From the moment a Somali girl is born the disappointment can be felt in the air. If the family hoped for a boy silence falls when they hear the word girl. Her existence is seen as a burden. It is a reminder of future shame. It is a source of worry rather than joy. People speak to her differently. They raise her differently. They treat her as if she is already guilty of something she has not done. Before she can even walk she carries the weight of family honour on her tiny shoulders.
She grows up watched judged and warned. She cannot laugh too loudly or speak too freely. Her brothers play outside without care while she is told to stay home and help. They say she must learn responsibility. What they truly mean is that she must learn to serve.
Even the most basic things like food are divided unfairly. In many homes the men and boys eat first. The food is placed before them while the women and girls wait in the background. The men eat as much as they want. Only when they are done do the girls eat whatever is left. In poorer families this means girls grow up half fed and tired before they even begin to live. They learn early that their needs come last. They learn that they exist to serve even at the dinner table. Some grow up malnourished weak and underdeveloped because they never had enough food or vitamins to grow properly. Hunger becomes part of their identity. It becomes a quiet lesson in inequality that starts before they can even speak.
By the age of seven she is already cooking cleaning washing and caring for her younger siblings while her brothers chase childhood dreams.
Then comes the pain that changes her forever. Many little girls are forced to undergo female genital mutilation. It happens without understanding. It happens without consent. It happens without comfort. What follows is trauma that never truly heals. Her body becomes a reminder of the cruelty she endured. Her innocence is stolen in the name of purity and culture.
For some girls childhood ends even earlier. In many parts of Somali society child marriage is still common and accepted. You will see girls as young as eight nine or ten being married off to men old enough to be their grandfathers. Families trapped in poverty give away their daughters to escape responsibility or to gain a little food or money. They call it marriage. In truth it is the selling of children. These little girls do not understand what is happening to them. They are robbed of their education their safety and their childhood. They enter a world of pain before they even understand life.
Hidden beneath that same culture is another cruelty. Rape. It is everywhere. Yet no one wants to speak of it. Little girls are raped by relatives or neighbours or men who hold power over their silence. Instead of being protected they are shamed. Families hide what happened because honour matters more than justice. Some victims are even forced to marry the very men who violated them. In Somali culture this is seen as a way to erase shame. For the girl it becomes a life sentence of pain.
Even within marriage many women are not safe. They are forced by their husbands. They are told that it is their duty and that refusing is a sin. Yet what is forced is not love. What is taken without consent is rape. The relationship does not change this truth. Too many women are told to stay silent to forgive and to accept. They carry that pain quietly because speaking up means being blamed instead of believed.
Womens bodies are also deeply sexualised even within a culture that calls itself modest. From a young age girls are treated as sources of temptation rather than innocent children. Every word they say every move they make and every way they dress is watched and judged through a sexual lens. Men commit the crimes. Women carry the blame. Even religious leaders who should protect and guide with fairness often speak of women in ways that objectify and reduce them. Their words shape a society that sees womens bodies as problems to control rather than people to respect. Their interpretations of religion go unquestioned even when they are unjust. True Islam does not oppress women. Culture hides behind religion to excuse cruelty and inequality.
By the time she becomes a teenager she has already been taught fear silence and obedience. She is told that her value lies in marriage. While boys dream of the future she is told that her purpose is to become a wife. If she does not marry by her late teens or early twenties she is whispered about as expired unwanted or cursed. The pressure grows heavier each day. She gives in or her family forces her hand.
Many teenage girls collapse under the invisible weight they carry. They are emotionally physically and psychologically abused inside their own homes. Some are beaten constantly. Some are insulted until they believe they are worthless. Others are overworked to the point of breaking. Many develop severe anxiety panic attacks or depression. Some lose consciousness suddenly and speak or cry in confusion. Families often claim it is a jinn or a shaitan. It is not possession. It is trauma. These girls are not cursed. They are traumatised. Their minds and bodies are crying out for help that never comes. They are prayed over instead of healed. They are blamed instead of believed. What they need is compassion and care. Not exorcism.
She marries before she truly understands who she is. A girl of seventeen or eighteen barely out of childhood is placed in a home and expected to serve a man raise children and hold together a family. By her mid twenties she may already be a mother of several children. Her body is exhausted. Her dreams are forgotten.
When she looks around she sees men with choices and women with burdens. A man can work travel remarry and live freely. A woman is chained by duty. Even if she has an education she finds doors closed to her. Employers choose men first. Society doubts her abilities.
By her late twenties or early thirties she may have six or seven children. She is tired but cannot rest. Her husband might leave or marry again often a younger woman. She stays behind caring for the children alone. The community tells her to accept it because religion allows men to marry more than one woman. They ignore how unfairly this is practised. They tell her it is her fault if her husband leaves. They say she must have failed him somehow.
So she keeps silent. She continues to carry the weight. She becomes the father and the mother. She becomes the provider and the caretaker. She becomes the emotional support for everyone. Even when she is married she lives like a single parent because the man feels no responsibility.
When her children grow older she still cannot rest. The mistakes of her children are blamed on her. The behaviour of her daughters is judged through her name. Her sons are excused. Her daughters are shamed. She continues to live in fear shame or exhaustion until the day she dies.
When she grows old her body weakens but the burden does not. Now she is a grandmother still cooking still serving still holding families together that have long stopped seeing her. She watches her daughters repeat the same suffering she once lived through. Their tired faces mirror her own past. She warns them. They tell her they have no choice. She knows they are right because she had no choice either.
Her sons visit when they need something. Her daughters come with their children seeking comfort and advice. She has none left to give. Her back aches. Her eyes carry memories of sacrifice. Even in her old age she still fears judgement. She still worries about her daughters marriages her sons behaviour and her familys reputation.
When she dies people say she was a good woman because she was patient silent and obedient. They praise her for her suffering as if pain was her purpose. No one asks if she was happy. No one wonders what she wanted from life. Her story disappears like the wind that passes over her grave.
And yet she was the strength behind every home. She was the one who raised the doctors the teachers the leaders the men who never gave her the respect she deserved. Her love built the very society that oppressed her.
The truth is that Somalia has become a hard place for women because culture has replaced compassion. Religion is misused to control rather than protect. Girls are born into fear. Women live in exhaustion. Grandmothers die in silence. The system blames women for everything. Men escape accountability.
But this must not be the end of the story. Change begins when people tell the truth and refuse silence. When mothers speak openly. When fathers protect their daughters. When communities realise that a womans dignity is not a threat but a blessing.
A Somali woman is not weak. She has carried generations through war poverty and pain. She deserves peace. She deserves choice. She deserves rest. She deserves a life that is more than survival.
Authors Note
I wrote this because I could no longer stay silent. I wanted to show the world what Somali women experience every day from the moment we are born until we grow old. This is not a story of shame or weakness. It is a story of endurance and survival and strength that has been ignored for too long.
I want people to see the truth. The pain. The injustice. The trauma that so many girls and women endure often in silence. I want mothers to protect their daughters. I want fathers to take responsibility. I want communities to challenge the harmful traditions that have been accepted for generations.
This article is a call for awareness. A call for compassion. A call for change. A Somali woman is not a burden. She is not disposable. She is not a problem to be controlled. She is the backbone of families and societies. She deserves respect dignity and the freedom to live fully.
I hope that by sharing this someone somewhere will pause and listen and finally see her.
With love Nimco Ali.