At present there is no law mandating a minimum age for marriage in Somalia.

Deputy speaker Abdiweli Mudeey's bill provoked criticism from other lawmakers when they realised it would legalise marriage at puberty.

For some girls, this would be when they were as young as 10 years old.

Government survey data this year shows child marriage is common in Somalia. Nearly a third of Somali girls are married before their 18th birthday. Just under half are married before the age of 15.

"Some families marry off their daughters to reduce their economic burden or to earn income. Others may do so because they believe it will secure their daughters' futures or protect them," says Dheepa Pandian, who is a spokeswoman from the United Nations' Children's Fund, UNICEF.

At this stage it is not clear when parliament might vote on the bill.

At present there is political turmoil in Somalia - the prime minister was sacked last month and elections due this year will likely be delayed. The nation is also battling an Islamist insurgency.

Many lawmakers, like legislator and human rights activist Sahra Omar Malin, reject the bill.

"Our constitution is based on Islam. It says the age of maturity is 18, this is the right age for voting or for a girl to marry," she said.

Mudeey told lawmakers his bill has been reviewed by clerics and "this bill ... is the correct one based on Islam."

A woman who runs three camps in the Somali capital for families fleeing violence, shelters many abused and abandoned child brides.

"Most women here were married at 13 and are divorced by the time they are 20," she says. "They have no one to feed them."

Among them is Sirad, a shy 16-year-old with two children. Her husband has left, but if he comes back she must welcome him, she says.

"Who else wants me? If you are thrown into a well and can't come out, the only option is to try to swim."

Another girl was married off at 13 by her father to a man who paid $100. She and her mother say she was beaten and raped for two years before they convinced him to divorce her.

"The man just slept with me, beating me always," she says. "I regretted I was born."

Source

• Reuters
• Image: Change.org

In addition, about 275,000 malnourished children are at risk of starvation, according to aid and development agencies, says Bishop Giorgio Bertin of Djibouti.

He says Caritas Somalia is responding alongside other agencies. A drought in the country, combined with the al-Shabab extremist group are likely to force the country into famine.

Bertin is urging the international community to focus on alleviating the drought.

His comments were made after the one-day London Somalia Conference on May 11. The conference brought heads of states from East Africa and key partners together.

They focused on accelerating progress on security sector reforms and building new international partnerships to maintain the country's course of recovery.

"We are distributing emergency food in six villages in Somaliland. We are also working on a project to take water to a rehabilitation center for handicapped children in a very poor settlement near the city of Hargeisa," Bertin said.

Money transfer businesses, which funnel an estimated $2 billion a year to Somalia, are struggling to access banks in the United Kingdom and the United States due to severe restrictions placed on them because of terrorism threats.

There are serious fears that the transfer agencies may be used to fund the al-Shabab extremist group.

Source

• CatholicPhilly
• CatholicCulture
• Crux
• Image: GoFundMe

Brendan Gormley, chief execution of the British Disasters Emergency Committee said: "To raise NZ$80 million in just over three weeks is a wonderful demonstration of public concern for those in need."

"We can't lose sight of the fact however, that this is an escalating crisis."

The UN's food arm, the Food and Agriculture Organisation said the famine is likely to spread across all regions of Somalia's south in the next four to six weeks, with famine conditions likely to last until December.

Despite the peoples' generosity the UN says the response so far has not been at a level required to match the humanitarian need.

"The current humanitarian response remains inadequate, due in part to ongoing access restrictions and difficulties in scaling‐up emergency assistance programmes, as well as funding gaps," said the UN's famine early warning system network. As a result, famine is expected to spread across all regions of the south in the coming four to six weeks and is likely to persist until at least December 2011. Continued efforts to implement an immediate, large scale, and comprehensive response are needed."

The UN assessment is that NZ$3 billion is needed and so far the world has not yet raised half of that amount.

Islamist insurgents who have refused access to western relief agencies have not helped the situation.

The drought and famine which has affected more than 11.8 million people has Pope Benedict repeating his calls for the world to not forget the Somali people.

Spreaking from his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo where he has been paying great attention to horror of the Somali peope, the Pope invited the faithful "to think of the many brothers and sisters who in these days in the Horn of Africa, are suffering the dramatic consequences of famine, aggravated by war and the absence of solid institutions."

Women and daughters are in particular need of institutional help.

Kenyan refugee camps built to house 90,000 people are overcrowded and cannot cope with the 1,400 refugees arriving each day and as a result the UN is reporting a 420% increase in reported rape of women and girls.

Many more rapes go unreported.

Sources

• The Telegraph
• Belfast Telegraph
• The Guardian
• Voice of America
• Image: Washington Post

Benedict is urging the international community to deliver urgent humanitarian aid to the drought-stricken area.

"Innumerable people are fleeing from that tremendous famine in search of food and assistance. I hope the international community will increase its efforts to send aid quickly to our sorely tested brothers and sisters, among them many children," the pope said.

"Our solidarity and the concrete assistance of all people of good will should not be lacking," he said.

The Guardian reports that victims of war and drought are at the mercy of bandits as they trek miles across the desert to seek UN help, then corrupt officials demand starving families pay for food.

"It has been a terrible experience. There were eight of us and we had to survive on just a few kilos of flour for five days. Hunger and thirst haunted us during the whole journey," Sarura Ali said.

"The heat was unbearable so we were forced to walk at night. Every step we took was in the dark fearfully."

Over 10 million people, half of whom are children, face starvation in the worst drought in 60 years. The situation is exacerbated by conflict, rising food prices and plummetting livestock values.

Caritas Aotearoa New Zealand has raised $50,000 in just over a week and is working as part of a coordinated Caritas response across Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Kenya.

UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon said the UN has targeted US$1.6b to pay for life-saving programs in the region, but as of 17 July the UN has reached only half the amount.

Sources

• The Guardain
• CathNews NZ
• Catholic Standard
• Image: London Evening Post