Gender Relations: Women in Peacebuilding in Somalia

The study's overarching goal is to examine women's roles in peace-building in Somalia, especially Benadir region, over the past three decades, from the years when the country was rife with unrest and ruled by warlords to the era of peace reconciliations and transitional governments to the present day, in which Somalia has a permanent government but is still in an unstable situation after years of dispute. In the context of Somalia, women have made notable contributions to the peace initiation processes and have played a vital part in peacebuilding activities. However, due to the Somali social structure, they are underrepresented in participating in formal peacebuilding processes such as peace negotiation, mediation, and decisionmaking. Therefore, the groundwork of the research is women’s empowerment and same time addressing gender bias that kept hindering women’s contribution in peacebuilding. Furthermore, this study’s objectives are based on three main areas: identifying women’s contributions to peacebuilding. To determine the barriers that hinder women’s contribution, how women navigate those constraints, so far how the situation of women in this post-conflict era is, and what is accomplished to engage equality and women’s empowerment in participation in the country’s peacebuilding. The study is non-experimental research, in addition, to applying secondary data obtained from other researchers, institutions, and international organizations. Hence, the study identified two main factors that hinder women’s contribution to peacebuilding such as cultural norms and weak institutions that cannot provide protection for women’s rights. Keywords: peacebuilding, gender equality, women, conflict resolution