OPINION: Islam Or No Islam, You Need Your Women For Economic Development
Al-Shabaab loyalists are shooting themselves liberally in the foot with all their strange rules, the most recent being that women should not be permitted to sell khat, the popular stimulant. It is a redundant clause, if the Somali fundamentalists are seriously considering becoming the rulers of a nation.
Putting aside all the other degrading and extremist positions on women, this one stands out because they are forgetting what they claim to be fighting for. The Harakat al-Shabaab al-Mujahideen, as they would be known, are trying to overthrow the government of Somalia but it appears that having done that they may have also forgotten that they will need to run a nation.
Gender issues aside, for someone who has studied development discourse it quickly becomes apparent that they will be making a huge error in trying to run a state in which they oppress half their potential work force. Without women sustainable economic growth is not possible.
By stopping women from engaging in trade or business household productivity becomes dramatically reduced, the welfare of off-spring declines and they can no longer act as a last social safety net in economic down turns. In Somalia's case the situation is made all the worse because many Somali families are dependent on women's earnings given the longtime political and economic chaos.
Yet, in areas controlled by al-Shabaab the laws preventing women from gaining employment are becoming increasingly draconian in nature. In some towns women are not allowed to sell anything or work in an office. This is bad for them as an individual, but this new regulation on khat trade would affect the entire country's economy, if you can even call it that. This is because the khat trade in Somalia is dominated by women.
Hargeisa for example is a major Somali centre for the khat trade. There are reports that up to 15,000Kg comes in every day. The trade here is dominated by a woman – Zuhura Esmail Kehim. Her khat business employs over 300 permanent staff and countless informal labourers. This is a woman that started off as a street trader and now currently owns, with her husband, hospitals and an orphanage-- just one illustration of how far a woman's trade in khat can go.
Already in Kismayu, a port city in the Jubbada Hoose region of Somalia, women caught smuggling khat have been sentenced to 20-day jail terms and fined one million Somalia shillings (approximately 625 dollars). This is a high price to pay for these women who have families to support and no way of earning an income.
The lack of logic in applying this regulation is astounding, there aren't even men around to ensure that the women don't stave. A vast proportion of women in Somalia have had to fend for themselves because their husbands or sons are at war fighting for their respective clans or beliefs. Somalia is in a state of flux as it is and if al-Shabaab is determined to drive the country that they so passionately fight for into the ground, they're doing a good job of it.