Somali Journal March, 2014 | Page 10

“The only way to spare victims the trauma of sexual violence is for these attacks to stop (Muscati, 2014.)” However, stopping these attacks is easier said than done. The whole problem started with women being disrespected by men, being taken advantage of and pushed. In Somalia Women are considered unequal to the men. Women don’t go to school, rarely get jobs, and therefore are subject to gender discrimination. The government is turning a blind eye to the abuse women face. There are many things they could do to lower the rate of abuse but for some reason they choose not to. Last December a victim of assault was sent to jail for speaking out about it. The government knows that rape is a problem and they are doing their best to make sure the whole world doesn’t know. This is why when a journalist reported about a rape they decided to put her in jail. When you send a victim of a horrible crime to jail for speaking the truth it sets a tone through the country; this sends the message to Somalian women that if they speak the truth they will get punished. It’s ridiculous that the government hasn’t made more of an effort to protect women and punish the perpetrators. Recently the Somali government has recognized that sexual violence is a problem, but whether or not they will do something about it is unknown.