SOMALI MEN ATTENDING UN ALL WOMEN CONFERENCE IN NEW YORK?

The federal  government of Somalia has a gender problem. It has sent men delegation to all women UN Conference recently. The phenomenon is perplexing all Somali people, and raising questions about whether the men sent there were transgenders. Or was it a total disregard of  Somali women’s rights, acknowledging that they even exist in the country? Nobody knows how this had happened, and confusion created here became a hot topic for social media circles and cartoonists alike. One WDM contact has come up with a Somali term: “Nimow Naag” (man woman).

Any conference is a venue for networking, follow-up exercises, and opening new communication channels long after the event ends. How would attending Somali men in all women conferences handle this? Would they claim that they had changed their gender to interact with foreign women in far places? How would they justify their participation in all women conference to Somsli women? There are many questions and answers that are difficult to come up with.

While we are at it, think of the nature and thinking of men in Villa Somalia to address multitudes of other complex problems of nation-building, when they even couldn’t figure out to let Somali women play their legitimate roles in society. No wonder Somalia had become too difficult to read and even to help.