•
Recruit more female police officers and other female personnel to act as focal points at police stations;
•
Ensure military personnel and the police are vetted to exclude perpetrators of human rights abuses, including sexual violence.
LONG-TERM MEASURES: •
Ensure that all existing and new recruits receive appropriate human rights trainings, and that they include training about forms of sexual violence and how to respond to reports of sexual violence;
•
Establish court procedures to protect the privacy of victims, such as excluding media and the public from hearings for sexual violence cases;
•
Support the training of female lawyers, prosecutors, and judges, and offer gendersensitive training to the judiciary;
•
Publicly release data on the prosecution and conviction of cases of sexual and gender-based violence;
•
Transfer all criminal cases involving alleged civilian perpetrators as soon as feasible from the military court system to the civilian justice system;
•
Develop adequate protection measures, including protection programs and psychological support, before, during, and after the trial for all victims and witnesses whose physical safety and psychological well-being are at risk. This should include, but not be limited to, relocation measures.
Xawo, 34, was a cleaner in her neighborhood.43 In June 2012, four men whose rooms she cleaned took her to a back room, tied her hands, slammed her against a cement wall, broke her fingers, and gang raped her. She told Human Rights Watch that she never reported the incident because the perpetrators knew where she lived and she was fearful of reprisal. After she became pregnant from the rape, people close to her told her to “throw the baby away and cover up [her] story,” she said. When a woman faces such difficulties, she knows she can’t go to the government or to anyone. Women are being abused from every angle – from their family all the way to their government. Even within your family they’re telling you not to keep the child or to
43 Human Rights Watch interview with Xawo, 34, Mogadishu, August 25, 2013.
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HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | FEBRUARY 2014