress. But the social 

distance between Somalis and the indigenous 

British culture increases their isolation. There 

is therefore a dissonance between the amount 

of information which actually exists, and what is 

believed to be known. 

The assumption of ignorance about Somalis is 

also connected to the nature of the material itself. 

With a few exceptions, research is contained in 

brief, small-scale studies, often undertaken by local 

authorities or non-governmental organisations 

(NGOs). Many of these remain in duplicated 

form, are not widely distributed, and, as already 

mentioned, are extraordinarily hard to obtain. All 

too often, local authorities, NGOs, and RCOs who 

have produced a report have no knowledge of it 

a few years later, let alone spare copies. In general, 

information is fragmented, poorly catalogued, and 

badly circulated. 

Given this apparent disregard of much investigation, 

it is hard to imagine that ostensibly policy-oriented 

reports have always resulted in action. It would 

be instructive to follow up individual reports to 

see in each case what measures had been taken in 

respect of recommendations. Certainly, although 

there may be internal assessment documents by 

local authorities and NGOs, it is striking that those 

that reach the public arena tend to reiterate the 

problems which the community experience, rather 

than monitor projects and evaluate their progress. 

The repetition of findings and duplication of 

recommendations have not resulted in consistent 

practice based on a shared corpus of research. 

A recognised body of good practice would go 

towards building a wider understanding of the 

Somali community at a local and national level 

Associated with the problem of dissemination and 

use of information is the perennial problem of the 

gulf between academia and commissioned reports. 

Although the growth of disciplines such as applied 

anthropology and development studies is improving 

matters, there has always been a mutual disregard 

between policy-oriented investigation and the 

academy - between NGOs and the universities. 

The most substantial ethnography we have on 

Somalis in the UK, David Griffiths’ Somali and 

Kurdish refugees in London (2002) makes full use of 

reports on Tower Hamlets, his ethnographic field. 

But in the extensive bibliography of Rima Berns 

McGown’s fascinating Muslims in the diaspora: The 

Somali communities of London and Toronto (1999) 

such material is absent, and she laments the lack of 

‘systematic research’. 

The significance of type of research for 

knowledge about Somalis in the UK 

Although they contain a great deal of essential 

information, the fact that much of what is publicly 

known about Somalis comes in the form of 

reports also has a profound effect on the way the 

community is seen and perceives itself. The agenda 

of much research is determined from the outset - 

to identify difficulties and suggest solutions. In these 

policy-based documents, Somalis are presented in 

terms of the obstacles they face, as ‘problems’, or 

victims of circumstance. Indigenous Somali culture 

expects a high degree of self-reliance from both 

men and women within the context of accepted 

relationships of authority, so this investigative angle 

flies in the face of an ideal Somali self-perception 

rather than acting as an agent of empowerment. 


13

On the one hand, the bias is both understandable 

and necessary - there are real problems to be 

overcome, on which reports produce painstaking 

analysis and recommendations. But on the other 

hand, the predominance of problem-oriented 

research reinforces the image of Somalis as passive 

supplicants of the welfare state. 

This type of document therefore cannot fully 

reflect the strength, initiative, and determination 

of many Somalis who have made the best of a 

traumatic past and difficult present, retaining 

humour and a sense of dignity. Some report 

authors are careful to stress Somali resourcefulness 

- for example, the Camden LEA report on Somali 

children in Camden schools by Emua Ali and 

Crispin Jones (2000) counters the findings of failure 

with teachers’ positive comments on their pupils. 

But reports rarely deal with community-based 

initiatives and self-help projects. It is the form 

as much as the content of much research that 

problematises Somalis. 

It has to be said, however, that this representation 

of the Somali community does not come from 

British agencies alone. There have been two 

attempts to set up a national Somali forum to 

address community problems. The account of 

the first, Somali conference report (Evelyn Oldfield 

Unit, 1997), and the circulated submissions to 

the ongoing Somali Community Meeting (2003) 

hosted by Jeremy Corbyn MP both analyse Somali 

experience in terms of hardship, racism, or 

community dysfunction. 

The standard format of reports can also have a 

dehumanising effect. Despite quotations and case 

histories, most reports are not a sparkling read. 

Longer documents such as articles and theses, 

which do not necessarily bear a policy burden, 

provide more opportunity to place problems 

in a theoretical context, and include qualitative 

material. The opportunity is not always taken. Janie 

Robertson takes an interesting look at Somali takeup 

of early years educational provision in Enfield 

in her MA thesis, but quotes from secondary 

sources rather than her informants. On the other 

hand, Sarah Cox’s dissertation on Somali children 

in a Harlesden nursery (2002) contains lively 

ethnography full of comment from parent and child. 

Kahin’s useful study on Educating Somali children in 

Britain (1997), besides readable background on the 

main issues, includes autobiographical stories. 

Somalis have recently become a popular subject 

for academic dissertations, 12 but although Cox 

has summarised her findings in an article in the 

Journal of the Anglo-Somali Society (2003), most 

theses on Somalis in the UK remain unpublished. 

One exception is David Griffiths’ publication 

of his comparative study of Kurdish and Somali 

refugees in Tower Hamlets (2002) with preliminary 

articles (1997; 2000). Griffiths deals with one of the 

older Somali settlements rather than the newer 

communities formed by recent arrivals, but in its 

focus on identity and the renegotiation of clanship, 

gender relations, and generation it is an invaluable 

baseline for future ethnography. Clanship is a 

central topic to El-Solh, also researching in Tower 

Hamlets, in her article ‘Somalis in London’s East 

End: A community striving for recognition’ (1991). 

This type of ethnographic research also analyses 

obstacles, but can include more of the community’s 

own perspective than some questionnaire-based 

reports have the space to do. Monographs and 

ethnographic articles can also present a fuller 

picture of refugees as agents rather than as targets 

of policies and programmes. 

The search for the ‘Somali voice’ 

The ideal form for the expression of a proactive 

agent is the autobiography, or personal story, such 

as the women’s voices in Breaking the silence and 

the two collections of women’s stories told in their 

own words (Somali Women’s Association, 1987/88 

Our strength comes with us: Somali women’s voices, 

and Hassan, 2002, From Somalia to Liverpool: The 

experiences of seven women). When understood in 

the light of background drawn from other sources, 

these are powerful testimonies. 

Two other books rely entirely on (auto)biography. 

Nuruddin Farah’s Yesterday, tomorrow: Voices from the 

12. E.g. Ali (2001); Bloch (1997); Cox (2002); Harper Bulman (1997); 

Hassan (1988); Polese (2001); Robertson (2002); Saleh (1995); Xifaras 

(1996). 


Somali diaspora (2000) includes encounters with 

Somalis of different generations in the UK. Waris 

Dirie’s Desert flower (1998) charts her own journey 

from a desert nomadic childhood to the catwalks 

of Europe and America via exploitation as domestic 

labour in London. Both books give rare insights 

into the particularities of individual lives within the 

parameters of their social context. But there are 

few other accounts written by Somalis themselves 

about their own experience, and there is little in 

the way of fiction on Somalis in the UK to convey 

the texture of lived lives. 

The examples of Farah and Dirie, both Somalis, 

should, however, sound a note of caution in the 

search for the ‘Somali voice’. What do we mean? 

Farah is a cosmopolitan author, Waris Dirie is a 

supermodel. Their accounts cannot be taken as 

the basis for generalisations. As we have seen, 

the Somali community is not homogenous: class, 

gender, generation, refugee career, and other 

factors determine the inflection of the ‘Somali 

voice’ and defy efforts to encapsulate the ‘Somali 

experience’. In the desire for ‘authenticity’ there is 

a danger of essentialising ‘the Somali’, whether he 

or she be the object of research or the researcher. 

What first hand accounts provide is an array of 

Somali voices, thus communicating exactly that 

heterogeneity so often missing in reports that 

necessarily focus on shared problems. 

But in these reports, too, the use of informants’ 

own words is invaluable, even only as brief 

quotations from questionnaires or interviews. 

Sherriff’s report on Reaching first base: Guidelines of 

good practice on meeting the needs of refugee children 

from the Horn of Africa (1995) injects short quotes 

from her respondents. These may be illustrative of 

particular circumstances, and cannot necessarily 

be taken as representative, but that is not their 

function. They bestow authenticity and bring the 

text to life. Where there is no direct quotation, 

experience is bleached out of the text and the 

subject of the study is silenced. A model in this 

respect is Renewal’s study by Lukes and Bell (2002) 

Renewing west London: Refugee communities - their 

hopes and needs, which includes both shorter 

quotes and verbatim case histories. Other reports 

include composite short biographies compiled by 

the researcher. Although these are not in direct 

speech, they put opinion in the context of the 

speaker’s background. 

However, many reports do not reflect the 

insights and understanding that must have been 

gained through the process of research, and the 

Somali remains a silent recipient of services. 

Whilst this may be consistent with a thin piece 

of research, it need not necessarily be so. Bloch 

and Atfield’s report to Refugee Action and the 

International Organization for Migration (IOM) 

on The professional capacity of nationals from the 

Somali regions in Britain (2002) is an invaluable 

source on a critical subject. Their depth of 

knowledge is reflected in the extent of their 

secondary sources – but not conveyed through 

‘Somali voices’. By contrast, there are reports 

which use the ‘Somali voice’ as a main research 

tool. Farah and Smith’s Somalis in London (1999) 

presents a statistical analysis of data gained from an 

educational outreach programme, but at the heart 

of the report are family case histories and Somali 

commentaries on various aspects of life in the UK. 

Somalis as researchers 

The advantages - or the necessity - of Somali 

participants in investigation may go some way 

in representing the voices of their informants. 

Indigenous researchers may also avoid some 

of the obstacles that many researchers have 

encountered. Chief among these is a resistance 

to the whole enterprise of research. As do many 

minority communities, Somalis value their privacy, 

for reasons both of culture and of caution. The 

Somali Muslim culture is not a confessional one; 

self-containment is valued and personal enquiry is 

seen as intrusive. On a practical level research can 

arouse suspicion - questioning is associated with 

Home Office or local authority investigation. For 

those whose immigration status is uncertain, or 

who are worried about their benefits, interviews 

are unwelcome. When these are carried out by 

someone from the same ethnic group, distrust 

may be reduced. However, there are also accounts 

by Somali researchers of encountering identical 

problems. Despite assurances of confidentiality, 


15

there may be the concern that personal details 

will filter out into the community. A ‘stranger’ is 

sometimes safer. 

Both Somali and other researchers also have 

to face resistance on another front. While it is 

reiterated that more research is needed as so 

little is known about the community, Somalis, 

especially in London, themselves feel preyed upon 

and overresearched. When the investigation is 

academic, it is seen as bringing little advantage to 

the community. When policy-based, Somalis are 

still wary. Too often they have spent time divulging 

information said to assist them, but have seen no 

practical outcome at all. They have lost patience 

with the explanation that funders need preliminary 

research - RCOs, often approached in investigation, 

want service provision, not more summaries of 

what they already know. A Somali interviewer 

may ameliorate this problem but not necessarily 

(according to reports) solve it. 

Receptivity to a Somali researcher may also be 

influenced by the same variables that affect the 

voice of the researched. While reports record 

that women have been selected to interview 

women, other differences such as clan, class, and 

generation are more difficult to control, and 

can impede understanding of the informant by 

the researcher - and vice versa. Being ‘a Somali’ 

is not necessarily a guarantee of total accuracy. 

Indigenous interviewers, however, will have a more 

informed sense of the significance of questions. 

Queries that might seem innocuous to an outsider 

- about an address, or the number of household 

members - may either be seen as impolite or carry 

implications that may not be apparent to a non- 

Somali. 

All recent reports on Somalis involve members 

of the community in some capacity, even if only 

as interviewees. But in many, Somalis have a more 

prominent role. Of the 139 items in the ICAR 

bibliography on Somalis in the UK, over a third are 

authored or co-authored by Somalis. Given the 

proportion of professionally qualified and skilled 

Somalis in the diaspora, there is no shortage of 

candidates for projects. Most commonly this is 

not only as interpreters, but also as interviewers. 

Already fluent in the language and familiar with the 

culture, members of the community are trained 

in research methods and often help in analysing 

the results. Where Somalis have been employed as 

interviewers, their role may extend into helping 

to frame the investigation in the light of their 

knowledge - they therefore become informants as 

well as researchers. Their voice may be there, even 

if not as direct speech. 

Increasingly, Somali professionals are undertaking 

lead roles in research into their own community. 

Two current examples are in the fields of 

mental health and refugees. Nasir Warfa and 

Salaad Mohamud are part of a team conducting 

investigation into Somali mobility and mental health 

(the SOMMER project) based at King’s College and 

Queen Mary, University of London. Their results 

will shed light on issues of health and social status, 

service use and geographic mobility across primary 

care group boundaries in east and south London. 

In Manchester, Zeinab Mohamed, a midwife, is 

collaborating with others on research into the 

determinants of ill health and the obstacles to 

mental and physical wellbeing. In a previous study, 

some of the health workers who initiated and 

carried out investigation into Somali mental health 

in Liverpool (Bullivant et al, 1995) were themselves 

part of the community - the short report includes 

illustrative quotation and the Somali translation of 

terminology for mental states. 

Methodological problems 

There are other research problems that afflict 

Somalis and non-Somalis alike. One of the chief 

difficulties for research on Somalis is the wide 

variety of estimates as to the size of the Somali 

population in the UK. As made clear by the 

confusion over figures considered below, it is 

difficult to establish a solid base on which to 

construct a sampling frame from which conclusions 

can be extrapolated to a wider population. 

Repeatedly, there is an expectation by researchers 

that they will start off from an existing statistical 

baseline of the Somali population in their chosen 

area, only to find that they must adapt their 

methodology to its absence and jettison any hope 


of accurate numerical data. This is not true of all 

reports. Many include quantitative data based on 

their samples. But in the absence of a firm sampling 

frame, statistically sound generalisations of a 

particular category cannot be made. 

In some contexts, such as a defined school 

population, random sampling is possible. But in 

others, such as a locality, means of sampling have 

to be chosen which cannot produce a statistically 

sound study. The most common is the method 

which is usually employed in qualitative work, but in 

Somali research is also used to select samples. This 

is the ‘snowball’ or network technique, whereby 

contact is initially made with ‘gatekeepers’, who 

provide access into the chosen community. These 

may be individuals who introduce the researcher 

to friends, family, or co-members of groups. 

Other common starting points are RCOs, Somali 

associations, or other voluntary or statutory 

bodies who work with Somalis. 

Whilst often the only avenue, and one which 

is effective in communicating trust, snowball 

sampling through gatekeepers has its drawbacks. 

If contacts are made though one individual, the 

network may be characterised by particular traits 

or circumstances - the lifestyles and networks of 

these initial contacts are likely to determine the 

demographics and socio-political orientation of 

the referral chain that follows. For Muslims in the 

diaspora, Berns McGown contacted her London 

sample though two community organisations and a 

mosque (1999: 10). Could this have influenced her 

findings on the resurgence of interest in religion 

amongst her informants? Researchers often stress 

that they have used multiple gatekeepers to enable 

diversity, but access through organisations to its 

members leaves the problem of ‘non-joiners’, those 

remaining outside the group who might represent a 

different section of the community. 

In order to keep a balance of gender, age, 

occupation, and other relevant variables, 

researchers may introduce quota sampling, 

selecting respondents who fit into certain prespecified 

categories in order to represent a survey 

population. Whilst this is a step towards eliminating 

bias, in the absence of a national sampling base it 

is impossible to make generalisations based on 

probability about the Somali population in the UK. 

Another form of quota sampling is to link the study 

to a particular group or topic – youth, 

women, health, education. As we have seen, many 

Somali reports are single-topic. But some of the 

richest material we have of this kind dispenses 

with the attempt to find a statistical base and 

relies on qualitative material. A recent example 

is Lucy Hannan’s outstanding report A gap in 

their hearts (2003) on separated Somali children 

arriving in the UK without their parents. The 

depth of both background research and interviews 

with young people, including extensive personal 

accounts, inspires confidence that her findings are 

representative, even if this cannot be statistically 

proven. The impossibility of obtaining a random 

sample is irrelevant. An advantage of reports of this 

quality is that they are picked up by the press, and 

so come into the public domain. 

Although Hannan makes no methodological 

comment, studies such as this clearly rely on 

intensive in-depth interviewing. Interviewing 

techniques recorded in reports range from the 

administration of fixed pre-coded questionnaires, 

written or recorded, through various combinations 

of open-ended questioning, and structured, semistructured, 

and unstructured interviews. The form 

depends on the kind of information required, but 

because of the difficulty of selecting samples and 

gaining adequate access to informants, the numbers 

interviewed in many studies are extremely small. 

There is seldom enough recognition that formal 

structured interviews are themselves problematic, 

whether trying to establish events or asking for 

an opinion. Respondents rarely give accurate 

information to an unknown investigator, especially 

on topics seen as personal. There is much to be 

said for long-term qualitative research and casehistory 

evidence. Even though the findings cannot 

be strictly quantified, they introduce agency, open 

a window on the process of social life, illuminate 

generalisations, and counter the essentialisation of 

groups and communities. 


17

Part II: The Somali diaspora in 

the United Kingdom 

Source: CIA World Factbook, Somalia 

Historical background 13 

Somalia is a country of 246,200 square miles, 

curving like a figure seven around the Horn of 

Africa. The Indian Ocean lies off its eastern coast, 

with the Gulf of Aden to the north. Recent 

estimates of the total population vary from 6.3 

8 million 14 to 8.8 million. 15 For many centuries, 

these solidly Muslim peoples have been nomadic 

pastoralists, herding sheep, camel, and goats in 

the semi-arid pasture of what is now Somalia, 

although the search for grazing takes them across 

contemporary borders into neighbouring Ethiopia, 

Kenya, and Djibouti. Although herders may also 

grow subsistence crops, the north suffers from 

extremes of temperature and low rainfall, and 

Somali agriculture is mainly practiced in the fertile 

southern land between the Juba and Shabeelle 

rivers. A decade ago, some 25% of the population 

were farmers, but 60% still were pastoralists. 

Although contemporary Somalia has an increasing 

urban population, like many non-industrialised 

societies the line between town and country is 

permeable. Urban families often have herds in rural 

areas, and many townswomen have spent part of 

their childhood herding livestock. Much of the 

subsistence and cash economy is still based on the 

camel, and Somali poets celebrate the nomadic way 

of life which lies deep in the national psyche: 

13. There is a large literature on Somali history and society. See the 

bibliographies attached to the sources used here which include: Hersi 

(1997); Samatar (1997); Samatar (1988); Abdullahi (2001); Stevenson 

(1995); Lewis (1999 [1961]); Griffiths (2002); Library of Congress Federal 

Research Division, Country Studies (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/sotoc/ 

html#so0031). 

14. Projected estimate for 2001: UNDP Human Development Report, 

Somalia, 2001: 57. 

15. Country Information and Policy Unit, Immigration and Nationality 

Directorate, UK Home Office (http://www.ecoi.net/pub/nz332/01007som. 

htm), 2002: 2. 

16. Quoted in Dirie, 1998: 12. 


A she-camel is a mother 

To him who owns it 

Whereas a he-camel is the artery 

Onto which hangs life itself…. 16 

The curious shape of Somalia’s official borders 

and the existence of some three million Somalis 

in eastern Ethiopia and northern Kenya are due 

to the fragmentation of Somaliland during the 

‘scramble for Africa’ by European powers. The 

area’s geopolitical location made it attractive both 

for strategic and commercial purposes, especially 

after the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869. By the 

end of the nineteenth century, France had annexed 

Djibouti, and British colonial Kenya claimed Somali 

territory along its border. Ethiopia also encroached 

on Somali terrain, taking the Haud and the Ogaden 

in the 1890s, and condemning Somalia to pan- 

Somali reclamation struggles over the following 

century. The remaining land was then divided. In 

1905 Italy appropriated the larger central-southern 

section, with its capital Mogadishu, while in 1886 

Britain took control of the smaller northern 

protectorate, managing the country from the main 

city of Hargeisa. 

The regime of Siad Barre 1969-1990 

Armed resistance to these occupations had 

been crushed by the 1920s, and it was left to 

Somali political parties to organise around the 

reunification of an independent Somalia. In 1960 a 

nationalist coalition swept to power in northern 

elections. The UK conceded independence to 

the protectorate, Italy relinquished control of 

the south, and a united Somali Republic came 

into being. However, this democratic unity was 

short lived. Distracted by the attempt to regain 

Kenyan and Ethiopian lands, the government under 

successive leaders grew corrupt and inefficient. 

In 1969 the president was assassinated, the army 

staged a coup d’état, and Major General Mohamed 

Siad Barre became the head of state. Over the next 

decade, the military established themselves as the 

core of the ruling Somali Revolutionary Socialist 

Party (SRSP), with Barre as president. 

True to the theoretical principles of scientific 

socialism which he espoused, Barre introduced 

some democratic reforms. Health and education 

programmes were backed by developments in 

infrastructure. In 1972, orthography of the Somali 

language was devised for the first time, followed 

by a nationwide literacy campaign. The status of 

minorities became an issue, as did women’s rights. 

But the regime became increasingly repressive. 

As dictators are wont to do, Barre became ever 

more suspicious of those around him, and, aided by 

Soviet-supported state security, violently intolerant 

of opposition. When eight Muslim clerics opposed 

his reforms on women and the introduction of 

the Roman script, he had them executed. These 

summary killings were by no means exceptional. 

Murder, rape, and torture became commonplace. 

Some of his most vicious campaigns were waged 

against the former British protectorate of the 

north, home of the Somali National Movement 

(SNM), which was founded by Somali students in 

the UK in 1988. In the same year, the SNM attacked 

Barre’s army bases in the north. This precipitated 

a civil war which displaced over a million people 

and cost the lives of thousands. Hargeisa and 

other northern towns were heavily bombed, and 

hundreds of thousands fled to Ethiopia, or overseas 

to Western Europe, North America, the Gulf, and 

the Indian subcontinent. 

Barre’s policies also led to economic disaster. 

From 1960 to the mid-1970s, the economy was 

in a stable state. Overall annual growth was 2.1%, 

and the industrial sector, with food processing, 

pharmaceuticals, and textiles, was developing at 5% 

per annum (Samatar, 1997: 123). A refinery was 

established at Mogadishu to process Saudi Arabian 

petrol, but nationalisation of manufacturing and 

commerce halted these developments. Natural 

disasters exacerbated the decline - severe droughts 

throughout the period cut a swathe through herds, 

decimated agricultural production, and engendered 

widespread famine. An ill-conceived development 

plan threw the country into debt and onto the 

mercy of foreign creditors. Because of its strategic 

value at the time of the cold war, both eastern and 

western money and military hardware poured into 

the country, sustaining the state but undermining 

a productive economy. Barre forfeited Russian aid 


19

when retaliating against Soviet support for Ethiopia, 

and turned to the United States. But when Somalia 

continued to renege on debt repayment, foreign 

donors, including the IMF, withdrew funding in 1988, 

and the economy collapsed. 

These economic factors played their part in 

the downfall of Siad Barre’s regime, but it was 

internal military opposition that finally brought 

him down. Despite their internecine rivalries upon 

which Barre could capitalise, various opposition 

groups formed and reformed from the mid-1970s 

onwards, organising militias both internally and 

from neighbouring Ethiopia. It was fighters from the 

United Somali Congress (USC) that finally expelled 

Barre from Mogadishu in January 1991. 

Continued conflict: 1990-2003 

The aftermath of Siad Barre’s regime in southern 

Somalia has not been reconstruction, but further 

fighting and the disintegration of civil society. 

Although much of the disorder has been caused 

by the individual ambitions of local warlords in 

the absence of a central state, the idiom in which 

conflict continues is that of clanship, an issue to 

be explored below (p. 78). The force behind the 

SNM was the Isaq, the dominant clan in northern 

Somalia, while Siad Barre, as did most of his cronies, 

came from a Darod subclan, the Marehan. The 

various groups that opposed him also had clan 

identities, and after Barre’s defeat, the common 

political purpose of these factions, always tenuous 

and complex, fell away, leaving a chaos of competing 

claims to power. The authority of the USC, which 

represented the dominant clan family in Mogadishu, 

the Hawiye, was challenged by rival militias, and 

Somalia descended into civil war. The fighting 

escalated when the USC itself was torn apart by 

two contenders for power: the head of the military, 

General Mohamed Aideed, and the President, 

Ali Mahdi, supported by rival Hawiye subclans. 

Barre was also fighting for a comeback, and armed 

local clan elders struggled for power. The ensuing 

mayhem resulted in the devastation of Mogadishu 

and cost over 30,000 lives. Ten times as many died 

of starvation, thousands were displaced, and Somali 

refugees streamed into neighbouring Kenya. 

The combination of war and drought produced 

devastating famine. Hundreds of thousands died, 

and pictures of starving babies that appeared on 

western television produced substantial foreign 

aid. But the avarice of local leaders prevented its 

distribution, and in 1992 the United Nations moved 

in. The first mission’s brief was keeping the peace 

and providing humanitarian aid. But with ‘Operation 

Restore Hope’ and its UNOSOM successor the 

following year, the aim of national reconciliation 

and economic reconstruction was more ambitious. 

Both proved impossible. The UN became 

embroiled in armed clan factionalism opposing 

Aideed, causing hundreds of Somali deaths as 

well as UN casualties. 17 In March 1995 the UN 

abandoned the chaos and beat an ignominious 

retreat. 

In a maze of complex shifting clan alliances, local 

warlords pursued their interests and fought for 

dominance in Mogadishu. In 1996 high hopes for 

peace were raised by the presidential appointment 

of Aideed’s son, Hussein Mohammed Farah Aideed, 

a naturalised American from California. But he too 

turned his back on international efforts to broker 

peace, and deployed his militias in military action. 

For the rest of the decade, further peace efforts 

foundered and fighting escalated, exacerbated by 

Ethiopian military intervention into the complex 

Somali scene. With no protection from a central 

state, the civilian population continued to suffer 

the brutality of the warring factions. In March 2001 

Amnesty International declared that “the future 

for human rights in Somalia looks very bleak 

indeed”, 18 a forecast endorsed by subsequent 

events. International humanitarian efforts have been 

constantly frustrated by the decimated state of civil 

society and attacks on their personnel. 

After a peak in violence at the end of the decade, 

the new century did see some de-escalation of 

conflict. In 2000 the Arta peace conference elected 

members to a new parliament, the Transitional 

National Assembly (TNA). This was the first peace 

initiative to work around civilian groupings 

17. For details of UN intervention up to March 1993 see Human Rights 

Watch, 7.3.93.V: 2 (http://www.hrw.org/reports/1993/somalia). 

18. Amnesty International News Service nr. 57, 28.3.01 (http://web. 

amnesty.org/library). 


- religious leaders, clan elders, intellectuals, 

businessmen, and NGOs - rather than armed clan 

factions. All major clan families were represented, 

with a member of a Hawiye subclan as president. 

A leader of a Darod subclan was named as Prime 

Minister, who set up a Transitional National 

Government (TNG). But in the following year, 

factional leaders backed by Ethiopia set up a rival 

Somali Reconciliation and Restoration Council 

(SRRC), and Parliament voted the TNG out of 

office. The next hope was the Eldoret peace 

conference hosted by Kenya in October 2002 

to sort out these differences. But despite the 

concerted effort of the Kenyan government with 

various international bodies, the conference was 

not able to reconcile the contending interests. By 

the end of 2003, plans were once again under way 

to rekindle the Eldoret process. 

Without some kind of accord in Somalia, the 

northern territory, the former British protectorate, 

has refused to open up discussion with its southern 

neighbour. This is the only part of Somalia which 

has regained relative stability. Having finally defeated 

government troops, the SNM broke away from the 

south in 1991 to form the independent republic 

of Somaliland. Despite intermittent violence, and 

the constant rumbling of clan conflict, Somaliland 

is comparatively peaceful. At the end of the 

1990s, the United Nations High Commission for 

Refugees (UNHCR) arranged the return of nearly 

three quarters of a million refugees from Ethiopia. 

But Somaliland has failed to gain international 

recognition, thus starving the country of official 

aid; its decimated infrastructure has not recovered, 

public services remain rudimentary, and the 

country does not have the capacity to reabsorb all 

those who have fled the horror of civil war. 

1880 Start of division of Somali-populated areas between Britain (1886: northern 

protectorate), Italy (1905: central-southern section), France, and Ethiopia. 

Somalis from North begin to come to Britain as seamen. 

1960 Independence of British Somaliland. Capital Hargeisa. 

Independence of Italian Somalia. Capital Mogadishu. Amalgamation of north 

and south as the Somali Republic. Capital Mogadishu. 

1964 First war with Ethiopia over borders. 

1969 General Siad Barre becomes head of state after assassination of President. 

1972 Introduction of Somali as written language in Latin script. 

1974-5 East African drought crisis. 

1981 Foundation in the UK of Somali National Movement (SNM) by students 

(mainly Isaaq) from the north. 

1981-7 Popular insurgency in the north met with fierce government reprisals. 

1984-5 Severe drought. 

1988 SNM capture Hargeisa and Burao. Barre’s retaliatory bombing raids raze 

northern towns and villages. Civilian population flee to Ethiopia or overseas. 

First substantial wave of refugees to the UK, chiefly from north. 

1989 Opposition to Barre intensifies. United Somali Congress (USC) insurgency 

moves from countryside to Mogadishu. 


21

1991 Fall of Siad Barre. Split in USC between Ali Mahdi Mohamed and General 

Aideed. Fighting and chaos spreads over south. Devastation of Mogadishu, 

generating thousands of refugees. Many of those coming to the UK are single 

women and children. 

1991 North-west declares independence as Somaliland. 

1992 Famine, especially in south-central area. Launch of ‘Operation Restore Hope’ 

by US to deliver food and aid. 

1993 UN Somali Mission (UNOSOM) takes over US intervention, but clashes with 

Aideed’s supporters. 

1995 Withdrawal of UNOSOM. 

1996- Successive peace plans fail to end factional conflict and restore civil 

society. Discussions hosted by Kenya at Eldoret still underway. In the UK, 

Somalis trying to consolidate families though reunion with members in the 

diaspora. 

Migration of Somalis to the United 

Kingdom 

The history of their country has largely determined 

the course of Somali lives in the UK. The traditional 

economy and social organisation, colonial ties, the 

particular phases of war and disruption - all have 

shaped their identities, influenced critical decisions, 

and affected their diaspora experience. The fate of 

Somalia has been eclipsed in the western media by 

other world events, but refugees follow every twist 

and turn as best they can. Apart from the fortunes 

of family left behind, the fluctuating political 

situation in Somalia has been a key factor in the 

success or failure of their asylum claims. 

Stages of settlement 

Travelling is nothing new for Somalis. For many 

centuries the nomadism of pastoralists had its 

commercial counterpart in the trading expeditions 

to Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and other Gulf 

States. The Gulf has also provided employment for 

less transitory Somali migrant workers. But it is the 

political history of Somalia, both past and present, 

which is fundamental to the course and character 

of Somali settlement in the UK. 

The first phase of settlement, in the nineteenth 

century, reflects the colonial relationship with 

Somaliland. By the beginning of the twentieth 

century, there were firmly established communities 

of northern Somali men in the dockland areas 

of Cardiff, Liverpool, and London, with smaller 

settlements in Hull, Bristol, and South Shields. 

Working as stokers, boiler men, and crew on 

British ships during wartime, they formed part of 

the recruitment from Empire and Commonwealth 

countries to serve in the Royal Navy. After World 

War I more Somali seamen came to Britain. 

Although they might leave a wife and family at 

home to look after lands, herds, or urban property, 

they initially came here alone. Not a great deal 

is known about these first arrivals, although they 

feature in some of the early forays into research on 

immigrant communities. 19 

Some married British women, and, from the 1960s, 

some applied for their wives to join them. There 

were still few Somali women in the UK at that 

time - one wife who arrived in 1962 says that she 

only knew of two others in London. 20 Certainly in 

Tower Hamlets at the time the Somali community 

was largely made up of single men, 21 and a 1987 

Liverpool study showed that the majority of elderly 

Somalis were men still living on their own. 22 


These men tended to form a separate community. 

This was partly because of their long absences 

at sea, whilst racism played its part. But it was 

also related to their ultimate goals. Despite their 

long sojourn in the UK, their sights were still set 

on Somalia, with dreams of home - hopes still 

cherished by the older generation in the UK. 23 

Some would periodically travel back to visit 

their families, and also started the tradition of 

remittances, sending back money to support their 

extended family and to build houses for their 

return. 24 But then, as now, hope of return and 

reality are different matters. As one woman, who 

arrived in the late 1980s, commented: 

There was a time when most Somalis would go 

elsewhere in the world, not England. People who 

came here never returned and their families 

back home used to talk about them as if they 

were dead. In some cases, the wives left behind 

remarried. 25 

The second stage of this early settlement began 

at the end of the 1950s. The demand for seamen 

was falling, but the economic boom was creating 

opportunities for employment in industry. Somali 

communities began to emerge in Sheffield and 

Manchester, and this less transitory way of life 

encouraged men to bring their wives to the UK. 

It was during this time that the present Somali 

community, chiefly from the Isaaq clan family 

and Darood subclans from the north, became 

established in what is now Tower Hamlets, 

especially in Bow, Wapping, and Poplar 26 In this 

period numbers were still small - estimates by 

old seamen range from a few hundred to over a 

thousand. But the fortunes of seafaring settlements 

were to wane. The merchant navy was declining 

during the 1970s, and when it regained strength 

in the next decade, Somalis were excluded. The 

economic recession threw more unskilled or semiskilled 

Somalis out of work, setting the pattern 

for unemployment and dependence on state 

benefits that still characterise the older Somali 

communities. 

The next phase in Somali settlement was not of 

dependents or labour migrants, but of refugees. 

This exodus gathered pace during the 1980s, 

with the degeneration of the Barre regime and 

escalating violence, culminating in the 1988 

decimation of the north. Northerners fled. Some 

went close to home - Kenya, Saudi Arabia, and 

the Gulf Emirates. There they could join Somalis 

already settled in the Gulf 27 - Somali women’s 

life stories often mention living and working in 

Aden whilst their husbands or fathers were at sea. 

Others sought asylum in the United States and 

Europe - Germany, Norway, Sweden, and also the 

UK, where they made for the areas where their 

families or co-clan members were living. This wave 

of Somali asylum seekers laid the foundations of 

the present pattern of settlement. After Barre’s fall 

in 1991, the continued violence in the south drove 

many more out of Somalia in a second wave of the 

contemporary migration. 

Some of those who fled to the UK during the 

post civil war period of the late 1980s and 1990s 

were men, but the great increase in the Somali 

population in the UK was made up of women and 

children. Some came to join their husbands, but 

a great many were single women with children 

- their men had either been killed or had stayed in 

Somalia to fight. This exodus from Somalia meant 

that the overall character of Somali settlement 

in the UK changed from one of single seamen to 

that of refugee communities, with at least as many 

women as men and a high proportion of children 

and young people. 

In more recent years, a large proportion of Somalis 

seeking entry to the UK have come from countries 

other than Somalia. The diaspora now extends 

19. See Little (1948); Banton (1955); Collins (1957). 

20. Adan, Sulaika et al, 1987/8: 30. 

21. Green, Marianne, 2001: 17. 

22. Bullivant, M. et al (1995). 

23. Summerfield, 1996: 86. 

24. Remittances form an increasingly significant aspect of the diaspora 

process. See Omer, A. (2003), A report on supporting systems and 

procedures for the effective regulation and monitoring of Somali 

remittance companies (hawala), UNDP; Gundel, J. (2002), The 

migration-development nexus: Somalia case study, Copenhagen: 

Centre for Development Research; Sorensen et al (2002), The migrationdevelopment 

nexus: Evidence and policy options, Copenhagen: 

Centre for Development Research. 

25. Hassan, L., 2000: 81. 

26. El Solh, 1991: 540-41. 

27. E.g. Adan, S. et al, 1997/8: 9-11, 16. 


23

to the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, 

Holland, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, 

Norway, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Luxembourg, 

and Austria, besides Zambia and Tanzania. Families 

have been torn apart by the war - Somalis in the 

UK worry about relatives still living in the refugee 

camps of Ethiopia, Djibouti, Kenya, and Yemen, and 

often mention their desire to bring them to the 

UK. Those with rights of residence (see below 

p.30) apply for family reunion through which 

they are entitled to bring spouses and children 

under eighteen into the UK. Older children and 

elderly parents are only allowed into the UK 

on a discretionary basis, but relations seek to 

rejoin their families. The characteristics of Somali 

immigration are therefore changing. Although, like 

the previous phase, the inflow is mainly composed 

of women and children, it is largely drawn from the 

wider diaspora rather than from those escaping 

Somalia itself. 

The reasons for seeking to leave the previous 

country of exile for the UK are not altogether 

clear. The impression given by sections of the 

British media is that refugees are attracted by 

the welfare benefits in ‘soft touch’ Britain. But 

anecdotal evidence from some of those who 

have come from Holland, Sweden, and Norway 

suggests that living standards there are better than 

in the UK. In Finland, for example, according to 

someone who lived there for ten years, housing is 

far superior. 28 A major draw is the desire to join 

both kin and fellow countrymen and women. Not 

only do Somalis suffer keenly from the cold in 

some northern European climates, but also from a 

chilly reception by the native population. Countries 

such as the Scandinavian states, lying outside the 

historical nexus of slavery and imperialism, have 

little experience of black immigration, and it is 

claimed that racism is rife. The UK hosts the largest 

Somali community outside Somalia, and the UK is 

described by Somalis as a ‘meeting point’, a ‘more 

intercultural society’ than many of the states 

Somalis leave behind. The UK also has a reputation 

for religious tolerance. Struggling with immigration 

issues, many also prefer the anonymity of a big city 

rather than the stringent surveillance said to be 

exercised in parts of Europe. 

Another factor is the English language. A 

contemporary diaspora can remain in close contact 

through modern means of communication, but 

for this a common language is necessary - one 

young man went to meet newly-arrived relatives in 

Leicester, and found that they only spoke Finnish! 

While the older generations hold onto Somali, 

young people born abroad may not have the same 

command. English, already familiar to those from 

northern Somalia because of colonial history, 

becomes a second tongue. Parents are keen that 

their children benefit from a British education. 

But apart from the particular attractions of the 

UK, geographical movement must be seen in the 

context of globalisation. As the Somali diaspora 

spreads and becomes increasingly mobile, so do the 

entrepreneurial connections it forges. Somalis have 

always travelled to trade - the UK is now a centre 

for Somali commercial enterprise, for business 

that is both local and which crosses international 

boundaries. 

28. Interview Abdulkadir Diesow, the Birmingham Support Group of 

Somali EU Citizens, Asylum Seekers and Refugees, 08.04.03 

29. Griffiths (2002), Somali and Kurdish refugees in London: New 

identities in the diaspora, Aldershot: Ashgate: 81-82. 

30. FCO Travel Advice, available online from: http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/ 

Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&c=Page&cid=100702 

9390590 [accessed 16 March 2004]. 

31. http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/o_c_ref.htm. 

32. http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/o_p_ref.htm. 

33.The official title is the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights 


Entry into the UK 

8000 

Figure A: Asylum applications received from Somali nationals, 1998-2003 

7000 

6000 

5000 

4000 

3000 

2000 

1000 

0 

1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 

Somali asylum claims in the UK 

Since 1985, Somalia has featured amongst the top 

ten countries from which asylum seekers come to 

the UK, with a marked increase in numbers over 

the last decade. Somalia was the highest applicant 

nationality in 1997 and 2003, and the second 

highest in 1995, 1998, and 1999. The sustained 

growth in applications has been matched by an 

increase in both the number and percentage of 

refusals, particularly from 2000 onwards. The 

main refugee flows date from the beginnings of 

the civil war and progressive state collapse during 

the 1980s. The marked increase from 305 claims 

in 1988 to 1,850 in 1989 suggests a clear link to 

the bombing of the cities of Hargeisa and Burao 

in 1988 and the increasing number of claims from 

1996 can be seen as a result of the continuing 

absence of centralised authority in Somalia and 

the resultant lack of safety. 29 Somalia is one of 

several countries in the world that British citizens 

are advised against travelling to by the Foreign and 

Commonwealth Office. 30 

Determination of Somali asylum applications 

Asylum applications from Somalis, as from other 

nationalities, are decided by one of the caseworkers 

from the Immigration and Nationality Directorate 

of the Home Office, or by an immigration officer, 

usually on the basis of an interview, and any written 

evidence or documentation submitted by the 

asylum seeker and his or her legal representative. 

When a claim for asylum is made, it is assessed 

against international criteria set out in the 1951 

United Nations Convention relating to the Status 

of Refugees 31 and its 1967 Protocol 32 to which the 

UK is a signatory. The Convention defines a refugee 

as a person who “owing to a well-founded fear 

of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, 

nationality, membership of a particular social group, 

or political opinion, is outside the country of his 

nationality, and is unable or, owing to such fear, 

is unwilling to avail himself of the protection of 

that country”. The UK is also a signatory to the 

European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). 33 

The Human Rights Act 1998 incorporated the 

ECHR into UK law. Entry clearance officers, 

immigration officers, and all staff of the Home 


25

Office’s Immigration and Nationality Directorate 

have to ensure that their decisions comply with the 

ECHR; this includes the decision to remove asylum 

seekers from the UK, following refusal of their 

claim. Under the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, 

asylum seekers can also raise human rights grounds 

when appealing against refusal of their asylum claim. 

The United Kingdom has enacted a series of 

legislation governing asylum procedures in the 

UK and the treatment of asylum seekers whilst 

their claims are being processed. Details of the 

UK asylum determination procedure are provided 

in ICAR’s navigation guide to UK asylum law 

and process. 34 The Immigration and Nationality 

Directorate (IND) of the UK Home Office also 

provide a brief guide to asylum procedures in the 

UK on their website 35 and they publish a chart 

giving an overview of the asylum process. 36 

When an asylum claim is assessed, there are three 

possible outcomes: 37 

•The applicant is recognised to be a refugee 

under the terms of the 1951 Convention 

and is granted asylum in the UK. 

• The applicant is refused asylum, as their 

circumstances do not meet the terms of 

the Convention definition, but they are 

recognised to be in need of international 

protection, or there are humanitarian or 

other compelling reasons why they cannot 

be removed, they will therefore be granted 

either humanitarian protection (HP) or 

discretionary leave (DL) to remain in the 

UK. 38 Prior to the introduction of HP and 

DL on 1st April 2003, the Home Office 

would grant exceptional leave to remain 

(ELR) in such cases. For some countries, a 

general policy of granting ELR for 

humanitarian reasons has applied at certain 

times. 39 

• The applicant is refused asylum and 

humanitarian protection or discretionary 

leave. In this case, there is a right of appeal 

to the Immigration Appellate Authority, an 

independent judicial body which is part 

of the Court Service. Some applicants 

may have a further right of appeal to 

the Immigration Appeal Tribunal, and 

applicants may also seek a judicial review of 

decisions of either the Home Office or the 

Immigration Appellate Authority in the High 

Court. 

Those granted refugee status are given indefinite 

leave to remain in the UK (ILR) and have the same 

civil rights and duties as UK nationals, i.e. they can 

stay permanently in the UK (provided they do not 

engage in violence such as to endanger national 

security), they do not need permission to work, 

they are eligible to apply for welfare benefits or 

social housing, and they can access the NHS, social 

services, or obtain funding as a ‘home student’ for 

further or higher education. 40 Those granted ELR 

(and more recently HP and DL) have different 

entitlements to refugees, particularly with respect 

to family reunion and travel documents. 41 

Until July 1998, ELR was usually granted initially 

for one year, followed by two further periods of 

three years. After this seven-year period, indefinite 

leave could be granted. From 27 July 1998, ELR was 

granted for an initial period of four years, after 

which an application for indefinite leave could be 

made. The usual practice was to grant indefinite 

leave upon request following a grant of four 

years’ exceptional leave, even though this was not 

guaranteed. 

In recent years, the Home Office has made greater 

use of temporary protection provisions, and has 

indicated that these may be increasingly used, for 

example when, as in the case of Somalis, it is not 

possible to arrange for the person to travel back 

to their country of origin. In such cases, applicants 

may be granted twelve months’ leave with no 

expectation of renewal. 42 


Figure B: Number of initial decisions on Somali asylum applications, 1988-2003 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure C: Initial decisions on Somali asylum applications, 1988-2003 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Total number of refusals 

Granted ELR/HP/DL 

Granted refugee status 

 

 

 

 

34. http://www.icar.org.uk/pdf/ng002.pdf. 

35. http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/default.asp?PageId=87. 

36. http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/filestore/v1.0%20Asylum%20process 

%20front%20page.pdf. 

37. UK Home Office (n.d.) ‘Fact sheet: Asylum policy’. Available online from: 

http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/default.asp?PageId=3659. 

38. Humanitarian protection is usually granted when the applicant is 

considered to face a real risk of being subjected to torture, or inhuman or 

degrading treatment or punishment (prohibited by article 3 of the ECHR) 

if returned to their country of origin. Discretionary leave would normally be 

granted if removal would breach article 8 of the ECHR (right to respect for 

private and family life) or would breach article 3 only on medical grounds, 

or if the applicant is an unaccompanied asylum-seeking child. Source: 

Home Office, Humanitarian protection and discretionary leave, 

APU Notice 01/2003, 1 April 2003. Available online from: http://www.ind. 

homeoffice.gov.uk/default.asp?PageId=3801. 

39. Seddon, D. (ed.) (2002), Immigration, nationality and refugee 

law handbook 2002 edition, London: Joint Council for the Welfare of 

Immigrants: 216-217. 

40. Seddon, 2002: 215-216. 

41. See Seddon, 2002, chapter 12 for further details. 

42. Ibid. 


27

Decisions on Somali asylum applications and 

rates of refusal 

As the graph above shows, 2003 was the first 

year in which fewer than 50% of Somali asylum 

seekers were granted leave to remain in the UK. 

Rates of refusal of Somali asylum applications 

have increased considerably since 1999. Although 

only 120 Somali asylum claims were refused in 

1999, this represented 39% of all decisions, as 

only 305 decisions were made during that year. 

This trend has continued in subsequent years with 

21% of claims being refused in 2000, 42% in 2001, 

42% in 2002, and 63% in 2003. This represents a 

sharp reduction in the percentage of applicants 

being granted ELR and a fluctuating but declining 

percentage of applicants granted refugee status 

from 1997 onwards. 

Exceptional leave to remain (ELR), humanitarian 

protection (HP), and discretionary leave (DL) 

There has been a noticeable change in the 

proportion of asylum applicants granted ELR 

during the period surveyed (1998-2003). As the 

graph above shows, between 1991 and 1996, the 

majority of Somali asylum applicants (88%) were 

granted ELR. This is in line with a wider trend in 

asylum decisions: between 1985 and 1993, 55% of 

all decisions on asylum claims were to grant ELR, 

though this dropped significantly in subsequent 

years, averaging only 15% between 1994 and 

2002. 43 The impermanence of their status and 

concern about whether their leave would be 

extended caused significant anxiety to many 

Somalis granted ELR. 44 

Since their introduction in April 2003, combined 

grants of humanitarian protection and discretionary 

leave have been significantly lower than grants of 

ELR – averaging only 7% of all decisions. This is in 

line with the Home Secretary’s decision to “restrict 

grants of leave to unsuccessful asylum seekers 

who are recognised to be in need of international 

protection or to have other compelling reasons for 

not being removed”. 45 

by many Somalis. Interpretation of terms such as 

‘persecution’ in the Refugee Convention has been 

the subject of much debate among refugee lawyers, 

as well as being subject to varying interpretation 

in national jurisdictions. Although the Refugee 

Convention was drafted to protect individuals who 

feared harm from the state or its agents, such as 

police or security officials, some refugees may fear 

‘non-state’ actors or agents, such as ‘warlords’ 

(the ringleaders of militia groups), as in the case of 

many Somalis. 46 In October 1995, the UK Home 

Office asylum division produced a background 

brief on Somalia stating that many Somalis were 

not Convention refugees as they were not 

members of a group suffering persecution from 

a state authority. This may have been one of the 

reasons for the high percentage of grants of ELR 

rather than refugee status, particularly in the early 

1990s. 47 For example, in the case of Adan (a Somali 

asylum seeker) 48 in 1998, the House of Lords held 

that in order to be successful in an asylum claim, 

an applicant would have to show that s/he faced a 

risk “over and above” those inherent in the general 

situation of civil war. 

Refusal of Somali asylum applications 

However, not all asylum claims are refused solely 

because they are not deemed to meet the terms 

of the 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, 

or the criteria for a grant of ELR, humanitarian 

protection or discretionary leave. In 2003, 3,240 

Somali asylum seekers had their claims refused 

after full consideration. This represented 85% of all 

Somali refusals, and 54% of total decisions taken in 

that year. Asylum applications may also be refused 

without full (or substantive) consideration of the 

claim itself, on grounds of either ‘non-compliance’, 

or if the applicant is to be returned to a third 

country (i.e. neither the UK nor the applicant’s 

country of origin) which is deemed to be safe, in 

order for the asylum claim to be determined there. 

Guidance for Home Office caseworkers on refusing 

asylum claims without substantive consideration is 

included in the Asylum Policy Instructions. 49 

One of the reasons for granting ELR rather than 

asylum was due to the nature of persecution faced 


Non-compliance 

Asylum applications may be refused on the grounds 

of non-compliance if the applicant is considered 

to have failed “without reasonable explanation, 

to make a prompt and full disclosure of material 

factors, either orally or in writing, or otherwise 

to assist the Secretary of State in establishing 

the facts of the case”. 50 This includes failure to 

attend an interview relating to the claim, failure to 

report to be fingerprinted, failure to complete an 

asylum questionnaire (statement of evidence form 

- SEF), or failure to comply with a requirement to 

report to an Immigration Officer for examination. 

This usually means that although there is a right 

to appeal against the refusal, the substance of 

the claim is not considered in depth at the initial 

decision stage and the first occasion on which 

it will be examined in detail would be on appeal 

before an adjudicator. 

From 2000, a large number of asylum claims were 

refused on the basis that asylum applicants had not 

submitted their asylum questionnaire (SEF) within 

the required ten-working-day time period, although 

it later came to light that the majority of these had 

been wrongly denoted late, due to a processing 

error at the Home Office. 51 Thus in 2000, 24,290 

of all asylum applications were refused on noncompliance 

grounds, a 22-fold increase on the 

1,085 refusals in 1999. Non-compliance refusals 

constituted 15% of all decisions made in both 

2002 and 2003, 18% in 2001, and 25% in 2000, 

compared to 5% in 1999. In 2003, 460 Somali 

asylum applications were refused on the grounds of 

non-compliance. This constituted 12% of the total 

number of refusals and 8% of the total number of 

decisions made during that year. 

‘Third country’ cases 

Asylum applications may also be refused on the 

grounds that the applicant should be returned to a 

‘third country’ which they passed through en route 

to the UK in order that their asylum claim can be 

considered there. This usually applies if the asylum 

seeker arrived in the UK not directly from the 

country where they feared persecution, but from 

another country in which they had the opportunity 

to claim asylum, and if there is “clear evidence” that 

the asylum seeker would be admitted to that state. 

Since 1993, if the asylum seeker is to be returned 

to another EU member state under the terms of 

the Dublin Convention 52 or to a state designated 

by Parliament (currently Canada, Norway, 

Switzerland, and the USA), the asylum seeker may 

only appeal against the removal decision after s/he 

has left the UK, although it is possible to seek 

judicial review of the decision to transfer them. In 

the case of removal to all other countries, there 

is an in-country right of appeal against the third 

country removal. In the case of Adan and Aitsegur 53 

in 2000, the House of Lords held that Germany and 

France were wrong in not recognising persecution 

by ‘non-state’ agents and that, as a consequence, 

asylum seekers should not be removed from the 

UK to either of those countries on ‘third country’ 

grounds. 54 This constituted an important decision 

for the safety of Somalis in the UK. In 2003 only 80 

Somalis (1% of all decisions) were refused asylum 

on safe third country grounds. 

Appeals 

Somali asylum applicants have had higher success 

rates on appeal than the average for all asylum 

claims. In 2003, 38% of all Somali appeals were 

allowed, as compared with 26% from Africans as a 

43. Calculations based on figures cited in figure 6.1 of Refugee Council, 

(2002) Asylum by numbers 1985-2000, London: Refugee Council, Asylum 

statistics United Kingdom 2002, published 28 August 2003, and 

Asylum statistics 4th quarter 2003, published 24 February 2004. 

44. See also Seddon, 2002: 218. 

45. Asylum Policy Unit Notice 01/2003, ‘Humanitarian protection and 

discretionary leave’, 1 April 2003. 

46. Seddon, op.cit.: 161. 

47. Griffiths, op. cit.: 82. 

48. R v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte 

Adan, [1998] 2 WLR 702. 

49. Available online from: http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/default. 

asp?pageid=2626. 

50. Paragraph 340 of the Immigration Rules (HC395 as amended): http:// 

www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/default.asp?PageId=3197. 

51. Seddon, op. cit.: 206. 

52. This provision also applies to Norway and Iceland, by special agreement 

between the EU member states and Norway and Iceland, ‘Refusals without 

substantive consideration: Third country cases’, Asylum policy instructions: 

http://www.ind.homeoffice.gov.uk/default.asp?PageId=2654 

53. R v. Secretary of State for the Home Department, ex parte 

Adan and Aitsegur, [2001] INLR 44, HL. 

54. Seddon, op. cit.: 207-08. 


29

whole and 19% of asylum appeals overall. Similarly 

35% of Somali appeals were allowed in 2002, as 

compared with an overall average of 22%. 

Return of failed asylum seekers 

With the increasing number of refusals of Somali 

asylum applicants another issue emerged - that of 

refused Somali asylum applicants who were not 

being removed to Somalia. Many Somalis found 

themselves in a kind of limbo situation, without any 

formal legal status in the UK and thus not entitled 

to work or to receive asylum support. 55 According 

to the Home Office, in July 2003 UK officials 

signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) 

with the authorities in Somaliland to provide for 

the return of people from Somaliland who had no 

legal basis to remain in the UK. Somali nationals 

may also return to Somalia on a voluntary basis, 

under the auspices of the Return and Reintegration 

to the Somali Regions voluntary assisted returns 

programme, run by the International Organisation 

for Migration (IOM) and co-funded by the 

European Refugee Fund. 56 However, in response 

to a parliamentary question by Ian Coleman MP 

in January 2004, Beverley Hughes, then Minister of 

Detention 

Detention is not a significant issue for Somalis. 

According to Home Office statistics, Somalis 

constitute a very small proportion of total 

immigration detainees in the UK. The annual 

statistics do not record the total number of people 

detained in a given year, but instead provide a 

snapshot of those detained on one particular day in 

late December of that year. 

Resettlement 

A small number of Somali refugees have also been 

resettled in the UK in recent years - 178 in 2000 

and 162 in 2001 (340 in total), the majority of 

whom came from either Ethiopia (69%) or Kenya 

(23%). 58 They composed the largest national group 

resettled in the UK, accounting for 40% of all 

refugees resettled during those two years. 

Family reunion 

Family reunion constituted a significant mode of 

entry for many Somalis, particularly following the 

Table C: Snapshot of Somali detainees 

Year 

Total 

immigration 

detainees 

Somali 

detainees 

(percentage 

of total) 

Of whom: 

asylum seekers 

1998 741 7 (1%) 7 - 

1999 n/a n/a n/a n/a 

2000 n/a n/a n/a n/a 

2001 1,545 5 (0.3%) 5 - 

2002 1,415 15 (1%) 10 5 

2003 1,615 15 (1%) 15 - 

other detainees 

State for Citizenship, Immigration and Community 

Cohesion, stated that between January and June 

2003, only 25 Somalis were either removed from 

the UK, or returned voluntarily to Somalia. 57 

Although it is not known how many failed Somali 

asylum seekers left the UK, unrecorded, this figure 

suggests that a significant number remained in a 

situation of limbo in the UK. 

outbreak of civil war. In Liverpool, for example, a 

1997 survey estimated that out of a total Somali 

population of some 3,000 on Merseyside, some 

1,500 came to the country through the family 

reunion scheme, with a further 500 arriving as 

asylum seekers. 59 Applications for entry clearance 

to join relatives already in the UK should normally 

be made in the nearest British diplomatic posts 


(usually Addis Ababa or Nairobi). However, 

between September 1988 and January 1994, the 

government operated a concession to allow 

applications for family reunion relating to Somalis 

in refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya to be made 

instead from within the UK. 60 The reversal of 

this policy caused considerable logistical problems 

for those in refugee camps without money or 

transport. 

Concluding remarks 

The rapid increase in the number of Somali asylum 

applications in the UK from just over 300 in 1988 

to a peak of almost 7,500 in 1999 is indicative of 

the worsening political climate in Somalia, as well 

as reflecting a general upward trend in the number 

of asylum claims in the UK over this period. This 

was partly a result of the outbreak of a number of 

small wars and ethnic conflicts following the end 

of the Cold War and the consequent relaxation of 

exit controls, combined with the changing nature 

of international migration due to processes of 

globalisation - developments in communication 

technologies and the growth of faster and cheaper 

air travel facilitating increasing cross-border flows 

of both people and information. 

However, in spite of this relative increase in the 

number of Somali asylum applications in the UK, 

the majority of Somali refugees remained in their 

region of origin. During 2002 alone, an estimated 

24,000 refugees fled from Somalia, mainly to 

Yemen and Kenya. 61 According to UNHCR, at the 

end of 2002 there were 429,474 Somali refugees 

worldwide, constituting the fifth largest group of 

refugees in the world. 62 Of these, 155,767 were 

in Kenya, 80,763 in Yemen, 37,532 in Ethiopia, 

33,066 in the UK, 28,693 in the USA and 20,251 in 

Djibouti. 63 

Table D: Ten largest Somali refugee populations at end 

of 2002 64 

Country 

Size of refugee 

population 

Kenya 155,767 

Yemen 80,763 

Ethiopia 37,352 

UK 33,066 

USA 28,693 

Djibouti 20,251 

Netherlands 15,688 

Denmark 9,582 

South Africa 6,515 

Canada 5,545 

Overall, there has been a considerable increase 

in refusal rates of Somali asylum applications 

since 1999. Among the Somali community in the 

UK, there is a perception that an earlier period 

of special treatment due to the former colonial 

relationship between the two countries has come 

to an end. 65 The high percentage of grants of ELR, 

rather than full refugee status, particularly between 

1991 and 1997, has created a feeling of insecurity 

among the Somali community in the UK, especially 

since it entailed difficulties in obtaining family 

reunion. Somalia has remained among the top ten 

countries from which asylum seekers come to the 

UK throughout the 1990s and among the top five 

for every year but one between 1995 and 2003 

55. Although they may qualify for basic assistance (accommodation and 

full board) under the ‘hard cases’ fund operated by NASS. Seddon, 2002: 

717-8. 

56. Home Office, Somalia operational guidance notes, 6 February 

2004, at paras 6.2 & 6.3. Available online from: http://www.ind.homeoffice. 

gov.uk/default.asp?PageId=4742. 

57. House of Commons Hansard written answers for 5 January 2004, 

Column 7W. Available online from: http://www.publications.parliament. 

uk/pa/cm200304/cmhansrd/cm040105/index/40105-x.htm 

58. IOM (2003), ‘Global trends in resettlement: Comparing the UK with 

other countries’, background paper prepared for the Home Office Research 

Seminar on Refugee Resettlement held on 6 February 2003. 

59. Smyth and Mohamed, 1997: 25-26. 

60. Griffiths, op. cit.: 76. 

61. UNHCR (2003), Refugees by numbers. Available online from: 

http://www.unhcr.ch/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/home/opendoc.pdf?tbl=STATISTICS&id 

=3d075d374&page=statistics. 

62. 2002 UNHCR population statistics (provisional) table 4. Available from: 

http://www.unhcr.ch/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/statistics/opendoc.pdf?tbl=STATISTICS 

&id=3f3769672&page=statistics. 

63. 2002 UNHCR population statistics (provisional) table 3. Available 

from: http://www.unhcr.ch/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/statistics/opendoc.pdf?tbl=STATIS 

TICS&id=3f3769672&page=statistics. 

64. UNHCR (2002), ‘Refugee population and major changes, 2002’ from 

2002 Annual statistical report: Somalia, Geneva: UNHCR, 23.07.03. 

Available from: http://www.unhcr.ch/cgi-bin/texis/vtx/statistics/opendoc.pdf. 

65. This sentiment was expressed by several Somalis in interviews with 

the author. 


31

Number of Somalis in the UK 

Estimating the total number of Somalis in the UK 

is very difficult. There has been no national survey 

which could be used to produce an accurate figure, 

but there are estimates of both the size of the 

Somali population in the UK, and an increasing 

number of local area estimates (examples given 

below), which range widely and need to be viewed 

with caution. One of the reasons for the difficulty 

in counting the population - and a possible 

explanation for the divergent figures - is the issue 

of definition. The term Somali is used to denote 

both people born in Somalia, and those of Somali 

origin or ethnicity (for example second or third 

generation Somalis born in the UK). Thus the 

published government immigration and census 

statistics only count a part of the community. 

Statistics on asylum applications and outcomes 

do not give the full picture of the number of 

Somalis admitted to the UK. Each year, a number of 

Somalis are also granted permission to enter and 

remain in the UK on other grounds, for example 

as dependents. Annual statistics are published by 

the Home Office detailing grants of settlement, 

i.e. people subject to immigration control who 

are allowed to remain in the UK indefinitely (from 

recognised refugees to different categories of 

dependents). These are the main available measure 

of the longer-term immigration of persons subject 

to immigration control and they include both 

people granted settlement on arrival at ports and 

those initially admitted to the country subject to 

a time limit which is subsequently removed. 66 In 

2002, for example, a total of 10,000 Somalis were 

granted settlement in the UK - the largest figure 

for any national group in Africa and overall second 

only to Pakistan, 11,935 of whose nationals were 

granted settlement in 2002. 

For Somalis, the largest group granted settlement 

were those recognised as refugees or granted 

exceptional leave (5,485 in total - 55%) and the 

second largest group comprised 3,255 children 

granted settlement as dependents (33% of the 

total). 67 The pattern was very similar in 2001, when 

out of 8,290 Somalis granted settlement, 4,610 

(56%) were recognised as refugees or granted 

exceptional leave and 2,710 (33%) were children 

granted settlement as dependents. 68 

The settlement figures only show the number of 

persons allowed to remain in the UK in a given 

year, and are not aggregated to include grants 

of settlement in previous years. It is therefore 

difficult to obtain an accurate figure for the size 

of the Somali population in the UK as a whole. 

The estimates given in the tables below indicate 

the difficulties in accurately quantifying the Somali 

community in the UK. Figures drawn from various 

sources are included here not as wholly reliable 

data, but to underline the wide variability of 

estimates and to serve as comparative material for 

any future figures that may be produced. In most 

cases, the figures from the 2001 census are lower 

than other estimates. Future research will have to 

address this issue of huge divergence. 

Table E: Grants of settlement to Somalis 

Total 

Four 

years 

with 

work 

permit 

Refugees 

and persons 

granted 

exceptional 

leave 

Other 

discretionary 

Others 

granted 

in own 

right 

Husbands Wives Children 

Parents 

and 

grandparents 


dependents 


acceptances 

2001 8,290 5 4,610 55 5 95 215 2,710 35 555 5 - 

2002 10,000 † 5,485 75 - 95 215 3,255 20 765 † 85 

Category 

unknown 


Table F: Estimates of Somali population in the UK 

Year to which 

estimate refers 

1994 25,000 

2001 43,691 

2002 250,000 

2003 95,000 

Estimated numbers of Somalis 

living in the UK 

Source 

Berns McGown, Rima (1999), Muslims in the diaspora: 

the Somali communities of London and Toronto, University 

of Toronto Press: 240 

2001 census (England and Wales, Scotland, Northern 

Ireland )69 

Estimate by Ioan Lewis, Liberation meeting, London, 

26.11.02 

Holman, Christine and Holman, Naomi, (2003), First 

steps in a new country: Baseline indicators for the Somali 

community in LB Hackney, London: Sahil Housing 

Association: 6 

The widely disparate figures in table F show that 

the size of the existing Somali population in the 

UK as a whole is unknown. Since the establishment 

of the National Asylum Support Service (NASS) 

in 2000, statistics have been published showing 

the regional distribution of asylum seekers who 

receive assistance with either general subsistence, 

housing, or both, but no such regional figures are 

available for those granted permission to stay in 

the UK as refugees, or those granted exceptional 

leave to remain. The 2001 census records a total 

of 43,532 people born in Somalia resident in the 

UK, of whom 19,882 (46%) were male and 23,650 

(54%) were female, but of course that is only a 

percentage of the full Somali population. 

A recent survey suggested that there was a low 

level of participation from Somalis in the 2001 

Census. 70 The majority of Somalis were in England 

and Wales; in Scotland there were 159 Somaliborn 

residents, 71 but there were no Somali-born 

residents recorded in Northern Ireland. 72 The 

uncertainty as to the size of the population runs 

throughout the literature on Somalis in the UK. 

Ali (2001: 21) quotes a 1997 estimate for the total 

population as 60,000. The figures given in various 

sources for the year 1994 range from 25,000 in the 

UK as a whole, to 65,000 in London alone (Berns 

McGown, 1999: 240, n.4). 

Another recent national estimate is of a national 

population of a quarter of a million, some 40- 

50,000 of whom live in London. 73 But the Black 

Women’s Health and Family Support (BWHAFS), 

a Somali-led organisation in Bethnal Green, puts 

the London figure at 70,000. The calculations 

for the individual London boroughs are equally 

unsatisfactory, as shown by table H below. 

66. See ‘Explanatory notes and definitions’, para. 27, Home Office (2003), 

Control of immigration: Statistics United Kingdom 2002, Cm 6053. 

67. Home Office (2003), Control of immigration: Statistics United 

Kingdom 2002, Cm 6053, table 6.1. 

68. Home Office (2002), Control of immigration: Statistics United 

Kingdom 2001, Cm 5684, table 6.1 

69. The 2001 census provides statistics for the Somali population in the 

UK by England and Wales, areas, counties, cities and London boroughs: 

http://neighbourhood.statistics.gov.uk. 

70. Questionnaire survey of Somalis in London – results reported orally to 

Somali Community Meeting, held in Committee Room 14 of the House of 

Commons on 29 March 2004. 

71. Scotland Census 2001, table UV08: Country of Birth. 

72. Northern Ireland Census 2001, table UV008: Country of Birth (full 

detail). 

73. Estimate by Ioan Lewis, Liberation meeting, London 26.11.02 


33

Table G: Estimates of Somali population in London 

Year to which 


Estimated numbers of Somalis 

living in the UK 

Source 

1999 65,000 

Berns McGown, Rima (1999), Muslims in the diaspora: 

the Somali communities of London and Toronto, University 

of Toronto Press: 240 

2001 33,831 2001 census 

2002 40 – 50,000 

Estimate by Ioan Lewis, Liberation meeting, London, 

26.11.02 

2003 63,000 

Holman, Christine and Holman, Naomi, (2003), First 

steps in a new country: Baseline indicators for the Somali 

community in LB Hackney, London: Sahil Housing 


2003 70,000 

Estimate by Black Women’s Health and Family 

Support, Bethnal Green, London 

Figure D: Map of London boroughs 

Source: Corporation of London, London Boroughs map. Available online at http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/business_ 

city/key_city_orgs/london_map.htm 


Table H: Estimates of Somali population in London boroughs 

Year to which 


Borough 

Estimated numbers of 

Somalis living in different 

London boroughs 

Source 

1991 

2001 

Tower Hamlets 15,000 

8 – 12,000 

Cole, Ian and Robinson, David (2003), 

Somali housing experiences in England, 

Centre for Regional Economic and Social 

Research, Sheffield Hallam University: 14 

Green, Marianne (2001), Profiling refugees 

in Tower Hamlets to 

Deduce their particular health needs and 

how best to meet them, 

Tower Hamlets Primary Care Trust: 

17-19 

2001 

1,353 

2001 census 

1994 

Ealing, Hammersmith and 

Hounslow 

11 – 12,000 

Harper-Bulman, Kate (1997), Somali 

women’s experience of the maternity service 

in West London and recommendations for 

for change, unpublished MA dissertation, 

London: Institute of Education: 11 

2001 

Ealing 

3,330 

2001 census 

2003 

11-15,000 

Cole, Ian and Robinson, David (2003), 

Somali housing experiences in England, 

Centre for Regional Economic and Social 

Research, Sheffield Hallam University: 16 

2001 

Hounslow 

1,257 

2001 census 

2001 

Hammersmith and 

Fulham 

1,197 

2001 census 

2001 

Barnet, Enfield, Haringey 

and Waltham Forest 

18,650 

Thomas, Felicity and Abebaw, Meron 

(2002), Refugees and asylum seekers in the 

Learning and Skills Council, London North 

area, Africa Educational Trust 

2001 

Barnet 

1,207 

2001 census 

2001 

Haringey 

2,194 

2001 census 

2001 

2001 

Brent 9 – 12,000 

3,381 

Cox, Sarah (2002), Hooyo: A study of 

Somali children and their mothers based in 

two nurseries in Brent, unpublished MSc 

dissertation, Brunel University: 71 

2001 census 


35

Year to which 


Borough 


Somalis living in different 

London boroughs 

Source 

2001 

Enfield 

1,082 

2001 census 

2002 

6 – 7,000 

Robertson, Janie (2002), How effectively 

do the Somali community in Enfield access 

early years provision?, unpublished MA dissertation, 

University of East London 

2001 

Newham 

3,163 

2001 census 

2001 

2003 

Hackney 706 

5,000 

2001 census 

Holman, Christine and Naomi Holman 

(2003), First steps in a new country: 

Baseline indicators for the Somali community 

in LB Hackney, London: Sahil Housing 


2001 Redbridge 1,234 2001 Census 

2001 Camden 1,904 2001 Census 

2001 Waltham Forest 1,414 2001 Census 

2001 Harrow 1,231 2001 Census 

2001 Islington 1,226 2001 Census 

2001 Greenwich 1,064 2001 Census 

2001 Southwark 981 2001 Census 

2001 Lambeth 982 2001 Census 

2001 Hillingdon 929 2001 Census 

2001 Wandsworth 743 2001 Census 

2001 Kensington and Chelsea 657 2001 Census 

2001 Lewisham 623 2001 Census 

2001 Barking and Dagenham 521 2001 Census 

2001 Croydon 510 2001 Census 

2001 Westminster 303 2001 Census 

2001 Bromley 246 2001 Census 

2001 Merton 184 2001 Census 

2001 Sutton 69 2001 Census 

2001 Richmond 49 2001 Census 

2001 Bexley 46 2001 Census 

74. Green, Marianne, 2001: 17-19. 

75. Nick Cohen, The Observer 9.11.03. 

76. Geoff Dench: personal communication to ICAR. 

77. Thomas, Felicity and Abebaw, Meron (2002). 

78. See Ahmed E.A. (nd); Cardiff City Council et al (nd); Hansen et al (nd); 

Save the Children Fund (1994). 

79. Welsh Somalis Return to Roots. BBC News: http://news.bbc. 

co.uk/l/hi/wales/2705363.stm 29.1.03 

80. See Bloch and Atfield (2002); Bristol Refugee Inter-Agency Forum 

(1995), and Somali Education and Cultural Community Association (1997). 

81. See Daahir and Duale 2002. 


The unreliability of statistics is a frequent issue 

for researchers undertaking local studies. A good 

example is work in the London borough of Tower 

Hamlets. Marianne Green, in her study of refugee 

health needs in the borough (2001), consulted 

Home Office notifications of asylum seekers to 

the local health authority, GPs’ lists, the local 

education authority, housing data, voluntary and 

community organisations working with Somalis, 

and guesstimates by local inhabitants. This resulted 

in wildly different figures - from 5-25,000 - with 

Green finally settling on 8-12,000. 74 The 2001 

census, however, produces a figure of 1,353! 

There are several factors that may account for 

this low result. Firstly, Somalis in Tower Hamlets 

are a mobile population. Now that the focus of the 

docks has gone, the oldest settlement is no longer 

the largest in London. Somalis have been moving 

out to other parts of London, and more recent 

arrivals have been joining relatives elsewhere in 

the city. Secondly, there may be problems with the 

census itself, with apparent official underestimation. 

Some refugees, suspicious of authority, may prefer 

anonymity - a propensity seemingly shared with 

others in the general population - and the overall 

results of the 2001 census were one million 

short of what was expected. 75 Thirdly, previous 

estimates may well have been tied up with local 

politics. Dench, in his report Fighting with numbers 

(1994), convincingly argues, on the basis of detailed 

field research, that the figures produced by Tower 

Hamlets Somalis in their 1991 Demographic survey 

were grossly inflated. This, he maintains, was to 

reinforce claims for better services and a larger 

share of the borough’s resources - in this case a 

community overestimation. The process may well 

have continued - the 1997 Education Department 

Ethnic Census found only 406 Somali pupils in 

Tower Hamlets schools, with 372 speaking Somali 

at home. 76 Given that many Somali families are 

large, this does not indicate an adult population of 

thousands. 

Similar discrepancies in figures collated over the 

last decade for other London boroughs reflect 

both problems with finding reliable bases for 

estimates and real demographic changes. Ali (2001: 

21) states that in 1997 the highest concentration 

of Somalis apart from Tower Hamlets was 

found in Newham and Ealing. In 1994, the Ealing, 

Hammersmith and Hounslow health authority 

estimated there were 11-12,000 Somalis in the 

area (Harper-Bulman, 1997: 11). Cole and Robinson 

(2003: 16) increase the Ealing estimate to 11- 

15,000, composed chiefly of refugees arriving after 

1990, and supplemented by Somalis leaving older 

communities in east London in search of better 

housing and employment. Somalis do indeed 

find jobs at Heathrow airport. Comparisons are 

hindered by a different grouping of boroughs in 

the 2001 count, but the census does not bear out 

such high figures: Hounslow 1,257, Hammersmith 

and Fulham 1,197, and Ealing 3,330. It does at least 

corroborate previous conclusions on the areas 

most densely populated with Somalis - albeit with 

much smaller numbers than hitherto assessed. The 

census figure for Newham was 3,163, amongst the 

highest figures, along with Haringey (2,194). Brent 

appears to be another burgeoning area of Somali 

settlement (3,381). Cox (2002: 71) suggests that 

there are 9-12,000 Somalis in the borough. 

Robertson (2002: 7; 47) puts the figure of Somalis 

in Enfield at 6-7,000, while a recent study of Barnet, 

Enfield, Haringey, and Waltham Forest estimated 

a population of 18,650 Somalis in these boroughs 

(a high proportion of whom live in Tottenham, 

Colindale, Edmonton and Edgware). 77 The sum of 

the Somali population from these boroughs in the 

2001 census, however, comes to under 6,000. 

Outside London, the statistical information is 

equally unsatisfactory. Liverpool figures suggest 

growth, but cannot present the actual size of the 

community with any accuracy. A decade ago, the 

Granby Toxteth Community Project estimated that 

there were from 200 to over 1,000 Somalis during 

the 1980s (1993: 4) with about 12,000 by 1989 

(ibid: 5). In his 2000 report Stokes put the figure at 

3-5,000. In Hull, newcomers are grafted onto older 

settlements of seafarers. Cardiff, too, has a Somali 

population originally stemming from the docks. 78 

South Wales, particularly Cardiff and Newport, is 

said to have a Somali population of 7,000. 79 Leeds, 

Southampton, Glasgow, Bristol, 80 and Leicester 81 

also have Somali communities. Manchester, too: 

Refugee Action’s 1997 report on refugees in the 


37

north west of England put the number of Somalis 

here at 2-3000 (Smyth and Mohamed, 1997: 29), but 

the council’s head count two years before came up 

with 5,000. A primary care lecturer at Manchester 

University puts the number at between 5-6,000 82 

- but the 2001 census claims there are only 1,367. 

Estimates for Birmingham stand at 3,000 83 and 

4,000, (Dick, 2002: 8), with 819 in the census. For 

Sheffield, figures range from 1,306 in the census to 

2,000, (McCarthy, 1995: 15) to up to 10,000 (Cole 

and Robinson, 2003: 12). 

Table I: Estimates of Somali population in provincial cities 

Year to 

which 

estimate 

refers 

1989 

2000 

2001 

2003 

1997 

2001 

2003 

2001 

2002 

1995 

City 

Liverpool 1,200 


Somalis living in British 

cities 

3 – 5,000 

678 

3 – 5,000 

Manchester 2 – 3,000 

1,367 

5 – 6,000 

Birmingham 819 

4,000 

Sheffield 2,000 + 

Source 

Granby Toxteth Community Project (1993), 

Survey of the Somali community in Liverpool: 5 

Stokes, Peter (2000), The Somali community in 

Liverpool, Foundation for Civil Society 

2001 census 

Cole, Ian and Robinson, David (2003), Somali 

housing experiences in England, Centre for Regional 

Economic and Social Research, Sheffield Hallam 

University: 14 

Smyth, Kate and Mohamed, Atiha (1997), Refugees 

in the north west of England, Refugee Action: 29 

2001 census 

Estimate by Dr. Hermione Lovell, Manchester 

University 

2001 census 

Dick, Malcolm (2002), Celebrating sanctuary: 

Birmingham and the refugee experience 

1750-2002, Refugee Week 2002 Steering 

Committee, Refugee Action: 8 

McCarthy, Margaret (1995), Elders in exile, 

Northern Refugee Centre: 15 

2001 

1,306 

2001 census 

2003 

1,400 – 10,000 

Cole, Ian and Robinson, David (2003), Somali 

housing experiences in England, Centre for 

Regional Economic and Social Research, 

Sheffield Hallam University: 12 

2001 Leicester 872 2001 census 

2001 Milton Keynes 616 2001 census 

2001 Bristol 604 2001 census 

2001 Northamptonshire 517 2001 census 

2001 Slough 267 2001 census 

2001 Luton 160 2001 census 

2001 Coventry 137 2001 census 

As table I shows, there are towns with a much smaller presence than the large Somali populations of 


London, Liverpool, and Manchester. Refugee 

Action’s report on the north west of England 

records a “small number” of Somalis in Warrington 

(Smyth and Mohamed, 1997: 17) and in the 

Lancashire districts of Chorley and South Ribble 

(ibid: 20). The 2001 census lists several areas with 

fewer than 100 Somalis. Apart from Leeds and 

Southampton, these include Oxford, Reading, 

Middlesbrough, Bedford, Watford, Southend, and 

Swindon. 

The particular needs of Somalis in areas where 

there are only small numbers are as significant as 

those in cities with higher settlement. But lack of 

numerical data hinders sound service delivery in 

all regions. In his study of The Somali community in 

Liverpool (2000) Stokes points out that there is no 

ethnic monitoring in any field - health, education, 

employment, crime. This makes it impossible to 

plan and produce local services on an accurate 

assessment of need - whether estimates are made 

by a local authority or Somalis themselves. 

However, even if accurate figures are not yet 

available, the main areas of concern for Somalis 

have been well documented. The purpose of this 

present addition to the literature is not only to 

draw together how we know what we know about 

Somalis in the UK, but also to highlight anxieties 

expressed by Somalis themselves. These may differ 

according to geographical area, gender or particular 

group - education for some, health for others. But 

it is striking how far the reports from different 

parts of the UK replicate each other and dwell on 

identical problems. Employment, education, physical 

and mental health, the particular tensions around 

youth and gender, together with the internal 

divisions in the community, are all raised as critical 

issues by Somalis throughout the UK. 

Employment 

In the early twentieth century Somalis arrived 

in Britain to work. But, as we have seen, seamen 

lost their jobs after the war. Those that did not 

find work in the industrial and manufacturing 

sectors became unemployed, and now many 

of those arriving later as refugees have joined 

their ranks. No accurate figures are available, but 

1987 estimates put the Tower Hamlets Somali 

unemployment rate at 87% (El-Solh, 1991: 550, 

note 13), with 95% in Liverpool out of work 

(Xifaras, 1996: 26). Estimates since then show 

a slight improvement, but nothing which would 

indicate a gradual integration of Somalis into the 

British labour force. A 1993 Liverpool study gave 

an unemployment figure of 72.6% (Granby Toxteth 

Community Project, 1993: 36). Two years later, 

Ditmars (1995: 8) reckoned that 80% of Somalis 

in London were out of work. Contemporary 

estimates no longer include the older settlers 

who have retired, but reflect the employment of 

refugees. One estimate for the unemployment rate 

among Somali men in 1999 was 87% (Frieda and 

Walters, 1999: 26). Studies also find that a high 

proportion of Somalis have never worked since 

coming to the UK. 

This does not appear to depend solely on 

the fact that Somalis are members of a black 

minority. On indicators such as levels of pay, or 

the permanence of the post, Somali refugees fare 

worse than other ethnic populations as a whole 

(Bloch, 2003). Is it then just a matter of education? 

The educational profile of early settlers, who 

often came from a nomadic background, has 

contributed to the impression that Somalis are 

less educated than other refugee communities. 

Figures on qualifications are also slanted by the 

lower educational level of women, and of many 

young people who have missed out on schooling 

in Somalia and have been unable to catch up in 

the UK. But it is often the case that refugees and 

asylum seekers come from the better-educated 

sections of their society, the social strata which 

could raise the money to escape. Somalis are no 

exception - the community in fact contains a large 

number of highly qualified men and women. 

Somalis constantly express frustration that this is 

not recognised, and point to the underutilisation of 

their professional skills - doctors driving minicabs, 

teachers unemployed. This is confirmed by a recent 

study by Bloch and Atfield (2002) who surveyed 

82. Dr. Hermione Lovel, personal communication to Kirsteen Tait, ICAR, 

King’s College London. 

83. O. Hassan, Birmingham Support Group: interview 8.4.03 


39

the professional capacity of 200 Somalis, half from 

London, and half from provincial cities. Covering a 

range of age and gender, over 50% were recently 

arrived refugees, having been in England for less 

than ten years. They found that 73% had received 

a secondary level education, including 12% to 

graduate level (ibid: 22). Of the 9.5% who had 

obtained a qualification elsewhere before coming 

to the UK, one third had degrees (ibid: 23). Once in 

the UK, over a third of the sample were studying, 

the majority at degree level. 

Before coming to the UK, most had been studying 

or working - in teaching, retail, engineering, 

farming, nursing, or as librarians, lawyers, doctors, 

nursery workers, scientists, and office workers, 

amongst others. Yet this “wealth of employment 

experience” (ibid: 33) was not reflected in their 

occupations in the UK. More of Bloch and Atfield’s 

sample were working in shops and factories than 

in classrooms; there were several security guards, 

but no doctors or nurses (ibid: 37). These findings 

of occupational downgrading are confirmed by the 

Learning and Skills Council’s recent research in 

four north London boroughs on asylum seekers 

and refugees (Thomas and Abebaw, 2002; Africa 

Educational Trust, 2002; Duale, 2002). 84 This found 

that whereas 20% of the Somali sample currently 

employed in the UK had been professionals at 

home (many as teachers and engineers), this 

dropped to 4% in London. The comparative figures 

for skilled workers were 16% to 11%. In contrast, 

only 13% had been in semi-skilled or manual work 

at home - in the UK this rose to half of Somalis 

now in work (Africa Educational Trust, 2002: 6; 23). 

One Somali man, for example, had qualified 

as a chemical engineer in Somalia. When 

he arrived in the UK thirteen years ago he 

completed a GNVQ in Administration and 

then completed training as a teacher. Despite 

having experience through work placements 

and voluntary work he has not been able to 

get a job in the UK. He now works for the RCO. 

(Thomas and Abebaw, 2002: 33) 

Employment in refugee community organisations 

(RCOs) is one option for the unemployed, 

particularly among the Somali with their 

proliferating associations. Another potential source 

of work could well be local authority and NGO 

departments which deal with the community, but 

one of Somali refugees’ complaints is that they 

are rarely offered this opportunity from which 

both sides could benefit. In Liverpool, for example, 

where there is a longstanding Somali population, 

one Somali women’s organisation feels the lack of 

a Somali-speaking community worker. There was, 

the director alleges, a Somali team employed by 

the council - but as other ethnic groups did not 

have this privilege, it was deemed inequitable and 

disbanded. Although there are now two Somali 

health workers, and some Somalis are employed 

as firefighters, there are very few Somalis in public 

services. 85 Leicester City Council does have two 

Somali development workers, but these employees 

recently commented: 

The fact is that only a few schools employed 

Somali speaking staff. All other agencies 

including advice centres (where most Somalis 

are facing language barrier), housing, education, 

social services departments…and health 

authority…[with two exceptions] do not have 

Somali speaking staff. 

This has already determined the level and 

degree of how quickly people can settle down 

and participate socially and economically in the 

area in which they live. (Daahir and Duale, 

2002: 32) 

As with earlier arrivals, male Somali refugees are 

often reluctant to take jobs incommensurate with 

their previous occupations in Somalia, and stay out 

of work. Women, perhaps because of their family 

responsibilities, have always been more prepared 

to take menial work that men have rejected 

(Summerfield, 1996: 94); many Somali women 

work in the lower ranks of the service and care 

84. The main report on the research commissioned by the Learning and 

Skills Council was prepared by Thomas and Abebaw. They were working on 

behalf of the Africa Educational Trust who conducted the project, and issued 

a summary report. Mohammed Duale undertook the investigation of the 

Somali community, the subject of an appended document. 

85. Interview, Lodge Lane Somali Women’s Group. 19.3.03.86. Interview, 

Ahmed Farah 24.3.03 


industries. But here, too, even given the average 

lower educational levels of women, they are often 

underemployed. In their study of twenty Somali 

women in Waltham Forest, east London, Sales and 

Gregory (1998) found that only one was 

in secure employment. Others had casual work as 

interpreters, cleaners, or other low paid 

service workers. None of those with professional 

qualifications - including teachers, health workers, 

a doctor, and a chemist - had been able to pursue 

their career in the UK. 

The loss of self esteem is hard to accept, and 

is echoed by some of the 50 women in Tower 

Hamlets, Hackney, and Islington interviewed by 

Emua Ali (2001: 166). Many who had skilled jobs 

in Somalia were hindered by the non-recognition 

of their qualifications and lack of British work 

experience in finding similar employment in the UK. 

The majority were living off benefits, supplemented 

by cleaning, factory, and sweatshop work and other 

casual unskilled labour (the kind of work that most 

men refuse to do). For both men and women, 

even when it seemed that a previous profession 

would be a passport to present employment, the 

problem of qualifications gained outside the UK 

constitutes a serious problem. These are often not 

recognised - teachers, doctors, and lawyers find 

that they are unable to practise, while courses to 

retrain or to adapt their experience to the UK 

remain insufficient. Apart from the frustration this 

causes, the British economy and public services are 

deprived of valuable contributions. 

Several of the reasons for downgrading 

overlap with those for high Somali rates of 

unemployment in general. Some are attributed to 

what is euphemistically called ‘the host society’ 

- institutional racism and discrimination by 

employers. Then there are standard requirements 

of employment which may be hard to meet - the 

demand for a National Insurance number, for 

example. Young people who have not yet claimed 

benefits on their own behalf, or have not yet held 

a job, may not be able to obtain this, while papers 

such as recommendations by previous employers 

may well have been left behind when travelling. 

Other factors concern the refugee community 

itself. One is length of residence; the longer the 

residence in the UK, the higher the likelihood of 

being in work. A critical issue here is asylum status. 

Legally, those with leave to remain (i.e. refugees 

and those with exceptional or indefinite leave 

to remain) have permission to work. Since July 

2002 those awaiting the decision on their asylum 

claim (including those on appeal) can no longer 

work while they wait and may only seek voluntary 

work. But for all those without full refugee status, 

uncertainty about the future both discourages 

employers and deters asylum seekers from planning 

a career in the UK. 

Another critical issue is language. Studies show that 

the higher Somali refugees’ educational level is, the 

better their command of English is likely to be, and 

the more likely they are to be in work (Bloch, 2002; 

2003). But, for many, inadequate language skills put 

them at a disadvantage in a competitive job market. 

Somalis also mention their lack of references and 

contacts, and their unfamiliarity with interview 

techniques and the whole culture of employment 

in the UK. 

It also may be that skills acquired at home - such 

as herding or farming - may not be relevant in a 

British context. Even commercial experience may 

not weather diaspora conditions. Travel and trade 

have always been part of Somali life, and in the UK 

today both men and women go on international 

expeditions to buy gold, cloth, and other items 

for resale in the Somali community. A US Somali 

economist recently wrote to a researcher 

supporting her theory of ubiquitous Somali 

commercial activity and Somalis’ ability to establish 

businesses wherever they find themselves: 

The Somali is inherently a trader.… [with] 

strong entrepreneurial skills: livestock is 

primarily used for trading in the nomadic 

Somali society. Unlike other recent ethnic 

immigrants, the Somalis in Minnesota, many 

of whom come from the [Kenyan] Dadaab 

refugee camps, have managed to establish 

their own child care centres, laundry facilities, 

tax preparers, restaurants, department and 

grocery stores, sewing, mini shopping malls 

etc…. This must be unique to Somalis…. The 

Somali nomadic background primarily explains 


41

this strong sense of kinship networking, high 

mobility and dispersing of investments…. There 

is something nomadic about our genes. 

(Horst, 2002: 11) 

But there is a puzzle here. Whereas many other 

ethnic communities have established a lively retail 

sector, commercial activity has only recently been 

part of the Somali experience in the UK. The older 

community of seafarers did not set up shop - even 

today there is still only one Somali store in the 

Toxteth area of Liverpool, an historic area of Somali 

settlement. One deterrent to entrepreneurial 

activity has been the commercial context - whereas 

at home, as one Somali man said, ‘anyone can 

open a shop’, in the UK there are many more 

regulations to contend with, besides the problem of 

obtaining capital. 86 But more relevant may be the 

relationship of different generations to the UK. The 

seafaring community always imagined themselves 

to be transitory, and their income was sent home 

rather than invested in London or Liverpool. Now, 

the establishment of Somali services speaks of an 

intention to remain. Commercial enterprise may 

relate to circumstances of settlement rather than 

genes. 

But now the Somali community is more familybased, 

Somali trading is increasing. In London’s 

Wembley, inhabited by Somalis for a decade, 

Somalis are launching their own shops, restaurants, 

and businesses. Sarah Cox, working in the area, 

mentions Wembley to a local Somali woman: 

She laughs and says: ‘Yes, all the men, they’re 

standing around talking. In Mogadishu there 

are the bars where they can sit outside and 

talk (because in Somalia it’s hot). Here they do 

it in Wembley, and there are the shops. You can 

buy all the Somali things, Somali clothes and 

everything’. (Cox, 2003: 37) 

The same pattern is discernable in selfemployment. 

Many refugees were self-employed 

in the country in which they were living prior to 

seeking asylum, but this pattern has not hitherto 

been duplicated in the UK (Bloch and Atfield, 

2002: 34; 39). Today, uncertainty about permanent 

residence still acts as a deterrent, but for confirmed 

refugees, self-employment is now becoming an 

option. As their asylum claims are resolved and 

transfer of qualifications still remains problematic, 

it is likely that more Somalis will become 

professional as well as commercial entrepreneurs: 

I graduated from Somali National University 

as a journalist and I also qualified at the 

Department of Commerce, specialising in 

Accounting and Management. I started work 

in Somali Radio as a broadcaster in the Arabic 

and English Department and also worked as a 

part-time lecturer in the Institute of Accounting 

and Management…. 

I came to the UK in 1991 and.… I was 

unhappy with the way in which my educational 

qualifications were evaluated. I wanted to use 

my skills and knowledge to do something; I had 

never liked to be on the dole but I had to wait 

six months before immigration would give me a 

work permit. 

The authorities who evaluated my qualifications 

decided that they were not compatible with 

the UK standards and I had to start all over 

again to become a chartered accountant. I 

have now done an MSc in Accounting and 

Finance from a British university. It was hard to 

go back over what I had done ten years ago. 

I am now practicing accounting and I run an 

office for chartered accountants, as well some 

[sic] projects for refugees…. I am now training 

about 50 refugees who are former qualified 

professionals; I give them work experience in 

my company and I think this way, they will get 

jobs at the end of the day. 

(Lukes and Bell, 2002: 107-108) 

Entrepreneurial activity, however, is not sufficient 

to replace opportunities for employment with 

British enterprises or the public sector. The nature 

of the Somalis’ insertion into the economy has 

repercussions both on British society and on 

the refugee community itself. The overwhelming 

proportion of Somalis without work increases 

the nation’s benefits bill, and encourages popular 

perceptions of ‘asylum seeker scroungers’. At a 

time when public services such as the NHS and 

schools badly need staff, particularly staff who 

can deal directly with other members of their 


own community, potential workers sit idle. For 

Somalis, on an individual level, unemployment 

breeds poverty, alienation, depression, and lack of 

self-esteem. The community is marginalised and 

deprived of an avenue into British society, with 

damaging results especially for young people. 

Reports on the Somali community have for some 

time reiterated the problems around employment 

and recognised their impact on other aspects of 

Somali experience in the UK. But despite local 

initiatives, a central programme to tackle the issue 

has yet to be established. 

Education 87 

without any, or with very few, GCSEs”. But the 

Liverpool community has its own estimate. It is 

said that of the 300 Somali boys who have taken 

GCSE since 1997, only three have passed. 89 Even 

if this is an overly negative guesstimate, the trend 

is clear. 90 In the London borough of Camden, 

Somalis now make up nearly 10% of the school 

population. But in spite of particular programmes 

to tackle underachievement of refugees and 

asylum seekers in a couple of schools, plus local 

education authority support, these children are not 

reaching their full potential. Figures are misleading 

as numbers involved are small: the 3.1% gaining A*- 

C represents one pupil. But table J does indicate 

underperformance compared with other groups. 

Somali mothers and fathers, like all parents, 

know that the key to their children’s future lies 

in their education. Education is high on the list 

of community concerns, and Somalis organise 

homework clubs and after school programmes 

to help their children achieve. And many do. But 

there are also scores of young Somalis who leave 

school with no qualifications, or the accompanying 

confidence to look for work. 

As in other areas there are few statistics. While 

some schools audit the progress of their Somali 

pupils in order to assess their policies, not all 

school and local authorities keep records on 

Somali children - or even on the numbers of 

pupils from particular ethnic groups in the school 

population. Figures are also often contradictory. 

For example, although it is agreed that Somali was 

the second most spoken language in schools in the 

London borough of Camden (not counting English) 

in 1998, one source stated that this represented 

2.4% of the school population, and another, 7%. 88 

The same problem applies to an assessment of 

Somali pupils’ achievement. In Liverpool, Stokes 

(2000: para. 16.4) was unable to find statistical 

confirmation of his conclusion that “with a few 

exceptions most Somali students will leave school 

86. Interview, Ahmed Farah 24.3.03. 

87. Secondary sources on education include: Hassan (1994); Daycare Trust 

(1995); City of Liverpool (1996); Xifaras (1996); Kahin (1997); Farah and 

Smith (1999); Ali and Jones (2000); Stokes (2000); Lukes and Bell (2002); 

Robertson (2002); Cox (2002; 2003); Hannan (2003). 

88. Ali and Jones, 2000: 5. 

89. Interview, Saeed Farah, City Resources Unit, Liverpool Council 19.3.03. 

90. For factors contributing to the academic underachievement of Somali 

pupils see Kahin, 1997: 63-81. 


43

Table J: Achievement of Somali pupils in Camden schools 

No. of pupils 

% achieving 5+ 

A*-C 

% achieving 

1+ A*-G 

Average number 

of entries 

Average 

points score 

Bangladeshi 

139 

28.1 

95.7 

8.6 

32.8 

Black African 

118 

26.6 

89.0 

8.0 

29.5 

Somali 

32 

3.1 

81.3 

7.0 

17.4 

Refugee 

89 

21.3 

88.8 

7.5 

25.8 

All pupils 

1635 

47.7 

93.5 

8.2 

37.6 

Source: Ali and Jones, 2000: 46 

As might be expected, those Camden Somali 

pupils who had been in school since year seven 

did marginally better than the Somali cohort as a 

whole. The same applies to the total school career. 

The little evidence we have suggests that children 

who are born in the UK and have therefore gone 

through the British educational system have a 

better chance of success than Somalis coming 

into school from elsewhere. In Liverpool, the City 

Council’s report on Somali young people found 

that of their seven British-born respondents, three 

had done well, three were still in education, and 

only one was unemployed (1996: para. 4.4). 

The real problem is to integrate children who 

come into the system from Somalia at late primary 

or secondary level, who have had a very different 

system of education, probably disrupted by war, or 

who have never been to school at all. The Somali 

education system has been a major casualty of 

political events. It was only in 1972 that Somali 

orthography was devised, and the language put 

into Latin script. This was part of Siad Barre’s early 

period of reform - a successful national literacy 

campaign was launched, and compulsory education 

introduced. But mismanagement and shortage of 

resources began the decline which the war was 

to finish. In 1986 the literacy rate was still only 

40%; half of primary age children were in school, 

but only 7% of young people were in secondary 

education. 91 By the end of the 1980s the whole 

system had collapsed through the devastation of 

armed conflict, and though some still struggled on 

in the north, most schools were shut down. 

This means that many Somali refugee children 

arriving since the late 1980s may have had no 

experience of formal schooling apart from 

Arabic Koranic classes, which depend on rote 

learning of the scriptures. Landing in inner city 

comprehensives, they are lost. Many have been 

deeply affected by their early experience of war, 

they cannot speak English, have no understanding of 

school culture, and no space to explain themselves. 

In answer to one researcher’s questions about this 

topic, Liverpool Somali respondents said: 

Children are sitting around school 

corridors as they cannot compete. 

Some of those who have difficulty 

in competing are wrongly assessed 

as abnormal. The language barrier 

and the trauma these children have 

experienced requires specific attention 

to cater for their needs. 

Children are often in shock when they 

come to Britain. They have travelled 

from a war zone country and entered 

Britain, a totally different environment 

and culture. The majority of these 

children came from rural areas. 

Before they can recover from shock, 

they are thrown into school. They are 

often bullied because they come from 

another country and cannot speak 

English. 


Youngster’s [sic] are behind in 

education, due to the language barrier. 

They are reluctant to pursue further 

education due to the feeling of 

hopelessness, which dictates their lives. 

(Xifaras, 1996: 50) 

There are several issues raised here concerning 

both the education system and the problems of 

the pupils themselves. There is also the question of 

parental participation. 

When discussing education, Somalis always mention 

a crucial difference between the Somali and 

British systems: in the former, children are graded 

according to their educational level, while in British 

schools children are assigned to classes according 

to age. This means that Somali children with few 

basic skills can be placed with students coming up 

for GCSE - an impossible situation. Parents may 

also be misled, thinking that their child’s promotion 

in September is due to their achievement. 

As in every area of Somali experience in the UK, 

language is another critical factor. Until the early 

1970s, post-primary schools in Somaliland taught 

in English because of the colonial connection, with 

Italian being used in the south. 92 In Barre’s 

period of early reform, English was phased out, 

except for those university and college courses 

that were conducted in English or Italian. However, 

the collapse of the education system means that 

some young refugees arriving in the UK are barely 

literate in Somali. Some will be able to read and 

write in Arabic through attending private Koranic 

schools. These classes of religious instruction begin 

teaching children to read and recite the Koran 

from the age of four, and may continue through 

childhood. But Koranic pupils are not necessarily 

literate - many of those who have learned to recite 

the Koran may not be able to write it. So Somali 

children may arrive in school with little formal 

education, or one limited to rote learning, while 

speaking no English. Unless the school can provide 

special provision, they can spend hours sitting 

in class, understanding little. Schools have to be 

inventive. Apart from highlighting the necessity 

for ESOL classes, recommendations on education 

stress the importance of promoting and utilising 

the Somali language. In London’s Institute of 

Education there is a range of attractive children’s 

books in Somali, incorporating folk tales and 

children’s experience. In Haringey, north London, 

the White Hart Lane school is teaching maths 

and science to Turkish and Somali pupils in their 

mother tongues until they master English (The 

Independent, 17.06.02). 

And this they must do if they are to integrate 

academically and socially into a school environment. 

Special provision has to be made for English, as well 

as other subjects, if the incomers have not reached 

the required standard. This places a great strain 

on schools. Somali parents often allege that their 

children experience bullying and discrimination, 

not only at the hands of other children, but also 

by teachers. There may well be racism in the 

classroom as well as in the playground, but teachers 

also suffer from a lack of information about the 

background and situation of their Somali pupils. In 

addition, schools often do not have the resources 

to meet the language and basic educational needs 

of children who are completely out of their 

depth. The effect of the presence of refugees and 

asylum seekers on schools is a contentious issue. 

But negative comments of ‘swamping’ made by 

government ministers and in the media should 

not obscure the real problems that schools 

- and therefore the children - face. With the 

dispersal system, refugee children may arrive in 

schools already trying to cope with high levels of 

deprivation. One such is Victoria Park Primary in 

Smethwick, West Midlands, where Somali is one of 

the 33 languages spoken in the school. The head 

teacher stresses that “the children themselves 

are very rewarding, and, given time, can achieve 

excellent results” but a consistently high refugee 

intake “stretches our resources to breaking point. 

The children arrive from nowhere, many speaking 

no English, often with no documentation, and we 

just have to take them in” (The Sun, 07.02.03). 

Reports reiterate that even where schools and 

local authorities promote language and other 

programmes, this is seldom sufficient. 

91. Ali, 2001: 80 

92. For the Somali educational system, see Hassan (1994); Kahin, 1997: 

19-21; Ali, 2001: 77-81; Hannan, 2003: 39. 


45

The difficulties experienced by Somali children 

can lead to a stereotype of lack of ability, and 

therefore of low expectations by teachers. This 

may be compounded by problems arising from 

past trauma and present stress. Children escaping 

the civil war may have witnessed horrors, “things 

children should never see” as one man put it. Even 

if they have little direct experience of conflict or 

refugee camps, the effects on their families will 

impact on children. Home circumstances may be 

insecure or upsetting, and the children, especially 

boys, may react with uncooperative or violent 

behaviour - although the Camden report maintains 

that in the schools researched, the stereotype of 

the aggressive Somali boy was unfounded, and that 

appropriate support can do much to help the child. 

A teacher gave an example: 

A late arrival had no primary education in 

Somalia but he was literate in Arabic due to his 

Koranic education. He had an exclusion due to 

threatening to stab another boy with scissors. 

A guest speaker came to the school to talk 

about Islam and she spoke in Arabic. He was 

so proud of his knowledge the Koran that he 

volunteered to read from the Koran in Arabic. 

The whole class applauded…. His self esteem 

was raised and other pupils were amazed at 

his knowledge. Schools need to promote mother 

tongue activities to boost pupils’ self esteem. 

(Ali and Jones, 2000: 13) 

Nevertheless, although we have no comparative 

figures, exclusions of troubled Somali children 

are said to be high. This raises the vexed question 

of discipline, one of the many areas where 

misunderstanding can arise. Many Somali parents 

are accustomed to a stricter regime which includes 

corporal punishment to enforce respect for 

authority. They complain on the one hand of severe 

measures such as exclusion, but on the other, of 

the liberalism and laxity of British schools and 

society which, as they see it, hinders learning and 

allows children to get out of control. Teachers, on 

the other hand, have to tread a fine line between 

respecting cultural difference and parental control 

and condoning forms of discipline they see as 

abusive. 

Another such area is the education of girls. In 

Somalia, the education of young women, destined 

to be wives and mothers, was not seen as a priority, 

and most dropped out after primary school. In 

the UK, with compulsory education, there is a 

range of attitudes. Many parents are keen that 

their daughters learn. “Some teachers [in Camden] 

claimed that Somali girls were more motivated 

[than boys], have better concentration and are 

aware of the value of education” (Ali and Jones, 

2000: 12). In conversation, young women complain 

that their responsibility for household chores 

keeps them from their schoolwork, and that they 

do not have the freedom that their brothers enjoy. 

But Cox (2002) sees something positive in parents’ 

assumption of girls’ domestic competence. She 

bases her dissertation around the question of why 

the girls in her Wembley and Harlesden nursery 

class seemed to “fit so easily and successfully into 

school” (ibid: 2), whilst some boys “found it difficult 

to settle in the nursery, lacking independence 

and initiative, seeming less mature….” (ibid: 1). 

Her interesting conclusion was confirmed by the 

comments of a Somali friend: 

You must look at the child rearing practices. 

From the very beginning, Somali girls are 

expected to be responsible, strong, brave and 

intelligent. Somali boys are just expected to … 

[pause] … eat (ibid: 2) 

From Cox’s knowledge of the children and their 

families, she concludes that in Somalia, girls acquire 

domestic competence at an early age. In the UK 

this may be at ten or eleven years old rather 

than six or seven, but this domestic education 

fosters a girl’s self-confidence even as it reinforces 

the gendered division of labour. Although open 

defiance of male authority is not tolerated, 

female intelligence, wit, and resilience are highly 

valued - characteristics that serve women well 

when adjusting to life in the diaspora as single 

mothers (see below). In turn, this strength helps 

to shape their daughters growing up in the UK. 

In conversation, young women often mention 

their mothers with great respect, admiring their 

fortitude and independence. 


Attitudes to girls’ education by Somali parents 

clearly differs widely, but many feel that after the 

age of eleven or twelve, daughters should be kept 

apart from boys. There is therefore still an intense 

mistrust on the part of some parents for coeducation, 

not only for their daughters, but also 

for their sons, whom they feel will be distracted 

by a female presence. As Muslims, many parents 

will go to great lengths to get their children into 

single-sex schools at secondary level, even if these 

are Catholic or Anglican. If this proves impossible, 

they may go so far as to keep their children out 

of school altogether, or, where finance allows, 

send them abroad. Their ideal would be Muslim 

education, but few can afford private Muslim 

schools. The question of faith schools is a difficult 

political issue. As for some parents the question 

of gender segregation seems to override religious 

considerations, one way around the problem might 

be for the establishment of more single-sex schools 

in relevant areas, which would go some way 

towards meeting Somali preference. 

There are other contentious issues between 

parents and schools, but involvement in their 

children’s education is recognised as a crucial 

factor in combating underachievement. While some 

parents do keep a keen eye on their children’s 

progress, others have no understanding of their 

work, no connection with the school, and therefore 

do not know how to offer support. Parents 

- often single mothers - may themselves have a 

low level of education and command of English, 

and feel intimidated and confused by the school 

environment. In 1997 there was an attempt by the 

Somali community to establish a forum to deal with 

common problems - this subject produced one of 

the most heartfelt appeals: 

Fellow Somalis, two decades of multicultural 

education have not delivered equality of 

education for our pupils. Parents need to fight 

back! We need to nurture the potential of our 

children, foster their educational values, and 

ensure the involvement of the whole community. 

We must take responsibility for our children, as 

their elders…. Let us challenge the problems, 

and give our support to our children…. (Evelyn 

Oldfield Unit, 1997: 11) 

Among the many strategies offered by reports 

to tackle the problems outlined above, the 

recommendation to improve the communication 

between home and school is always paramount. 

Somalis are being brought onto the governing 

bodies and even if permanent Somali staff are rare, 

sessional workers and interpreters are hired. Some 

of the best results have been obtained where a 

linkworker as been appointed to liaise between 

school and parents. 

The earlier this contact can start, the better. The 

importance of early education and play for child 

wellbeing and later educational achievement is well 

documented in the literature. 93 But Somali parents 

may have little concept of its significance, coming 

from an environment where a child would not 

have started school until six or seven years old, but 

would be surrounded by kin and neighbours of all 

ages. Recent research in the London borough of 

Enfield, which provides an under fives home school 

liaison service, found a low take-up of sessions by 

Somali parents. Mothers (the main carers, either 

as lone parents or through the customary division 

of labour), were often hampered by their own 

language difficulties, and did not understand the 

system. They also might be deterred by the fear of 

racism, or too preoccupied with sorting out other 

aspects of refugees’ life to make this a priority. 

Only sustained outreach work, preferably by a 

Somali speaker or community group, is likely to 

improve access to the service, as it has in Tower 

Hamlets and Haringey (Robertson, 2002: 57). 

Given the variety of influences on a child’s 

education - family background, character of local 

environment, quality of school - generalisations 

about Somali schooling are difficult. It does seem 

true that many children are not reaching their full 

potential, yet education is an area where reports, 

committed to the identification of problems, can 

present an imbalanced picture. There is another 

side to the story. The Camden researchers 

emphasise that “most teachers who have refugee 

pupils in their classes do not see them as problem 

pupils. Individual refugee pupils, like individual 

non-refugee pupils, may have various learning and 

93. See overviews in Robertson (2002); Cox (2002). 


47

other educational difficulties and needs, but refugee 

pupils also bring into the classroom a range of 

opportunities and perspectives that can enrich the 

learning and understandings of all who are working 

there” (Ali and Jones, 2000: 6). A teacher told them 

that: 

A year 11 Somali girl is a talented 

singer performing at the Royal Albert 

Hall. Somali pupils are achieving 

at GCSE and going on to further 

education. A Somali girl took her GCSE 

maths in year 9 and achieved an A 

grade…. (ibid: 9) 

To talk to a group of Somali teenagers in a north 

London youth club, all of whom came to England 

when they were small, is to meet a bunch of 

articulate young people with positive experience 

of school, close friendships with children from 

all ethnic groups, and plans for their colleges and 

careers. 94 There are problems, but also great 

potential. 

Youth 

Hibo Aden has no problem with being the only 

girl who regularly attends the Horn Stars Somali 

youth club near the Stonebridge estate, Harlesden. 

Surrounded by teenage boys, she is as much at 

ease with the table tennis and pool as she is on the 

football pitch when she plays for the club. Football 

is an obsession for many young Somali men, but it 

is more unusual to find a young woman with the 

same passion. Her success is celebrated in a local 

magazine: 

16-year-old Stonebridge teenager, Hibo Aden, 

has been picked to play for Queens Park 

Rangers ladies team. 

She was spotted by talent scouts when playing 

for a girl’s [sic] football team at Brent Summer 

University last year, and is her new team’s 

youngest player.… 

Hibo came to Stonebridge with her family 

from war-torn Somalia nine years ago, and 

is taking nine GCSE’s [sic] at John Kelly Girls 

City Technology College. Her favourite subject 

is maths – football is not in the curriculum. 

But as a sporty all-rounder she enjoys playing 

basketball, netball and rounders at school. 

Hibo thinks the quality of life on Stonebridge 

is getting better as old buildings come down 

and new ones go up…. ‘Things are already 

improving here. It will be good when the new 

community centre is built, so there will be more 

places for kids to go’. 

For young people, there are, she says, already 

‘lots of opportunities out there’ – from playing 

sport to getting qualifications. ‘If you want to 

achieve something, it’s better to have a go 

rather than just lying around waiting for things 

to happen’. 

Hibo arrived in the UK as a refugee, but now 

has full citizenship and relishes life in London. ‘I 

know more about Britain than I do the country 

I was born in, which is not surprising really. I’m 

very happy here. Life’s quite good for me on 

Stonebridge. I don’t plan on leaving.’ 

As for ambitions, Hibo is keeping her options 

open, knuckling down to her studies to get 

qualified, making time for sport, hobbies and 

friends. 

But she has one goal clearly in her sights 

this season – putting a good few balls past 

the opposition’s goalie. (Chat, Stonebridge 

Housing Action Trust, February 2003: 12) 

One of eight children, Hibo left Mogadishu when 

she was two, before eventually coming to the 

UK with her mother. Yet despite this apparent 

integration into British society, and her ignorance 

of her birthplace, her Somali identity is important 

to her. 95 For Hibo this means two things: firstly, 

signalled by the scarf wrapped tightly round her 

head, it signifies religion. Secondly, the family. 

Despite being separated from her father, she has 

a close relationship with her mother. The trust 

on which this is based allows her considerable 

freedom, while the security of a tightly-knit family 

enables her to enjoy her independence. She has 

planned her A-level courses, and aims to study 

psychology at university. 


It is the family that she identifies as the critical 

area for Somali experience in the UK. The main 

problem for Somalis, she maintains, is not racism, 

but missing family members - families divided by 

the circumstances of war. Hibo had to manage 

without her father, and there are others who arrive 

in the UK with no parents at all. In a significant 

and comprehensive recent report, Lucy Hannan 

(2003) investigates the plight of the separated 

Somali children arriving in the UK with only a “gap 

in their hearts” where friends and family should 

be. 96 Their parents have scraped together up to 

US$10,000 to send a child from the dangerous 

chaos of Mogadishu or Hargeisa to Europe or the 

USA, believing that there would be opportunities 

for education and a safe life unavailable at 

home. Somalis are among the largest groups of 

unaccompanied children entering the UK; Home 

Office statistics show a growth from 53 young 

Somalis aged seventeen or under entering in 1992 

to 198 in 2001. But these figures only include those 

seeking asylum - many more enter undetected and 

therefore have no official existence. 

The outcome of their journey is often very 

different from the dream. At the mercy of 

smugglers (illegally transporting youngsters for 

profit) or traffickers (who have an explicit purpose 

of exploitation) the children are often abandoned 

once they reach their destination. They may then 

be claimed by clan or kin, and put in the care or 

‘relatives’, real or fictitious. The lucky few are 

taken in by a caring family; others are exploited 

for domestic labour, 97 benefit fraud, or, at worst, 

prostitution and crime. The welfare benefits they 

receive may be sent home as remittances rather 

than used for their own support. Some young 

people are forced to adopt new identities, lying 

about their history and their age in order to claim 

the local authority services open to the undereighteens. 

Caught between the demands of two cultures, the 

psychological effects of the experience on children 

who may be already traumatised can be devastating. 

In boys this may manifest itself in aggression, 

contributing to the stereotype of violent Somali 

youth. At school they may suffer bullying and 

isolation, with little emotional support outside. 

Such was the experience of Lee, a young Somali 

war orphan who arrived alone in the UK, speaking 

no English, at the age of thirteen. Placed in a hostel 

with other refugee teenagers, he had to fend for 

himself: 

I was missing my family and the people were 

all different from me and not settled…. There 

were people from all different countries living 

with me and we had to try to learn how to talk 

to each other. We developed a little bit of sign 

language as a way to express our emotions. 98 

Few separated youngsters succeed educationally. 

“Success stories are few” 99 and those that do 

gain qualifications are often plagued by emotional 

difficulties. Failure and instability may result in 

the young person being returned to Somalia to 

face a raft of new problems. 100 For those who 

stay, among the most negative destinations are 

psychiatric or juvenile detention units. Suicides 

are not uncommon. Others manage to hang on to 

their sense of self - but compare Hibo’s optimistic 

verve with this sad account of Ahmed, driven out of 

Mogadishu in 1999 by militia activity: 

I travelled on the plane with my fixer.…[who] 

came with me on a bus to central London and 

took me to a phone box, where he phoned 

some family friends…. He just told them I was 

here and they should come and collect me. He 

left me in the phone box. I was very nervous. I 

didn’t know what would happen to me. I waited 

for some time, then someone did come, and 

took me to their house…. 

The mother was nice to me, but the children - 

they had been here a long time, and they didn’t 

like me. I was from Africa; everything about me 

was different. They were abusive and said very 

94. Interviews, Horn Stars Somali Youth Club, Harlesden, London 4.4.03. 

95. Interview, 4.4.03. 

96. Gap in their hearts: The experience of separated Somali 

children was commissioned by Integrated Regional Information Networks 

(IRIN), and is also available on IRIN’s website 

97. See Waris Dirie’s account of her treatment at the hands of wealthy 

elite Somali relatives in London (1998). 

98. Independent on Sunday 15.6.03. 

99. Hannan, 2003: 45. 

100. Ibid.: 54-62 


49

abusive things to me. 

I lived with the family for about one year, 

but couldn’t get on with them, and was very 

unhappy. It was very difficult. The family 

would talk to each other, and laugh, but I 

was separate, and I didn’t understand any of 

them….. My other problem was at school. I had 

been to secondary school, but I had a language 

problem. I sat in the class, but there was a lot I 

didn’t understand…. 

Ahmed then went to social services, but this 

resulted in a string of moves from area to area, 

being shunted between social services, the 

homeless persons’ department, and community 

organisations. He ended up in a hostel, living on 

“a tiny amount each week”: 

I miss my family a lot. I don’t know how to 

contact them. If I had money, I would go - I 

hope eventually to find them. It was not a good 

idea to come here; I should have stayed with 

them whatever was happening. Sending your 

children away is a disastrous idea…. There are 

social services, but it is full of empty promises. 

I go to see social workers…. [but].… I am 

always dealing with different people who don’t 

know me or anything about me. Life is very 

lonely. 101 

The contrast between Hibo’s story and those 

of Lee and Ahmed illustrate the danger of 

essentialising ‘Somali youth’ and generalising about 

experience. While some flounder, others are doing 

well. But there are regularities in young people’s 

accounts which point to significant factors affecting 

their short lives. Of primary importance, as Hibo 

indicates, is the security of family background. 

The difficulties of many separated children stand 

in stark contrast to the possible stability of those 

with strong family support. 

But the presence or absence of a parent is not 

the only factor here. Much depends on the past 

history of the family, and the emotional, social, and 

financial state of (most often) the mother. One 

interesting and unusual report by Farah and Smith 

(1999) has recorded and evaluated the work of a 

Somali support initiative, set up to assist access to 

services. Using schools to identify potential clients, 

in this case troubled youngsters, information on 

45 households is presented, incorporating the 

children’s and carers’ own words. What emerges 

from these case studies is a picture of family life 

disrupted by war and displacement with many 

women struggling to care for large numbers of 

children on their own. Many of the women identify 

the change in family relationships, the global 

dispersal of the extended family, and the absence 

of a strong male figure in the UK as contributing 

to their own and their children’s problems. Often 

there are financial strains related to lack of work 

and a marked drop in employment status. All these 

factors rebound on the parent-child relationship 

and the stability of the young person. Disruptive 

children, wayward teenagers, and young Somali 

males caught up in a street culture of drugs and 

petty crime may well have caring parents at home. 

Cultural conflict 

Parents and carers often ascribe young people’s 

disturbed behaviour to their past traumatic 

experiences and previous educational vacuum. 

They also recognise the cultural conflict in which 

the children are caught, and the intergenerational 

difficulties this causes. A mother comments that: 

Children have more liberty in the UK than 

in Somalia. Teenage rebellion is very high in 

Somali children these days; they question their 

culture and the authority of the parents. The 

children want to adapt to the way of life of the 

children in their classes. In Somalia children 

belong to the whole community and therefore 

can be told off by anybody who knows the 

family and has witnessed the child doing wrong. 

That does not happened in England. I once…. 

saw a Somali girl with friends of Asian origin 

walking down the road swearing and shouting 

at each other. I told her if her mother knew 

what she was up to she wouldn’t be happy. 

She simply told me to mind my own business. 

This could not happen in Somalia. (Farah and 

Smith, 1999: 97) 

There are pitfalls associated with both integration 

into contemporary urban life and isolation from 


British peers. Writing of the “cultural confusion” 

confronting Somali teenagers, Hannan (2003: 

35) argues that adults may react with “extreme 

traditionalism”, countered by “obsessive 

‘assimilationism’ in the young”. Whilst parents seek 

security in their own culture, their children strive 

to adapt, and in doing so gain a superior grasp of 

the wider society. Somalis often point out that it is 

children who may provide the bridge between their 

elders and officialdom - dealing with paperwork 

and translating at the surgery and social security 

office. These roles conflict with the ‘traditional’ 

authority of the adult. 

Many of the older generation, mourning the 

dilution of Somali mores, attempt to redress 

assimilation into popular youth culture by involving 

their children in ‘Somali’ activities. The report on 

Somali Culture to the Somali Community Meeting 

instigated by the human rights organisation 

Liberation and Jeremy Corbyn MP (29.04.03) 

warned that: 

….I feel that the Somali children are in danger 

loosing [losing] their culture and tradition. 

We have very strong culture and tradition such 

as our own singing, dancing, dressing, food, 

cooking, poems and many others. In this 

respect, in order to save our culture and 

tradition we would need to set up our own 

centres to carry out workshops assembles 

[assemblies], teaching, holding cultural fashion 

events… This would enable us to orientate 

our children to prevent, drugs, thefts and bad 

attitudes in public… These children have 

difficulty to go out alone because they afraid 

racism attacks but if there would be cultural 

centres that they could entertain during their 

spare times would help them. 102 

But ‘culture’ is as ‘culture’ does. Culture is the 

fabric of actual lived experience, not a static 

heritage that can be meaningfully reproduced in any 

context. If the children on stage at a Somali event 

seem a little lacklustre, it is because their dance is 

not an integral part of their daily lives. The problem 

is complex: whilst a celebration of ethnic identity 

is significant for both young and old, it cannot in 

itself provide an instinctive moral framework which 

will inevitably override external influence. In the 

view of one confident and successful young woman, 

Ubah Egoh, the attempt to corral youngsters into 

the Somali fold with after school and weekend 

cultural events is counterproductive, breeding 

resentment and encouraging wild behaviour in 

the comparatively free atmosphere of school. 103 

Ubah also pointed out that when parents feel 

powerless in other areas of their lives, they may 

try to exert control over the only thing they can 

- their children. But strict discipline at home along 

accepted Somali lines can lead to duplicity and 

non-communication between child and parent. 

Attempts to insulate children are also doomed to 

failure - ‘culture’ is communicated by the media, 

advertising, daily contact in shops and streets. As a 

Somali youth leader put it, neither homes nor even 

faith schools can be ‘waterproof’ against the wider 

society. 

In order to manage daily life, young people must 

feel comfortable with the culture of their peers. 

When Ahmed arrived in the UK, he felt isolated 

not only from British youth, but also from the 

other Somali children in the family who had grown 

up in London. The older children are when they 

land in the UK and the less education and the 

more trauma they may have experienced, the wider 

the cultural and linguistic gap between themselves 

and other young people is likely to be. For younger 

arrivals it will be less difficult to negotiate the 

demands of home, school, and street. Teenage boys 

in the Horn Stars Somali youth club who came to 

London when they were small say that their Somali 

identity is significant. Some are proud of belonging 

to a family ‘tribe’ that can trace relationships back 

for generations, and all express the feelings of 

solidarity that exist inside the community - feelings 

which spill over to any Somali, wherever he or she 

may be encountered. But they also see themselves 

as part of British society. They describe themselves 

as ‘a Somali British citizen’ or ‘a black British African 

Somali’ and claim that they can fit into school life as 

well as into their own Somali organisation. 104 

101. Ibid.: 53. 

102. Halim Mohamoud, Somali culture in UK. Reproduced as written 

103. Interviews, 18.3.03. 

104. Interview 4.4.03. 


51

In the amalgamation of popular youth culture with 

Somali traditions of family relationships and 

religious precept which some youngsters achieve, 

specific Somali associations can play an important 

role. The key here is the extent to which they 

reflect the interests of young people who identify 

with the different environments of both home 

and school. Another contributor to the Somali 

community meeting pointed out that mainstream 

youth clubs, besides exhibiting racism and 

discrimination, “do not understand the cultural 

needs of Somali young people”. 105 This ethnic 

antagonism and cultural dissonance can apply to 

relations with other black youth as well as white. 

While some young Somali men are drawn to 

African-Caribbean music and street style, there 

also exists tension between Somalis and both other 

African and African-Caribbean communities. In 

2002 a young Somali, Kayser Osman, was racially 

insulted and knifed to death outside the Acorn 

youth club in Harlesden. His assailant was also 

black. The1996 Liverpool City Council survey on 

the development needs of Somali young people 

found that nearly all the young participants saw the 

establishment of their own Somali youth centre 

as essential. Rather than promoting a ‘heritage’ 

culture, this was envisioned as a recreational and 

educational centre, where young Somalis could 

pursue their interests in a familiar social and 

linguistic setting. Young men in Leicester, hanging 

out in parks and public places, wanted the same 

thing. 106 

In Liverpool, no such meeting place yet exists. In 

the Merseyside Community Centre, young men 

lounge about the steps and sit around in the 

front room. They would like a pool table upstairs, 

but the older generation feel this might cause a 

disturbance. Unemployed, undereducated, unskilled, 

there is nothing for them to do. They are bored, 

but do not feel easy in what few facilities exist 

for youth in the city. Unlike more recent Somali 

settlements, shaped by younger refugees who feel 

more at home in mainstream society, these boys 

inherit the particularly isolated world of seafarers 

who have formed a community apart. But yet they 

do not identify with their parents, with whom they 

are often at odds. In the report to the April 29th 

2003 Somali Community Meeting in London, the 

youth group concluded that “Somali young people 

do not have a role model that they can imitate in 

every aspect of their life. This community is very 

new to this society and up till now there are no 

successful stories that we could tell the young 

people”. The older seamen’s settlements are not 

so new, but the vicious circle of lack of education, 

joblessness, and poverty repeats itself through the 

generations. 

The confidence of Hibo, Ubah, and countless 

other young people encourages the hope that this 

present lack of role models will, in time, give way 

to a generation of parents who have negotiated the 

dissonance between Somali and Western culture, 

and feel secure in their own identity as British 

Somalis. At present, despite outstanding individuals, 

the community as a whole expresses a lack of selfconfidence, 

betrayed in an overriding concern with 

Somali youth, ‘the future of the community’. 

105. Mohamoud Ahmed Nur et al: Youth report presented to the Somali 

Community Meeting 29.4.03. 

106. Daahir and Duale, 2002: 41-43. 


Health 

Despite the importance of the issue, there are as 

yet comparatively few recent studies that focus 

exclusively on the topic of health, 107 which also 

receives somewhat cursory treatment in regional 

studies of the Somali community. 108 When the 

health group reported to a session of the Somali 

Community Meeting hosted by Jeremy Corbyn 

MP at the House of Commons (29.03.03) the 

document mentioned the high rate of infectious 

diseases - hepatitis, tuberculosis - and the 

prevalence of chronic conditions such as cancer, 

hypertension, and diabetes. It also expressed 

concern over the growth of HIV/AIDS. There 

is little here which is Somali-specific. Various 

conditions associated with a western lifestyle, 

such as the growing incidence of obesity, are not 

yet mentioned in research as a problem. On the 

contrary, according to a Somali health advisor 

at Oxford House, a Tower Hamlets community 

centre, the danger is more one of malnutrition, 

exacerbated by poverty and the practice of sending 

money back to families at home (Green, 2001: 

B3). But other conditions, asthma for example, 

are making their appearance, and the basic profile 

of physical health is shared by many deprived 

communities, both indigenous and refugee. 

The contributing causes of ill health are wellrehearsed. 

Poor housing is one. Local authorities 

have an obligation to house those with refugee 

status and leave to remain, but the social housing 

stock is dwindling, and refugees often find 

themselves in the oldest accommodation, plagued 

by damp and vermin. 109 Asylum seekers without 

leave to remain will be housed in temporary 

accommodation which includes hostels, bed and 

breakfasts and short-life property. There are also 

problems associated with more recent housing 

- when lifts in tower blocks break, families with 

young children are confined indoors. Somalis 

also suffer a particular problem of overcrowding. 

Through restrictions on birth control and a cultural 

emphasis on the procreative capacity of women, 

Somali Muslim families tend to be large - to have 

six or seven children is not unusual. In addition, 

new arrivals often have difficulty finding somewhere 

to live, and take advantage of norms of family or 

clan obligation to move in with relatives. British 

housing is not designed for large households, and 

the health of members inevitably suffers. 

Access to health care is another problem, common 

to many groups of refugees. In his study of the 

needs of Somali and Eritrean women refugees 

in Haringey, Bernard-Jones (1992) found that 

this was a particular site of stress. In theory, all 

asylum seekers and refugees are entitled to the 

same NHS care as the indigenous population, but 

what is required is a basic understanding of the 

system which Somalis often lack. They also need 

ready contact with a GP, and good communication 

with health professionals. But many face an initial 

problem of registering with a doctor - in areas 

with a mobile population and a high proportion of 

refugees, doctors may be reluctant to open their 

lists. This is both because of perceived pressure 

of numbers (Green, 2001: 24) and also because of 

communication - arranging translators presents 

a severe financial and logistical problem to the 

present NHS. In April 2002 a Dr McAvoy, with a 

dedicated Sheffield practice, explained his reasons 

for closing his doors. His 6,100 patients speak 

37 languages between them – including Somali 

– and a third have little English. Translators are 

sometimes available in person or by phone, but the 

consultation will then take from twice to ten times 

as long. 110 For the patient, lack of good translation 

can sabotage their health care. In Harper-Bulman’s 

study of Somalis and west London maternity 

services (1997), language and communication 

107. Exceptions include Marianne Green’s report on Somali health needs 

in Tower Hamlets (2001), and Kate Harper-Bulman’s thesis on Somali 

women’s experiences of West London maternity services (1997). See also 

Mohamed (1993), Musa and Marks (1996) and Mullock and Duale 

(1999). 

108. E.g. the brief overview of the problems in accessing health provision 

for Somalis in Leicester in Daahir and Duale, 2002: 33-35. 

109. For Somali housing conditions in Liverpool see the survey by the 

Granby Toxteth Community Project, 1993: 41-49. Holman and Holman 

(2003) have researched housing conditions in the London Borough of 

Hackney, whilst Cole and Robinson’s recent report (2003) is the most 

thorough investigation of Somali housing experience to date. 

110. Drinkwater, James, The Guardian 25.04.02 


53

emerges as the most significant factor in Somali 

women’s experience. 

Mental health 

But the area of health does not only cover disease 

and management of life cycle events. ‘Health’ 

refers to a state of wellbeing, in which physical 

and psychological aspects are intertwined. Mental 

disturbance is often somatised - anxiety and stress 

expressed in aches and pains. Both mind and body 

need attention, but it is sometimes easier for 

busy doctors to dole out medication. As a Somali 

refugee in Liverpool commented: 

The doctor does not give me enough time 

to explain my symptoms. Before hearing me 

out, he gives me painkillers. I am always given 

painkillers as a solution. (Xifaras, 1996: 43) 

Significantly, there is more material on mental than 

physical problems. 111 In her study of the health 

needs of refugees in Tower Hamlets, Green (2001: 

26) found that it was the Somali community that 

had the greatest mental health requirements. In 

discussing health, Somalis themselves speak of 

the prevalence of mental suffering, ranging from 

symptoms of stress to the alarming increase in 

suicide, especially among young men. 112 This 

is borne out by studies. Farah and Smith (1999: 

110; 115-116) found that 46% of the 56 children 

referred to the Somali Support Initiative in east 

London schools had health problems. Roughly 

categorised, 23% had physical symptoms, and 37.5% 

mental conditions. The psychological difficulties 

ranged from autism and severe conduct disorder 

and/or severe learning difficulties to behavioural 

problems and traumatic reaction to stress. 

In a two year project, Somali Mobility and Mental 

Health Research (SOMMER), researchers at King’s 

College and Queen Mary, London, are measuring 

the prevalence rates of common mental health 

problems, levels of geographical mobility and health 

service utilisation among Somali refugees living 

in the London boroughs of Tower Hamlets and 

Lambeth. Preliminary findings, which are based 

on a population sample of 143 Somalis, show that 

depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), 

and anxiety disorders are the most common 

mental health problems among this community. For 

some, geographical mobility and constant changing 

of address are also associated with depressive 

disorders. 113 

Hermione Lovell and Zeinab Mohamed’s ongoing 

study of Worries and well-being in the Somali 

community in Manchester illustrates the diversity of 

the Somali community both in its experience and 

interpretation of mental distress. The high levels 

of depression which they found appear to have 

different roots according to generation. Older 

people are laid low by the comparison between 

their British reality and their memories of Somalia 

- isolation compared with sociable communality; 

grey skies, cold, and rain in contrast to the warmth 

and brightness of Somali sun. The preoccupations 

of their children, with little or no recall of their 

homeland, have more to do with the conflict 

between their home environment and the culture 

of school and peers. 

Class and generation are further factors affecting 

the level of vulnerability. Elite urbanites may have 

suffered the effects of war, but will not feel as lost 

as a rural refugee with a nomadic background, 

accustomed to the slow rhythm of herding rather 

than the rush of cities. Such a transition can 

generate a corroding fearfulness, not understanding 

how to handle novel situations, alarmed at the 

changes in their children, and, as one young woman 

put it, “afraid of what they don’t know”. 114 For 

the more educated, it is the loss of status and selfesteem 

that undermines their confidence. 

Cross-cultural diagnosis of mental illness is 

famously difficult. Part of the problem is translation. 

This is reflected in practice, in the surgery or 

consulting room, where, as is most often the case, 

practitioner and patient do not share a common 

tongue. A friend, relative, or child may be brought 

along to interpret, but the lack of privacy can 

inhibit discussion of intimate matters or emotional 

states. But there are more fundamental problems 

of language which go beyond command of English. 

Diagnosis is culturally determined, and many of 

the categories of western medicine and psychiatry 

have no Somali equivalent. Marian Bullivant and 


colleagues, in a study of Somali mental health 

in Liverpool (1995), point out that indigenous 

explanations for psychological states tend to 

involve physical, moral, or spiritual realms. There 

is as yet little research either on the content 

of Somali aetiology or the persistence of these 

understandings among Somalis in the UK. But 

the study’s attempt to find Somali translations of 

western psychological terms (ibid: 19-23), graphic 

though the descriptions of symptoms may be, 

illustrate the difficulty of finding a shared lay frame 

of reference in the absence of a common body of 

recognised equivalents. For example: 

Aggression: Gardarro/ lacking justice. 

Nervous breakdown: Cudur dadka u keena 

murugo iyo werwer daran/ an illness that 

causes people to be miserable and [have] 

severe worries. 

Confusion: Isku-darsamid. Isku-buuq/ being 

mixed up. Being shouted at from within 

one’s self. 

Without a thorough grasp both of a patient’s 

understanding of mental illness and the 

circumstances that have provoked it, the risk of 

misdiagnosis is high. Cultural factors also have to be 

taken into account - beliefs and practices that are 

intrinsic to the religion and practice of one society 

may be deemed irrational or unbalanced in another. 

Gabriel and Ritchie cite the case of a patient who 

confirmed that God did indeed speak to him (2002: 

30). The psychiatrist understood that the man was 

‘hearing voices’ until an advocate explained Muslim 

convictions concerning prayer. Conventional 

western diagnosis is also on shifting sand, and the 

evidence confused. A 1997 evaluation of Daryeelka 

Maanka, a project for Somalis with mental health 

problems in Tower Hamlets, found that 14% of 

clients were suffering from schizophrenia (Smith, 

1997). Four years later, a follow up study of the 

same project put the percentage at 54 (Gabriel and 

Ritchie, 2002: 8). Does this reflect a real increase in 

111. E.g. Bullivant et al (1995); Dialogue 195; Gabriel and Ritchie 

(2002); Karim (1995); Karim et al (1997); Rehman et al (1993); Smith 

(1997). 

112. See F.O. Mohamed’s article (2003) on Depression and suicide 

the condition, or developments in diagnosis? In any 

event, given that the general schizophrenic rate for 

the UK population as a whole is 1-2%, this figure 

seems unrealistic, and we do not know enough 

about the comparability of the two samples to 

reach conclusions. Post-traumatic stress disorder 

(PTSD) has no exact indigenous counterpart, 

but is often cited in connection with Somalis. 

Nasir Warfa, who is currently completing a PhD 

thesis on mental health problems among Somali 

refugees living in London and Minneapolis, reviewed 

research studies from the USA which showed that 

the incidence of PTSD is higher among US soldiers 

in Somalia than among indigenous fighters. Are 

syndromes, let alone the causes, culturally specific? 

Apart from the problem of translating medical 

terminology, and patients’ poor English, individuals 

may lack the concepts with which to capture 

experience and communicate their condition to 

professionals. For those born into a large extended 

family in Somalia, surrounded by generations of kin, 

‘loneliness’ is not part of their vocabulary. There 

is no word for ‘depression’ in Somali. Beset with 

unfamiliar feelings that they can neither encompass 

in words nor share with others, refugees’ sense of 

isolation can become intolerable. 

Meeting the needs of the emotionally vulnerable 

is not easy. There is currently much debate 

around the relevance of introspective methods 

of treatment for members of societies who 

are not familiar with the Western tradition of 

individualism and the popularisation of Freud. The 

harsh, nomadic conditions of Somalia have bred a 

culture of endurance - value is placed on fortitude 

and self-reliance, and ‘weakness’ or apparent selfindulgence 

is stigmatised. Farah and Smith asked 

the 41 parents or carers of children involved in 

their outreach Somali Support Initiative whether 

they would now consider talking to a psychiatrist 

about their problems. 66% said they would. Several 

pointed out that this role was once fulfilled in 

Somalia by the extended family, but, as one said, 

“with the breakdown of that there has to be 

another offloading channel” (1999: 83). But this was 

among male Somali immigrants. 

113. Interview with Nasir Warfa, 25.3.03. 

114. Interview 18.3.03. 


55

‘now’, after an encounter with counselling. Bringing 

people to the point of seeking this culturally 

unfamiliar process is another matter. Even after the 

experience some were negative: 

I do not see the benefit of talking to a 

psychiatrist about problems. I thought 

psychiatrists saw mad or mentally ill people. 

(ibid: 84) 

I am not sure whether talking about worries is 

useful to refugee people who have other major 

difficulties in adapting to a new country. (ibid: 

82) 

What will the specialist do to take away all the 

problems we have? (ibid: 83) 

Individuals differ in their reaction to counselling 

- younger men and women with more exposure 

to western preoccupations with emotions and 

relationships may be more receptive. For their 

parents, with so many practical problems to face, 

talking may seem to be beside the point. Yet the 

psychological effect of daily realities is the first 

of two areas identified by Gabriel and Ritchie 

in their informative overview of Somali mental 

health in Tower Hamlets (2002). The issues already 

raised in previous sections - language, housing 

(including homelessness), unemployment, racism, 

social benefits and poverty - all can contribute to 

insecurity and stress. 115 Uncertainty about leave to 

remain is a major cause of anxiety, as one Somali 

man emphasised: 

The government should give quick decisions for 

asylum seekers about their immigration process: 

the longer the decision takes, the more they will 

be demoralised and pushed to drugs. The minds 

of refugees can’t be settled unless they get a 

decision. (Lukes and Bell, 2002: 67) 

An individual may have a lurking propensity for 

mental instability, and a serious practical problem 

may push the worrier over the edge. Difficult 

material circumstances also contribute to a sense 

of social exclusion; the experience of living on 

the margins of society has profound psychological 

repercussions. 

The second, and related, area is cultural difference. 

Social problems are not the preserve of Somalis, 

but the attempt to deal with their effects is 

more successful when made by a member of the 

community: 

I can only have the confidence of contacting a 

specialist if there is someone who will help with 

the language. Without communication you feel 

like the whole world is closed from you. (Farah 

and Smith, 1999: 84) 

Somali health professionals can share both 

the language and the client’s mindset. They will 

understand that faced with the offer of counselling, 

Somalis want to start with discussing concrete 

concerns rather than their psychological effects. 

Somali practitioners have often undergone the 

refugee experience themselves, and maintain 

that by addressing the practical problems first, 

trust is established, stress reduced, and the client 

encouraged to ‘open up’ about their nightmares 

and powerful emotions. Abdirashid Gulaid, a 

Daryeelka Maanka caseworker, finds that he is 

accepted into Somali homes where the door has 

been shut on a British psychiatric nurse. 116 Yet 

the majority of Somalis like Abdi who work in the 

field of health come from the voluntary sector. 

In statutory bodies there are few - there is no 

Somali doctor in his borough of Tower Hamlets, 

only three Somali health care assistants in hospitals, 

one counsellor and one trainee student. 117 This 

is unfortunate. Only a Somali practitioner can 

truly appreciate the effects of war which have 

touched every Somali refugee - whether the 

terror of torture, rape, and the threat of death, 

the experience of abandoning home and fleeing 

Somalia, the grief of bereavement, or the fear for 

family and friends left behind. The war wounds and 

physical disabilities inflicted by the war have their 

psychological equivalents. “According to a Somali 

advocate for mental health”, writes Green (2001: 

26), “there are more cases of persistent traumatic 

mental stress than settlement related problems 

among the Somali community”. Memories lock 

people into the past, and rumours of current chaos 

generate an anxious malaise and stop them moving 

on: 


I have been here since 1983 and the war 

effects [sic] everyone in some way, when I think 

about what is happening I can’t sleep or eat, 

you feel sick. Your body is here but your brain 

is not… When people came here they were 

expecting a better life and they have not got it. 

(Bullivant et al, 1995: 14) 

Understanding these problems from the inside, 

much of the work around mental illness is being 

undertaken by Somalis themselves. Published 

research is still thin on the ground, 118 but several 

projects are under way, such as the SOMMER 

and Manchester studies mentioned above. Other 

reports authored by British researchers rely on 

Somali interviewers. 119 Until now, the bias in 

Somali health research has been towards areas 

such as Tower Hamlets which, although it has a 

refugee population, is based on the older settler 

communities. It is to be hoped that investigation 

will also take place in the area of more recent 

arrivals from the Somali diaspora. As we have seen, 

needs change with generation and circumstance. 

But the East End of London also enjoys an 

outstanding base for research in the practical 

service provided by Daryeelka Maanka, (‘Support 

for the Mind’) a MIND in Tower Hamlets project 

which provides drop-in information, a lunch 

club, and social activities, besides individual 

support work and advocacy for those with 

mental problems, so acting as a bridge between 

the community and statutory services. 120 The 

Manchester team is also taking practical action 

to deal with ‘worries’ and promote ‘wellbeing’ 

- assisting with capacity building, advising on how 

to keep warm and healthy in the cold and wet, and 

creating links with Cumbrian farmers to provide 

halal milk and meat for the Somali community. As 

with counselling, with the combination of problem 

solving and therapy action research provides an 

effective forum for collecting data. 

Both projects also provide help with accessing 

services. One fact that emerged from Gabriel 

and Ritchie’s study in Tower Hamlets is the 

overrepresentation of Somalis in psychiatric wards, 

with a high incidence of sectioning (2002: 23). 

While this could be related to institutional racism 

in the mental health sector, it also may reflect the 

lack of access to preventative measures and early 

treatment. There are several factors that inhibit 

contact with the appropriate services. Apart from 

patchy provision, Somali refugees may not know 

what does exist nor understand its potential 

relevance to them. They may not have sufficient 

command of English to approach professionals, or 

access to an advocate to speak on their behalf. The 

cultural factors operating within the community 

have been already mentioned - the stigma attached 

to mental instability, especially for men, means that 

admission of psychological problems may carry a 

high social risk. In addition, asylum seekers worry 

that a demand on services might affect their claim. 

Even more difficult is to ensure that young 

Somalis with emotional problems have access to 

appropriate help before descending into a spiral of 

despair. The most severe cases of trauma are found 

in those who have had first hand experience of 

violence. The children interviewed in the Minority 

Rights Group’s report on the impact of war on 

children refers specifically to members of minority 

clans, but found that other Somali children in 

London similarly suffered nightmares and other 

signs of trauma six years after leaving Somalia 

(MRG, 1997: 26). Other particularly vulnerable 

children are those sent over to the UK alone 

by their parents in the hope that they will be 

educated. 121 The effects of separation are often 

compounded by abuse; this testimony of a Swedish 

psychologist working with separated children also 

applies to the UK: 

115. Over half of the Somali enquiries at the Hillingdon Citizens Advice 

Bureau April-September 2002 concerned benefits; nearly a quarter were 

about housing. Both categories were higher for Somalis than other clients 

(Elmi and Brown, 2002). 

116. Interview, 22.7.03. 

117. The project staff are campaigning around this issue, which is also 

being addressed elsewhere, such as by refugee-run employment projects in 

West London. See Lukes and Bell, 2002: 99. 

118. E.g. Bullivant et al (1995). 

119. E.g. Gabriel and Ritchie (2002). 

120. Interview with project workers Muna Ismael and Abdirashid Gulaid, 

22.7.03. For details of these services see the evaluation by Gabriel and 

Ritchie (2002). 

121. See above p. 57 


57

I would say that every unaccompanied 

child experiences problems of some 

sort: it’s just the degree of severity 

– inability to sleep, nightmares, and 

anxiety about parents, loneliness, 

self-preoccupation. Some suffer posttraumatic 

stress and depression. Among 

the boys, we see many of them ‘acting 

out’ their problems – getting violent at 

school. (Hannan, 2003: 32) 

In his study of the educational experiences of 

Somali refugee pupils, Hassan asserts that the 

majority of children in detention originally arrived 

in the UK unaccompanied by their parents. 122 

As with other troubled youngsters, they may 

well suffer from a lack of schooling. Both these 

disadvantages contribute to the high proportion 

of Somali youth in Feltham and other detention 

centres for juveniles, many of whom suffer from 

mental instability. 

Khat 

If still out on the streets, these youths are particularly 

susceptible to the overuse of a Somali stimulant 

– khat. 123 

Khat refers to the leaves and stem tips of a shrub 

grown widely in highland areas of Kenya, Ethiopia, 

and Yemen. When chewed, it gradually produces 

feelings of wellbeing, alertness, and sociability, due 

to its content of cathine and cathinone, chemicals 

which produce effects similar to but less strong 

than amphetamine. 124 Islam forbids the use of 

alcohol, but for many years khat has been an 

intrinsic part of male social culture in Somalia. Men 

from all backgrounds gather at the end of a day’s 

work to sit, talk, relax - and chew. The habit has 

followed the Somalis to the UK. The leaves have to 

be fresh, but supply networks operate to deliver 

khat to Heathrow and thence to the provinces 

within 24-48 hours of harvesting. Although banned 

in some other countries - including Norway, 

Sweden, Canada, and the US - chewing is legal in 

the UK. 

There is, however, a strong move among sections 

of the community to make khat illegal. Once a 

recreational occupation, chewing is now taking 

over some men’s lives. Unemployed, depressed, 

isolated, men may spend a large proportion both 

of their time and money in escaping from reality, 

chewing all night, and sleeping by day. Young men, 

even fifteen and sixteen year olds, are imitating 

their seniors. Not all fit the stereotype of school 

dropouts. Some have left school with qualifications, 

but have no desire to look for menial work. Bored, 

without anything else to do, they gather in back 

rooms, listen to music, drink tea and coffee, and 

chew khat for eight to ten hours at a stretch. 125 

But the immediate after effects can include 

depression, while in the long term khat suppresses 

appetite and can lead to malnutrition and lethargy. 

As it is a stimulant, some users turn to alcohol to 

help them fill the rest of their time with sleep - so 

becoming increasingly isolated from society. As one 

young man said in answer to a survey: 

[A]s we spend more time chewing 

together, we don’t make any impact on 

the system and fail to integrate with 

the local communities. (Smith et al, 

2001: 50) 

Although abuse results in psychological 

dependence rather than addiction, as with similar 

drugs more familiar in the West, long-term overuse 

can have deleterious effects including depression, 

lack of motivation, and mental problems. The 

subject of khat, both as a symptom and cause of 

psychological disturbance, is a major issue among 

Somalis. Much of the research on khat is Somaliled, 

126 and in the preparation of reports for the 

Somali Community Meeting at the House of 

Commons in 2003, a whole paper was devoted 

to the subject. 127 Some of the objections listed in 

this report were social: chewing “outside normal 

122. Cited in Hannan, 2003: 41; 48-53 

123. Khat has a variety of spellings including qat and quat. 

124. Muna Ismael is researching the pharmacology of khat for her 

doctorate at King’s College, London. Other sources include: Ahmed (1994); 

Griffiths (1998); Saleh (1995); Smith et al (2001). See also Stokes (2000); 

Bullivant et al (1995); Alasow (2002). 

125. Interview with Carlo Angeli, researcher on khat for Black Women’s 

Health and Family Support, 28.3.03. 

126. See footnote 124. 

127. The problems of khat and the Somali community in the 

United Kingdom: Somali Community Meeting reports 2003 


social parameters” is detrimental to education and 

employment, a drain on income, and destructive of 

family relationships. In addition: 

Excessive khat use is also associated in 

some cases [with] psychotic disorders, 

paranoia, and hallucination, which can 

lead to clinical depression and mental 

health problems, particularly in those 

who have experienced the trauma of 

civil war. (ibid) 

A recent development is the increasing use of 

khat by women, who rarely chew in Somalia. 

Somalis suggest that this is connected to the high 

proportion of single mothers in the community 

who feel trapped by poverty and social isolation 

and seek the company of other women. But they 

also allude to the increasing freedom of women 

and their new independence from men in the 

changing circumstances of the UK. 

Women and gender roles 

I remember living a medium life. Me, 

my husband and eight children. I 

remember my baby calling, “Mama, 

mama”. Quite normal.… But the war 

breaks. We fled. Far away to south 

Somalia....Two months on. Everything’s 

out of hand. We run away from the 

civil war. Me, my husband and eight 

children.… And we go from Somalia 

by boat towards Kenya. But suddenly 

the boat is sinking. The boat is 

overloaded…. The boat broke. Water 

breaking into us…. I can’t swim. The 

boat sinks. Who will rescue us?.... 

200 people are dying, drowning. I’m 

losing my family to the sea. Five of my 

daughters are lost…. And my eldest 

son, he’s just begun his life, he’s finished 

university. He’s lost. That makes six of 

my children. Dead in the sea, in one 

day.… Suddenly, an Italian tourist boat 

is passing.… people come to rescue us. 

They grab my baby, who I’m holding. 

And another child of mine…. All the 

time my baby’s calling “Mama, mama.” 

Suddenly, I am hauled into the boat like 

a baby myself…. I am crying. My whole 

body. Crying.… Do you hear me?… 

I cannot forget that day. Although 

I’m here before you today, you can’t 

have imagined the life of one Somali 

woman.… am breaking my silence. 

The world should know my life, my 

baby calling “Mama, mama”. The world 

should hear this life. 

Quadra was not there herself to tell her story 

in the small Soho theatre where Somali women 

were Breaking the silence in June 2003. She found 

it too painful to be present, and a friend spoke 

her words on her behalf. 128 Other testimonies 

of war - suffering hunger and violence, witnessing 

rape, torture and death, surviving flight and refugee 

camps - were recounted by the performers. Somali 

is an oral culture - storytelling was once part 

of everyday life, and it is from Somali women’s 

personal accounts that we have the most vivid 

pictures of Somali experience. 129 Having less of a 

public voice than men, women are eloquent on the 

events of their lives. 

The ten women on the platform were of all 

ages - from a great-grandmother to schoolgirls - 

representing different stages of immigration. Older 

women who arrived in the UK before Quadra had 

a more benign experience of arrival. In the early 

days, Somali seamen, lodging in port areas since 

the nineteenth century, left their wives with kin 

at home to bring up the children and tend the 

herds in what was then the British protectorate 

of northern Somalia. Many Somalis had also been 

living in Aden, where British ships would dock, 

but in 1967 the country gained its independence 

128. Page 8 of Breaking the silence script, kindly given to me by Ruqia 

Hersi. 

129. For two other collections of short testimonies by women, see Somali 

Women’s Association (1987/8) and Hassan (2000). Secondary sources 

consulted for this section include: Ali (2001); Berns McGown (1999); Castley 

(1991); Cox (2003); Dirie (1998); El-Solh (1993a; 1993b); Farah and Smith 

(1999); Griffiths (2002); Harper-Bulman (1997); Polese (2001); Sales & 

Gregory (1996); Summerfield (1993). 


59

from the UK, Somalis were expelled, and women 

began to join their husbands. In the early 1980s the 

beginnings of armed conflict in the north initiated a 

trickle of refugees, but it was the beginnings of allout 

civil war in 1988 that encouraged women such 

as Quadra to flee. The ensuing chaos in the south 

after the overthrow of President Siad Barre in 1991 

provoked the major exodus, and the often tortuous 

and traumatic journey to the UK. Not all women 

came accompanied by men. Some were widowed, 

some left their husbands fighting, and so, during the 

late 1980s and the 1990s, the majority of Somalis 

reaching England were single mothers with their 

children. The latest phase of Somali immigration 

from third countries is also composed of relatives 

of those already here, some who originally fled the 

war, and some who were born elsewhere. 

Generation and date of arrival crucially affect 

experience in the UK. As with all members of the 

Somali community, generalisations about women 

must be read with the proviso that they do not 

form a homogenous group. The teenagers in 

the Breaking the silence team also testify to the 

devastation of war, but do not share their elders’ 

nostalgia for home: “There are opportunities for 

me. I will stay here forever”; “I have a home and 

friends. And I am happy now”; “…I like the other 

people here. I like it here”. 130 

But one critical difference, that of social class, may 

not be apparent to an external eye. Ruqia Hersi 

told the audience that: 

Most Somalian [sic] people want to go back. 

The only thing stopping them is the war. 

And here, they feel like they’re nothing. 

The lowest class. The bottom of society. 131 

Ruqia herself, besides being a mother, has a 

Master’s degree in chemical engineering. Educated 

and professional women face the same problem as 

their male counterparts - the difficulty of obtaining 

work commensurate to their qualifications. They 

suffer the same loss not only of earning power, but 

also of status and self-esteem. Sales and Gregory 

(1998: 19) quote Fatima, who had been a nurse in 

Somalia: 

My work was very important in my life. Now, 

when we go to a hospital here, they think we 

are nothing, we don’t know anything. 

Fatima embarked on a health promotion course, 

but, like men, professional women have difficulty 

in retraining or converting their skills in order 

to equip themselves to continue their career. 

There is also the problem of expense: if a wouldbe 

student does not yet have refugee status, she 

would be required to pay overseas students’ fees 

- way beyond most women’s pockets. Even with 

status, she must fulfil the three years’ residency 

requirement before being eligible for grants and 

student loans on an equal footing with home 

students. As do men, women like Fatima often 

turn their energies to voluntary work within the 

community. 

Many women have arrived in the UK with no 

qualifications at all, but even those with skills have 

been prepared to undertake the kind of menial 

work - cleaning or low paid work in service 

industries - that Somali men reject. But the feeling 

of being at the bottom of society is not only 

generated by the workplace, but by experience in 

society at large. After Ruqia’s contribution came an 

extract written by Ayan Farah: 

When I came to Europe, it was a cold period, 

Snow and ice everywhere, 

I was very cold…. 

Two day [sic] after arriving I tried to go out…. 

I had nowhere to go, no one to speak to. 

I took the bus to an address I knew 

I asked an elderly lady if she knew the place I 

was looking for. 

She gave me a dirty look, and replied, ‘Don’t 

ask me, ask the bus driver. I’m scared of you!’ 

The bus was full of people. 

An old man said, ‘Why have these refugees 

come to our country?’ 

I was embarrassed. 

Everyone was staring at me, as if ‘refugee’ was 

written all over my face…. 132 

Racism is experienced by both women and men, 

but the feeling of isolation with which this extract 

opens is high on the list of women’s problems, 


such as those listed in the documents compiled 

for the Somali Community Meeting at the 

House of Commons. The reason given there for 

women’s isolation is “lack of family network” 133 

- the children, husbands, in-laws, kin, and clan 

members surrounding a woman in Somalia. If still 

alive, many of these erstwhile companions are 

scattered around the world. Anxiety about their 

wellbeing and sadness at separation compounds 

the loneliness. Somali women were used to 

outdoor activities at home. In the UK, obstacles 

to an extra-domestic life - the weather, distances, 

public transport - may confine a woman to her 

home, which may be far from shops and friends or 

family. Even when a number of people live at the 

same address, one woman may be responsible for 

their maintenance, burdened with chores that in 

Somalia would be shared by other women in the 

household. Older women face particular problems, 

feeling estranged both from their own country 

and the younger generation growing up in the UK. 

The social context for the respect afforded to 

elders, the social status and family support they 

would have enjoyed at home, is missing in England. 

Some grandmothers are cherished by their families 

with whom they live, but others feel lonely and 

redundant. 134 

Elderly Somalis - especially women - may be 

illiterate, and unless they come from the former 

British protectorate in the north, are likely to speak 

little English. 135 Top of the Community Meeting’s 

list of women’s principal problems is ‘language’ - an 

issue that appears over and over again in reports, 

studies, and personal accounts as the main barrier 

women have had to face. Inability to understand 

or communicate inhibits their participation in the 

wider society, hinders their access to services, and, 

as we have seen in the case of health, prevents 

communication with professionals. Faced with 

uncomprehending women, health staff may 

form the impression that Somalis are “stupid, 

unresponsive and rude” (Harper-Bulman, 1997: 24). 

Poor English also stands in the way of employment, 

not only because a good command of the language 

will be required for the job, but also because of the 

resulting barrier to confident self-presentation. 

There have been many initiatives by statutory 

and voluntary services, including RCOs, to offer 

English classes for refugee women, 136 but demand 

greatly exceeds supply, and provision has suffered 

with the decline in adult education institutes 

during the 1990s. Uptake is most successful when 

there is some provision for travel costs and, most 

importantly, for childcare. Given the size of families, 

and the scarcity of good childcare facilities that 

they can afford, it is hard for many women to take 

time out for themselves. Part-time, intermittent 

classes do not provide an adequate solution, and 

further problems arise when varying ability levels 

are taught together. A study in Leicester found 

that women also feel uncomfortable in learning 

alongside men. 137 

Even with knowledge of the language, it is hard 

enough to grasp the codes and structures of an 

unfamiliar society. Somali women often say that 

their greatest drawback is in not understanding 

the system. They quote examples: the majority 

of women depend on benefits of various kinds; 

when reaching the age of eighteen, the benefit 

for a child will stop, but the mother may be 

unprepared. A family has a Housing Association flat, 

falls into arrears, but has no understanding of the 

implications of the debt. 

Housing is another item on the Community 

Meeting’s list of women’s problems. As we saw 

above, poor living conditions and overcrowding are 

significant factors in the deterioration of mental 

health. Many women are on their own and are 

therefore responsible for accommodation - of the 

45 households in contact with the Somali Support 

Initiative in east London schools, nearly two thirds 

were headed by a single parent or carer. 138 

130. Breaking the silence: 13-14. 131. Ibid.: 11. 132. Ibid.: 12. 

133. Report on Somali women and children refugees in the UK presented 

to the Somali Community Meeting, 29.4.03. 

134. Polese, 2001: 50-56; McCarthy, 1995: 16. 

135. English was the medium of instruction in northern schools until 1969, 

but older nomadic women had little formal education. 

136. Language support may also be a component of other courses, such 

as the childcare training offered by the Daycare Trust (Sherriff, 1995). 

137. Daahir and Duale, 2002: 40-1. 

138. Care must be taken about generalising from any one set of figures. 

This is a survey based on children with problems at school. Taking a sample 

of both men and women across seven cities contacted largely through Somali 

RCOs, Bloch and Atfield (2002: 12) found that nearly a third of women 

with children were single parents, while 41% of households contained three 

or more children. 


61

Over 80% of these families contained from three 

to thirteen children, and housing was considered a 

contributing factor to the child’s problems in over 

a third of cases (Farah and Smith, 1999: 108-110). 

But what is also interesting is the women’s own 

comments included in this report concerning the 

sharp contrast between their past and present 

accommodation. They do not necessarily come 

from the top elite of Somali society, but from the 

comfortable middle class - the “medium life” of 

which Quadra speaks: 

Things are very different and difficult here 

compared to Somalia. We had an import/export 

business in Somali dealing in leather goods 

from Italy…. We had 3 houses in Somalia and 

our children went to private Italian school, but 

here we live in a council flat on income support. 

(ibid: 101) 

We had a good life in Somalia, owning a 

farm and a shop, giving us the privilege 

of both country and city life. We lived in a 

six-bedroomed bungalow, far from a three 

bedroom council flat in Tower Hamlets. (ibid: 

101) 

In Somalia we lived in the south where we 

owned a hotel and restaurant in the city. We 

lived in a five bedroom villa and had servants to 

work in the house. (ibid: 103) 

Both men and women are affected by changes 

in domestic circumstances, but as women are 

confined to the home more than men, the impact 

of change falls heavily on their shoulders. A pleasant 

and spacious environment is replaced by a tower 

block flat, designed for a nuclear family. Solitary 

housework and childcare come as a shock for 

those accustomed to living in an extended family 

where chores are shared among the women. The 

issue of servants is crucial here - in common with 

many developing countries, lower as well as uppermiddle 

class women are cushioned from the effects 

of the domestic division of labour. Cooks, maids, 

cleaners, and nannies, or poorer relatives, deal 

with many of the domestic chores, freeing their 

employers for other pursuits. 

Men are not expected to lift a finger in domestic 

tasks. They can argue that it is “dishonourable and 

un-Islamic for a man to be sullying himself in this 

way” (Farah, 2000: 69). But women’s toughness 

and flexibility can serve them well in the refugee 

situation, and their testimonies echo Sarah Cox’s 

observations on the self-sufficiency of little girls in 

nursery school (see above, p. 54): 

In Somalia, where there are boys and girls in 

a family, the mother all the time trains the girl 

– clean up, wash the dishes, cook the food, give 

your brothers food. The boys don’t even take the 

food from the pan, the girl has to take it to him. 

But so she becomes stronger. When she is 14 

or 15.… she can do everything a woman can 

do. So the lady, nobody stops her. She becomes 

independent, she’s got the ideas, she becomes 

cleverer than the man. 139 

Gender roles - conflict and change 

It is interesting that despite the stereotype of the 

subservient Muslim female, much of the material 

we have on Somalis shaping their own lives in the 

UK focuses on women. 140 In the Somali context, 

this competence is exercised in the context of male 

dominance. Rural women had a crucial productive 

role in the nomadic economy; men were often 

absent, and it was the women who herded the 

sheep and goats as well as handling domestic tasks 

such as fetching water, preparing food, and caring 

for children and dependents. In towns, women 

often contributed to the family income, whether 

in unskilled or professional employment. But 

responsibility for maintaining the family still lay with 

the man, and a Muslim wife or daughter remained 

under his formal control. 141 

In the UK, men are losing their dominant role. 

This process was already under way in Somalia 

with the break-up of families during the fighting, 

and the flight of women and children into refugee 

camps and exile. Single motherhood became the 

norm - men were lost in the war, left behind in 

another part of the world, or discarded along the 

way. Although a girl’s marriage, as a union between 

two families, was - and often still is - beyond her 


autonomous control, divorce is not difficult for a 

woman. Summerfield (1993) goes so far as to argue 

that the lack of social stigma attached to divorce is 

a critical factor in Somali women’s mental health, as 

opposed to other communities where women do 

not have this freedom. 

Khadra Hassan was the oldest participant in the 

Breaking the silence performance; a strong, beautiful 

face despite her considerable age; a powerful 

singing voice. Another young woman, Shadia Ismail 

Mohammed, tells her story: 

Believe this! My great aunt has been married 

37 times!… 37 husbands! It is possible in 

Somalia…. The reason? No baby!… She makes 

a contract with these men. She says, “If I am 

not expecting in three months, I will divorce 

you!… And always they respond, “Okay….”. 

She’s very strong. She acts like a man! After 23 

marriages, she has one daughter, who lives in 

England. Quite a woman, my great aunt! 

(2003: 4) 

The exact truth or otherwise of this is beside the 

point; it illustrates Shadia’s introduction: 

We are strong. In Somalia, we women don’t 

ever doubt that we are strong! 

We can divorce! It’s our choice. 

We are very lucky in Somalia. 

We don’t look down on women who divorce. 

(ibid) 

So, in the UK, divorce they do - the rate is high. If 

a man is unemployed, brings in no income, spends 

what his wife earns or receives from social security 

on khat, will not help with domestic chores, and 

colludes with nagging in-laws – then a woman may 

feel better off without him. In contrast to Somalia, 

if she divorces, she can still keep the children, and 

stay in the marital home. Even when she is still 

with a man, she may choose to present herself as 

a single mother for the purposes of social security 

benefits which she can claim independently. The 

extended family is no longer always nearby to help 

settle disputes, and more heavy-handed methods 

of maintaining male control familiar in a Somali 

context are classified in the UK as domestic abuse 

- a woman can exercise what is known as the ‘999 

option’ and appeal to the police. 

The male side of this story is demoralisation, loss 

of face: 

The problem is now…. because they have 

no work [women] don’t see men as any 

longer responsible.… for family income…. 

That was the role that men used to have, the 

breadwinners and the head of the family. But 

now they no longer have that role. So women 

are saying, “you have no right to shout at me, to 

tell me what to do. I am being looked after by 

the British government, so what the hell are you 

controlling me for?”… The other thing is that…. 

being refugees, and not working also has an 

effect on men. They no longer see themselves 

as important at home. They feel they are 

redundant, they are not needed, they are not 

wanted. (Ali, 2001: 147-8) 

The speaker, a Somali teacher in her late twenties, 

is careful to add that “It is not all of them. It is not 

every family, just some people”. But the whole 

scenario of female-headed households is explored 

in every study of Somali gender relations, and 

preoccupies Somalis themselves. Not that there 

is a united view in the community - there is a 

consensus on lack of strong male role models 

for youth and on the problem of underoccupied 

men. But some men will also dwell on the welfare 

state as eroding the patriarchal family, undermining 

the traditional role of men as providers. As one 

complained to Griffiths, “…. when [Somalis] come 

to this country, one marriage is from social security, 

one marriage is from the woman and the man. 

The important one is the marriage for the social 

security, because.… the man.… doesn’t provide 

139. Somali Women’s Association 1987/8: 39. 

140. El-Solh’s article ‘Be true to your culture: Gender tensions 

among Somali Muslim in Britain’ (1993), Rosemary Sales and Jeanne 

Gregory’s Refugee women in London: The experiences of Somali 

women (1998), Hazel Summerfield’s chapter on Patterns of adaption: 

Somali and Bangladeshi women in Britain (1993) - all stress women’s 

resourcefulness and resilience. 

141. See the vivid examples of male dominance described by Waris Dirie 

in her second book (2002), describing her return to her home village. 


63

anything, for her or the children” (2002: 110). 

Other men take a more pragmatic stance, arguing 

not only for more employment opportunities, but 

for a better deal from the welfare state, and look 

to take advantage of the benefits on offer (Dench, 

1994: 35-40). 

Neither is there a clear female response. There 

are those older women who lament what they see 

as the lack of respect for men in British culture 

as a recipe for family breakdown - much younger 

women brought up in the UK may think less about 

the importance of male control. But an interesting 

study by Emua Ali (2001) shows that there is no 

neat fit between educational level and views on 

gender relations. In her study of 50 women, some 

highly educated women resisted the concept of 

their equality with men. In practice, familial control 

of marriage is diminishing, and Ali found that those 

with further and higher education tended to 

support women’s independent choice of partner. 

Nevertheless, ambiguity remains: the 38% of the 

sample who argued for arranged marriage included 

all educational levels, from illiterates to graduates, 

and the majority of women seeking more 

autonomy had little formal education. 

British culture can influence but not override, 

and Somali norms still heavily influence marriage. 

Women will not marry as young as they might in 

Somalia where teenage brides are common. But 

single women over thirty who have chosen to 

devote their time to their career say that their 

chances of finding a husband are now virtually 

closed. As for the selection of a partner, in the 

British context of a dispersed community and 

fragmented families, parental choice of spouse may 

be reduced to necessary approval, but complete 

independence in this matter has not replaced family 

arrangements. It is not acceptable in Islam for men 

and women to mix freely together; only a small 

minority of young people interviewed by Berns 

McGown (1999) would go clubbing with their 

British peers. Somali Nuptials is an introduction 

agency which recognises that “in our community 

we lack meeting places or events where we could 

meet a potential partner (religion being among 

one [sic] of the reasons)” 142 . But at the same time 

independent romantic courtship is condemned. 

Dating or: 

Going out with one another for a period of 

time is quite haraam [prohibited] in our religion 

(Islam). Somali Nuptials does not condone 

long term relationship (dating without the 

intention of marriage) after meeting with one 

another. 143 

It might seem surprising that in Ali’s sample the 

majority of those who disapproved of boyfriends 

had higher education, and therefore potential 

access to employment. But in tackling the question 

of how far emigration has been a liberating 

experience for Somali women, we must think 

beyond the western model of a congruence 

between economic independence and freedoms 

of sexuality and style. ‘Autonomy’ amounts to a 

woman’s control over key aspects of her life, and 

these will be culturally specific. A choice to wear 

the hijab (headscarf) and observe Muslim prayer 

times can evidence confidence and self-assertion 

as much as would a decision to reject them. In 

Breaking the silence (2003: 15) Safya says: 

I’ve seen both sides of this life from when I left 

Somalia. I’ve seen life from inside my Western 

clothes and short skirts. Those Western clothes 

gave me an advantage here. I blended in…. I 

dress differently now. I go into my Hijabo, and 

I see a different side of life. I study the Islamic 

viewpoint. I dress modestly, with a long skirt…. 

People are suspicious of me now. People look 

down on me. I’ve been rejected for jobs since 

having the Hijabo. I’m sure rejection comes with 

my change of dress.… I don’t care. I’m facing 

the world now…. Your judgement won’t change 

my life! I accept my own struggle! What’s 

important is my faith. I feel stronger now I have 

the Hijabo. My thinking does not divide me. I 

am strong. 

Here, Safya has traded convenience for the security 

of existential integrity. In her study of Muslims 

in the diaspora (1999), Berns McGown found 

many young Somali women in London are turning 

towards their religion to confirm their diaspora 

identity. This does not mean a retreat into rigid 

rules or an Islamic ghetto, but a constant “weaving 


together [of] their birth and their adopted 

cultures” (1999: 7), a renegotiation of faith in 

the context of their life in the wider community. 

This is an active process, an individual enterprise 

which again belies the image of Muslim female 

passivity. 144 The resulting pattern of life regarding 

dress, personal morality, friendship and family 

relationships is one forged by each woman to suit 

her own circumstance. This personal balance may 

also be flexible, adapting to the particular social 

context at any one time. “At school you have the 

English, western culture, and at home you have the 

Somali culture”, a teenager told Ali; “I know both 

worlds well” (2001: 177). 

Female genital mutilation (FGM) 

There is one Somali practice, however, which 

has done more than any other to promote an 

image of female oppression, and that is female 

genital mutilation (FGM) - also known as female 

circumcision. Until recently, every girl, sometimes 

as young as six, endured the operation in which 

all or part of her genitals were cut away. In the 

most extreme version, that of infibulation, the 

clitoris, labia minora and much of the labia majora 

are excised. The sides of the wound are then 

tightly stitched together, leaving a hole the size 

of a matchstick at the lower end of the vulva for 

the escape of urine and menstrual blood. With 

clitoridectomy, it is the clitoris and part of the labia 

minora which is taken out, while the least severe 

form, Sunna circumcision, removes the clitoral 

hood, or inflicts a small cut to the clitoris sufficient 

to draw blood. In urban areas in Somalia, the 

operation may take place in hospital, so avoiding 

the worst infections that can result from traditional 

excisers, using blunt unsterile instruments. But the 

long-term effects of infibulation - the potential 

complications surrounding urination, menstruation, 

pregnancy, childbirth and a variety of other health 

hazards, are the same, whilst all forms of FGM 

radically affect a woman’s sexuality. 

Women are seen as the repositories of family 

honour, and the rationale for FGM, beyond the 

weight of ‘tradition’, is the preservation of a young 

woman’s purity - her virginity and her symbolic 

cleanliness. Although serving a patriarchal system, 

FGM is perpetuated by women themselves. An 

uncircumcised girl would have been unable to find 

a husband and so become a social outcast – a fate 

any mother would want to avoid. The practice is 

now being questioned in Somalia, but is still near 

universal (McGown, 1999: 148). 

In the UK, research indicates that there are still 

Somali mothers or grandmothers who feel that 

the daughters of the household should be excised 

- 36% of Emua Ali’s sample of women defended 

the practice (2001: 200-202). She estimates that 

this has affected some 5% of girls (ibid: 28), who 

have been circumcised either at the hands of an 

operator in the UK or whilst on a visit to Somalia. 

Tradition dies hard - in spite of the pain it causes, 

generations of women have seen circumcision as 

intrinsic to their adult identity and they resent an 

important part of their culture being branded as 

child abuse. But now this taboo topic is beginning 

to be broached in public, and many Somali women 

and men in the UK say that the practice should 

be abandoned, particularly in its most extreme 

form. McGown (1999: 150-151) found that 52 out 

of her 60 interviewees of both sexes said that the 

procedure should be stopped. A key argument by 

campaigners is that contrary to popular belief, FGM 

is nowhere sanctioned by the Koran. It is not a 

religious obligation. Although few would dare admit 

it, this knowledge has encouraged some infibulated 

single young women to have the operation 

reversed, while many will now seek surgical help 

before their wedding night. 

In 1985, the Female Circumcision Act made 

the practice illegal in the UK, and in 1991 

directions for the implementation of the 1989 

Children Act authorised investigation by local 

authorities in suspected cases. On the 3rd March 

2004 the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 

(Commencement) Order 2004 was enacted, 

142. Somali nuptials flier. 

143. Ibid. 

144. Berns McGown’s study is based on interviews with an equal number 

of both men and women - but women’s voices seem to predominate. Whilst 

this may reflect the interests of the female author, her material suggests 

that women are often more proactive than men in their new situation as 

refugees. Also see El Solh (1993a). 


65

which “makes it an offence for the first time for 

UK nationals or permanent UK residents to 

carry out female genital mutilation (FGM) abroad, 

or to aid, abet, counsel or procure the carrying 

out of FGM abroad, even in countries where the 

practice is legal. To reflect the serious harm that 

FGM causes, the Act also increases the maximum 

penalty from 5 to 14 years’ imprisonment”. 145 

But still more effective than legislation is the 

hard campaigning that lies behind both legal and 

community change. In contrast to some western 

feminists’ condemnation of this ‘barbaric practice’, 

organisations such as the Black Women’s Health 

and Family Support (BWHAFS) take a holistic 

approach to Somali women’s problems. 146 A 

promotional CD-ROM launched in the summer of 

2003 explained that “We believe in empowering 

women, through education and consciousnessraising, 

and locating the issue of FGM within the 

context of black women’s rights”. 147 BWHAFS 

offer a range of support services to women, 

including advice on FGM. Through contact with 

health, education, and social work professionals, 

together with religious leaders, they carry out 

an educational programme on the topic, and by 

means of research, literature, conferences, official 

representations, and outreach work, they aim to 

influence not only a British but also an international 

audience. 

The energetic director of BWHAFS, Shamis Dirir, 

is but one of a number of women who have 

founded Somali organisations in the UK. She has 

retained her position - in some other groups, men 

have taken over leadership, and women have been 

relegated to lesser ranks or voluntary workers. But 

in whatever capacity, women as well as men have 

sought to better their community through Somali 

associations. As a Somali proverb says, ‘you can only 

quench your thirst by lifting water with your own 

hands’. 

Self-help and fragmentation: RCOs and 

the politics of clan 148 

The role of Somali RCOs, as those of other ethnic 

minorities in the settlement experience has been 

well documented by Griffiths (2000). Associations 

such as BWHAFS are therefore not confined 

to service delivery, but encompass research and 

documentation. Tied into the local community, 

they also offer courses and social events which 

encompass other ethnic groups. Then there are the 

small organisations which may have had as their 

initial impetus the employment predicaments of 

the founder. Somali RCOs range from longstanding, 

well-organised institutions to the ephemeral 

inspiration of one individual, with continual 

inauguration and demise. There are, for example, 

some 100 Somali organisations in London alone, 

with scores more throughout the country. 

One explanation for the lack of official Somali 

representation, expressed both by authorities 

and by Somalis themselves, is that the community 

is fragmented and divided and therefore difficult 

to involve in democratic structures. This has 

been particularly marked in Tower Hamlets 

where the original community of seafarers was 

swollen by new arrivals in the 1980s and 1990s. 

Griffiths (2000) relates this vacuum in unified 

organisation to previous political life in Somalia 

- the absence of a cohesive Somali political project, 

inexperience with bureaucratic structures, and 

the lack of independent participation in the public 

sphere. British voluntary and statutory agencies 

feel frustrated at the proliferation of Somali 

organisations and at the lack of representative 

bodies with a solid base through which to channel 

funds and assistance. In one of the first discussions 

of the Somali Community Meeting (25.02.03) on 

the formation of a coordinating committee to liaise 

with British organisations, the awareness of disunity 

constantly surfaced: “How can we select a steering 

group if we don’t work together? First we must 

learn to be more united”. 

Behind this plea lurks a consciousness of what is 

said - both by Somalis and observers - to be at 

the root of Somali discord: clanship, or, in more 

derogatory terminology, ‘clanism’ or ‘tribalism’. 

This is an extremely sensitive subject - 

Somalis resent questioning, assumptions, and 

commentators’ conclusions about this complex 

social formation (Griffiths, 2002: 101). 

They take exception to published pie charts 

calculating the numerical strength of each clan 

family 149 which could be exploited for political 


purposes. The same might be said of the map 

reproduced above which could be taken to 

reinforce the notion that clans are tied to territory. 

Originally the relationship to land was fluid - it is 

often said about Somalis that it is not where you 

start with an explanation of its role in the country 

of origin. 150 

A clan-based form of social structure is familiar 

from other African pastoral societies in which 

kinship forms the basis of social, political, and 

are from which is significant, but whom; family not 

place of birth. Clan overlaps with region, but it is 

genealogy not geography that determines alliances. 

However, one of the effects of Barre’s regime was 

to tighten the territorial connection, so as conflict 

does arise over land, such schematic statements 

could exacerbate claims to terrain. The map is 

included here to show the rough geography of clan, 

which has been politically significant (and also to 

indicate the extent of territory inhabited by Somali 

speakers of various groups which lies outside the 

national boundaries and has been the focus of 

extended conflict). Although a difficult topic, the 

question of clan has to be confronted in 

any discussion of Somalis in the diaspora, and must 

economic life. A common term for this type of 

organisation is ‘segmentary’, as each clan family can 

be broken down into its constituent segments of 

clan, which in turn divide into subclans, lineages, 

and, at the bottom of the pyramid, the extended 

family and finally the household. Each unit bases 

its identity on the claim - albeit mythic - to be 

descended from a common male ancestor. Women, 

even after marriage, remain members of their 

natal lineage, but descent is not traced through the 

female line. The lowest level of kin group which 

is politically significant is the diya-paying group 

(the kinship unit responsible for settling blood 

feuds), whose members will be able to trace their 

ancestry back some four to eight generations. 

145. Home Office circular 10/2004, available at http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs3/hoc1004.html. 

146. There are several other organisations both in London and round the 

country dedicated both to education and personal support on FGM, such as 

the Agency for Culture and Change Management in Sheffield. 

147. The CD-ROM also includes sections on the history of Tower Hamlets 

and the Somali community besides information on BWHAFS and on FGM, 

with bibliography. It is obtainable from BWHAFS, 1st Floor, 82 Russia Lane, 

London E2 9LU. 

148. Sources for this section include: Abdullahi (2001); Griffiths (2002); 

Lewis (1999 [1961]); Samatar (1988); Stevenson (1995). 

149. As reproduced on website: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/africa/somalia-_ethnic_grps_2002.jpg. 

150. Griffith’s analysis of the significance of clan in the Somali community 

(2002: 94-127) is prefaced with an historical account (ibid: 27-46). 


67

Several of these units will make up a lineage, 

calculating its descent from an ancestor some six 

to ten generations ago. The genealogical depth 

of the clan is some twenty generations, while an 

assiduous clan family member will be able to cite 

the names of thirty ancestors or more (Lewis, 

1999: 4-7). Personally, lineage membership is a 

primary factor in identity. Politically, clan has been 

the basic component of indigenous organisation. 

Cohesion and conflict within and between clan 

segments depends on context. Whilst diya-paying 

groups may be set against each other after a 

murder, they may unite against other lineages in the 

struggle over land, or against an external enemy, 

even if these two events are contemporaneous. 

Alliances, therefore, are forever shifting and 

variable, and identities are multiple. Although the 

system has space for the individual voice within 

the group, it does not operate according to 

notions of western democracy - it is not a form of 

political organisation that transmutes easily into a 

centralised nation state. This has led some analysts 

to equate it with ‘anarchy’. But this term carries 

inappropriate connotations of chaos from western 

political discourse. The role that clan has played in 

recent political disintegration must not be confused 

with the sophisticated political and socio-economic 

regulation of segmentary societies when free from 

external pressure. In local disputes, it was the 

clan elders who would broker peace. The colonial 

regimes began institutionalising indigenous leaders, 

but autonomous household heads and clan chiefs 

with only nominal power were more relevant 

authority figures for shifting pastoralists than the 

overriding authority of a king or a centralised 

chieftaincy. 

But thereby hang many of Somalia’s current 

woes. As has been described above (p. 22) the 

nation state was a foreign form, imposed during 

the nineteenth century colonial carve-up of the 

region, and reshaped in socialist guise at the start 

of Siad Barre’s regime. Barre initially legislated 

against public displays of clanism. But from the 

late 1970s he was faced with opposition from 

parties identified with particular clans, and from 

an assortment of clan-led rebels. Attempting to 

hold onto power, he resorted to a ‘divide and 

rule’ policy of manipulating clan politics. But the 

tactic of setting clans against one other only 

exacerbated violence, and contributed to the 

demise of his regime in 1991. The ensuing struggle 

was conducted in the idiom of clan, and the new 

political significance which clans had assumed 

intensified with their access to developing military 

technology. The shifting alliances typical of a 

segmentary society were also politicised - after 

Barre’s fall previously united clan families splintered 

into opposing clans. With no central state to 

impose order or retain a semblance of civil society, 

Somalia fragmented. 

The saliency of clan in the analysis of Somali 

politics put forward by Lewis and others has not, 

however, gone unchallenged. Ahmed I Samatar 

(1998) argues that the overriding political 

significance of clan is a recent trend, associated 

with the rise of a competitive petite bourgeoisie 

in the developing class stratification of the 

country; the idiom must not be confused with 

the substance. Not all political factions have been 

wholly clan-based. It is also certainly true that the 

strong ideological weight of clanship is open to 

manipulation by politicians and entrepreneurs with 

their own agendas, which can mask the relevance 

of other interests in the conflict. In the present 

situation, this is often the self-aggrandisement of 

petty warlords and freewheelers. The brutality of 

the conflict is not only due to the clan structure 

itself, but also to the climate of violent lawlessness 

established by Barre’s regime. 

Another contentious issue in the analysis of clan 

is the balance between conflict and cohesion, two 

sides of the clan coin in segmentary societies. Over 

the last seven or eight decades, when transposed 

to a modern urban context, clan structures have 

been used to recruit members both of armed 

militias and of political parties. They have fomented 

violence but also provided a haven from it, as coclan 

members offer mutual assistance and help 

one another to survive. This dual role is illustrated 

by the position of small minority clans. They are 

not major political players, but neither are they 

able to muster military weight to protect their 

members. So they become extremely vulnerable to 

aggression. 


Although operating in a very different context, 

where the meaning assigned to clan is subject to 

a process of change, clanship in the UK involves 

similar complexities, and analysis is fraught with 

pitfalls. In his study of Somali refugees in London, 

Griffiths (2002: 94-125) emphasises the factors 

affecting the significance of clan in individual lives 

- gender, age, and class among them, to which may 

be added personal details such as education, war 

experience, previous country of domicile, and so 

on. 151 While those from a rural background may be 

more tightly linked to clan networks, urbanites may 

have had more experience of clan factionalism in 

daily life. Whatever their previous experience, every 

Somali will not only know their own clan affiliation, 

but those of others. 

The implications of conflict and support also arise. 

Co-clan members have an obligation to help a new 

arrival, and clan membership can provide a readymade 

network of assistance, both informal and 

organised in community centres and associations. 

But for some of the older generation, memories of 

interclan hostility, fuelled by rumours of the Somali 

scene, also prevent co-operation with members 

of certain other clans. El Solh (1991) argues that 

in Tower Hamlets, other markers of identity have 

been subsumed under clanship which has been 

reactivated in the refugee community. Griffiths 

found that the progression of the Somali war 

assumes much greater importance in their lives 

than local east London events (2002: 97). But it is 

important not to generalise from specific contexts. 

Both these researchers were mainly speaking to 

Isaaq, who fled during the 1980s from the terror 

inflicted by Barre’s Darod-dominated forces, and 

made for the London area of longstanding Isaaq 

settlement. Contemporary arrivals from the south 

travelling via other points in the diaspora have had 

a different history in relationship to particular clan 

aggression, and although Somalis will travel across 

London to meeting points of co-members, the 

London boroughs with Somali populations contain 

members of various clans. 

Some young Somalis have, however, inherited clan 

hostility from their parents. Alex McBride (2003) 

reports on the gang violence in Woolwich, east 

London, which flares up not only between Somalis 

and African Caribbeans, but also between Somalis 

of different clans. But other Somali youth, especially 

those born in the UK or brought here at an early 

age, express impatience with this preoccupation of 

their elders. A Somali identity, based on religion and 

the mother country of their parents, is important 

to them, as is the family - but family as in the 

extended unit of known relatives, not the more 

abstract co-membership of clan. The clan elders, 

they say, are out of touch with the reality of young 

people’s lives - a decline in authority that Griffiths 

(2002: 123-124) connects to the loss of male 

status in the home. Yet there is still evidence of the 

persistence of the peacemaking role of elders, such 

as in settling matters between the rival Woolwich 

gangs, so avoiding the British courts (McBride, 

2003). This type of action would reinforce the 

opinion of some young Somalis that clan loyalties 

are relevant only as a reinforcement of mutual 

support and solidarity. They dismiss the antagonistic 

element in clanship as ‘ignorance’ and ‘nonsense’, 

and reject researchers’ emphasis on the relevance 

of clan as ‘out of date’. There are also many Somali 

refugees in the UK of all ages who resist notions 

of clan exclusivity and conflict. As one said to 

Nuruddin Farah: “In Somalia…. I am born into a 

clan. In Britain, I am a Somali” (2000: 109). 

How far clan remains a potent symbol in the 

psyche of Somali refugees, and the extent to 

which it takes on new meaning in the diaspora, 

will depend both on their experience of the UK, 

and political developments in Somalia. Successful 

settlement in the UK will weaken links to ‘home’, 

and encourage identities founded on local 

connections rather than natal affiliations. If 

recent attempts to re-found a Somali nation state 

progress, this may encourage dreams of return, 

but to a society where clan is not the determining 

factor in public and private careers. 

Whatever the objective conditions in the UK 

or the Horn of Africa, it will still be impossible 

to generalise as to the persistence of a clan 

ideology amongst Somalis. As has been repeatedly 

emphasised throughout this report, they are not a 

homogenous group, and factors of gender, 

151. See also Griffiths (1997). 


69

generation, class and personal experience will bear 

upon identification with this complex aspect of 

Somali culture. 


Conclusion 

Despite the seeming difficulty in overcoming 

divisions etched so deeply by history and personal 

experience, Somali representatives constantly 

affirm the need for unity to confront their 

predicaments. A single voice would speak louder 

than sectional appeals. Hopefully, as collaboration 

increases between Somali organisations, and 

the younger generation assumes positions of 

responsibility, demands will be made for policies 

framed by the community itself, and therefore 

implemented with more determination. To return 

to where we began in this report - the production 

of knowledge on Somalis - it already seems that 

as more Somalis become trained researchers, 

they will undertake investigation on topics they 

identify for themselves. This could also correct the 

balance of problem-oriented research, towards 

an appreciation of what the Somali community 

already brings and potentially can contribute to 

the UK. In this endeavour to make the Somali 

community more visible, and confirm its presence 

as part of British society, the active participation of 

local authorities as well as national voluntary and 

statutory bodies is essential. It remains to be seen, 

for example, whether Liverpool, the new City of 

Culture, will celebrate the ethnic diversity in its 

midst, and whether the Somalis’ own voice will be 

heard. 

A prerequisite for a higher profile for Somalis 

is accurate numerical data on the population. 

Pressure must be exerted at a local and national 

level for the availability of statistics on Somalis on 

which to base both policy and future research. 

There are also areas where little research has yet 

been carried out, such as on the second generation 

and young people born in the UK. Then there are 

the recent arrivals - communities change, and the 

relationship with the UK alters as the diaspora 

widens and Somalis arrive in the UK from all over 

the world. Their particular needs and perspectives 

need to be considered. And what of men? Much of 

the best research is focused on women, yet these 

accounts also point out the loss of male status and 

esteem that affects men’s roles and rebounds both 

on the community and women themselves. This is 

a complex problem in which women’s developing 

confidence potentially clashes with familiar cultural 

patterns. The perspectives of both Somali women 

and men need to be heard. What we also lack, in 

spite of the length of the Somali presence in the 

UK, are longitudinal studies - comparative research 

carried out over a period of time which would 

help identify factors that make for a successful 

resettlement experience, and those that hinder 

integration. 

In terms of the perennial problems such as service 

provision in employment, health, education, and 

housing, existing material needs collating and 

more use made of what information already exists. 

Although only a few pieces of research have been 

mentioned here by name, they illustrate the wide 

range of sources that tell us what we know about 

Somalis. Limited though some of the work may 

be, and neglectful of the Somali voice, we know 

a great deal - enough to inform policy decisions 

on this significant refugee population. Although 

generations and geographical areas differ, there is 

enough repetition in available material to analyse 

the major areas of concern. There sometimes 

appears to be an unwritten assumption both 

inside and outside the Somali community that 

more research will somehow solve the problems 

so documented. Is this so? One useful enquiry 

might be into the career of the reports already 

produced. What happened after their publication? 

What policies ensued? What are the mechanisms 

necessary to translate research into result? One 

conclusion that can be drawn from this present 

report is the need for evaluation. We might suggest 

that where the purpose of research is a series 

of policy recommendations, the original funding 

should include the requirement - and the budget 

- for an independent evaluation of outcomes after 

a stipulated period of time. This would determine 

to what extent the recommendations have been 

implemented, what has resulted, what problems 

have been encountered in meeting objectives, and 

what lessons can be learned from the process of 

transforming proposal into practice. For what is 

needed is concrete action to end the feeling of 

exclusion among the Somali community in the UK. 


71

Publications 

Somali diaspora in the UK 

Key: 

# held by ICAR 

* consulted by HMH 

Abdullahi, M.D. (n.d.), Culture and 

customs of Somalia, Westport, CT: 

Greenwood Press * 

Africa Educational Trust (2002), 

Summary report on refugees and 

asylum seekers in the Learning 

and Skills Council London North 

area, London: Learning and Skills 

Council # * 

Ahmed, E.A. (n.d.), Educational 

and training needs of the Somali 

community in South Glamorgan, 

Cardiff: Welsh Joint Education 

Committee 

Ahmed, I.I. (1998), Feeling 

exclusion? A survey of the Somali 

community in Lewisham, London 

Borough of Lewisham 

Ahmed, M.S., Adan, O.M., and 

Dualeh, M.A.A. (1991), Somali 

community of Tower Hamlets: 

A demographic survey, London: 

Somali Research Project 

Ahmed, S. (1994), proceedings of 

seminar on khat and health at St. 

Margaret’s House, Bethnal Green 

Alasow, M.A. (2002), A study on 

the needs of the Somali young 

adults in Liverpool, Liverpool: 

Merseyside Health Action Zone 

# * 

Ali, E. (2001), Somali women in 

London: Education and gender 

relations, unpublished PhD thesis, 

London: Institute of Education * 

Ali, E. and Jones, C. (2000), 

Meeting the educational needs of 

Somali pupils in Camden schools: 

A report for Camden LEA, London: 

Institute of Education, London 

University and Camden Local 

Education Authority, # * 

Arthur, J. (2002), ‘Language and 

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77

Audio-visual 

Taken from the Black Women’s 

Health and Family Support 

Group’s CD-ROM (2003) 

BWHAFS 

First Floor 

82 Russia Lane 

London E2 9LU 

bwhafs@btconnect.com 

Britain my Britain 2 & 4 (2003) 

BBC2 Prod. Zoe Hassid 

Documentary dealing with 

the experience of two Somali 

single fathers living in London, 

including the impact of khat and 

unemployment 

Somali lives: culture in exile (n.d.) 

available from Arts Workshop, 

Oxford House, Derbyshire 

Street, London E2 6HS 

Video of Somalis talking 

about their lives, culture, and 

contemporary experience of 

London with footage of Somali 

dance, poetry and song 

Photographic exhibition on 

Somali social, political and 

cultural life also available for hire 

from Arts Workshop, Oxford 

House, Derbyshire Street, 

London E2 6HS 

BWHAFS (2003) 

CD-ROM on the BWHAFS, 

with information on the Somali 

community in the UK including 

female genital mutilation (FGM) 

Change without denigration (1994) 

Video of the International 

Conference about FGM held in 

London 

London Black Women’s Health 

Action Project (LBWHAP) 

[now BWHAFS] 

Safe in another country (1994) 

Prod. Daniel Stonier 

Video of refugee children’s 

experiences, including Somalis, 

in north London, narrated by 

themselves 

Silent tears: Female circumcision 

(1994) 

LBWHAP [now Black Women’s 

Health and Family Support, 

London] 



79

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