By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Somali social media users have reacted angrily after the country’s Family Minister Gen. Bashir Mohamed Jama shared photos of himself and another male delegate on X, showing their participation at a UN meeting summoned for discussion of women issues.
“It is tone-deaf for the Somali government to have men on the frontline, representing women at the conference,” BBC quoted Fathiya Absie, a renowned Somali author and human rights activist was quoted as saying.
Reports say two women were also part of Somalia’s four-member delegation to the Women, Peace and Security Focal Points Network, an event in New York. They were however excluded in the photo.
Out of 197 delegates registered for the event from 57 countries, just 21 were men with Somalia producing two.
A group photo from the event held earlier this week, in which Gen. Jama was pictured centre-stage provoked angry reaction on the social media, with many Somali nationals accusing the government of not taking women’s issues seriously.
Several photos were tweeted from the conference, one showing Gen. Jama with his adviser, former parliamentarian, Abdullahi Godah Barre, with another showing them in the meeting room with another man, who according to reports is an aide.
“He was not the only male minister present, there were a lot of other male ministers, such as Japan and China,” Mohamed Bashir, a senior civil servant at Somalia’s Ministry of Family and Human Development said in reaction.
The two female Somali delegates were Iman Elman, a prominent military officer, and Sadia Mohammed Nur, a civil servant from the ministry, he said.
The online backlash has reignited criticism of the government’s decision in July to rename what was the Ministry of Women and Human Rights Development to the Ministry of Family and Human Rights Development.
