Somalia's remittances quandary: what are the options post-Barclays?

The closure of UK bank accounts belonging to cash-transfer firms would force many people to find new ways of sending money home. What are the alternatives?

Somalia's remittances and the $162m question … how will the loss of UK accounts belonging to cash-transfer firms affect the country? Photograph: AFP/Getty

by Mark Tran

Barclays has decided to close the accounts of about 250 money-transfer businesses, a move that could badly affect the flow of remittances toSomalia as it lacks a banking system. What are the options for Somalis?

Use unofficial or illegal means

The Somali authorities said last year that about $2bn (£1.2m) in remittances – a significant percentage of GDP – is channelled to the country through hawala, or small money-transfer businesses.

According to Oxfam (pdf), an estimated $162m is sent to Somalia annually by the UK's Somali diaspora. There are fears this flow of money could go underground through unlicensed agents.

Barclays says it took the decision to close the accounts of some of its money service businesses (MSBs) to minimise the risk of falling foul of money-laundering regulations. But the move could lead to more money laundering. "It makes it much more likely there will be money laundering," said Dominic Thorncroft, chairman of the UK Money Transmitters Association.

The head of the African Development Bank, Donald Kaberuka, has made the same point. In a letter to Barclays, he asked the bank to reconsider its decision. "While the other affected countries have alternatives, Somalia and the greater Horn do not," he wrote. "As a result those transfers would probably be driven to high-risk, high-cost informal channels."

Use other companies

Barclays' decision particularly affects Dahabshiil, the region's biggest remittance company. It has 286 locations across Somalia and 400 payout sites across the Horn of Africa. Western Union has opened an office in Somalia, and other Somali remittance companies, such as Amal, Iftin, Kaah and Amaana, operate in the country. But they do not have the reach of Dahabshiil, which is also used by 95% of international agencies and charities in Somalia.

Ismail Ahmed, chief executive of World Remit, believes these companies have sufficient presence is southern Somalia, but is concerned that any negative impact on Dahabshiil could have serious consequences for the breakaway state of Somaliland, where the company has 90% of the market.

What are the options for remittance companies?

They can try to open accounts with other banks, which is easier said than done. Barclays tightened its eligibility criteria for MSBs after HSBC was fined a record $1.9bn in the US for a "blatant failure" to implement anti-money laundering controls.

It is far from certain that other UK banks will want to deal with a small sector that generates little profit yet poses a major regulatory headache. Other unpalatable options include transforming themselves into agents for bigger, more established players such as Western Union, so the money in effect goes through Western Union's systems. Or the remitters could pool their resources to set up more rigorous compliance mechanisms to track where the money comes from and where it goes.

What action is being taken?

Barclays' decision has triggered a flurry of official activity. There have been discussions between the British Banking Association (BBA), the Treasury, the Department for International Development (DfID) and remittance companies.

The BBA has called for a review of the registration and licensing requirements for MSBs, and wants better regulation of the industry. DfID is reviewing the remittances sector before talks next month.

Manuel Orozco, a senior associate at the Inter-American Dialogue and author of a report on remittances in Somalia, points to the entrepreneurial spirit of Somalis, insisting they will find ways of dealing with the problem. But he warns the damage created by Barclays far outweighs any risks it faces by doing business with remittance firms. He suggests other banks step in.

Nadifa Mohamed, the Somali-born author, has asked why Barclays continues to work with MoneyGram, which admitted to money-laundering and wire-fraud violations in the US, while shutting Somali money-transfer companies that have never faced any charges.

How does Barclays' decision affect other communities?

According to the World Bank, officially recorded remittances from the UKcame to $3.2bn in 2011. The money went not just to Somalia, but alsoBangladesh, Pakistan and India. Those communities have protested that, since other banks are refusing to offer new accounts, Barclays' decision will lead to thousands of people losing jobs in remittance companies in the UK, while those sending money abroad will be forced to use a handful of big US money-transfer providers.

Somalia: Islamic jihadists murder 15 people at Mogadishu restaurant

by Robert Spencer

Remember: today's politically correct dogma holds that this attack was committed by "extremists" who have nothing to do with Islam, despite their own self-identification as devout Muslims and claims that they carry out these attacks in fulfillment of Islamic imperatives. And if you start to examine the belief system that motivates attacks like this, you're just as much of an "extremist" as those who set off the bombs.

"Somalia bombs kill at least 15 people at restaurant in Mogadishu," from the Guardian, September 7 (thanks to Twostellas):

A car bomb and suspected suicide bomber have killed at least 15 people in two explosions at a restaurant in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, local police said.

At least another 20 people were wounded in the bomb attacks on the Village restaurant, Captain Ali Hussein, a senior police official, said on Saturday.

No one has claimed responsibility for the blasts but suspicion will likely fall on the Islamist militant group al-Shabaab, an al-Qaida affiliate which has carried out a campaign of suicide bombings since African Union forces forced it to withdraw from the city in 2011.

Mohamed Yusuf, a spokesman for the Mogadishu authorities, said: "First a car bomb exploded at the entrance of the restaurant, and when people converged inside a suicide bomber blew up himself."

Isaq Hassan, a car washer who lost a colleague in the blasts, said: "This disaster never comes to an end." Pointing to dead bodies on the ground, he added: "See this, that and this! Life is worthless here."

The restaurant, which was popular with government officials, was owned by a Somali businessman, Ahmed Jama, who had returned to his home country from London to set up the business. Militants, also thought to be from al-Shabaab, had previously targeted the restaurant in November. Only one person was killed in that attack by suicide bombers.

"They attack the restaurants because they hate to see people peacefully spending time together," said Mohamed Abdi, an interior ministry employee at the scene. "They are committed to obliterating any sign of peace. Because of such attacks, it's very hard for the government to restore security in the near future."

SOMALIA: Hand grenade kills one, injures more in central Somalia town

 

Beledweyn - At least one person was killed and more than five others were injured on Saturday night after a hand grenade targeted to a tea shop in Beledweyn town, on central Somalia region of Hiiraan.

According to police officer, men armed with hand grenades threw the bomb to civilians sitting in the tea shop at the centre of the town and immediately escaped from the area before the security forces reached there.

Colonel Isaq Ali, the regional police commissioner said the police were investigating the perpetrators despite no one was arrested yet for the explosion.

“We are yet proping up the explosion, as we are very sorry for the attack against civilians.” the police commissioner said.

The security of Beledweyn town has been calm in the past months despite several bomb attacks were targeted against bases for the security forces and civilian buildings in the town.

Beledweyn explosion came after a deadly suicide attacks hit the country’s capital Mogadishu on Saturday killing more than 20 people.  Al Shabab rebel group claimed the resp9nsiblity of the Mogadishu attacks.

Source: RBC Radio

Journalist kidnapped in Somalia: Reunion with mom 'felt like home'

Amanda Lindhout, who was abducted and held hostage in Somalia for 15 and a half months, details her ordeal in a new book “A House in the Sky.” Interviewed on TODAY, she talks about a failed escape attempt and describes how she kept her will to survive.

      Scott Stump - Today Contributer

After being kidnapped in Somalia and enduring abuse at the hands of Islamic rebels for 15 and a half months, former freelance journalist Amanda Lindhout recalled the experience — detailing what she went through, how she tried to escape and what it was like to finally be reunited with her mother after her release in 2009. 

"Seeing my mother that day standing in the sunshine outside of the hospital was really surreal actually,'' Lindhout told Savannah Guthrie on TODAY Friday. "It was this moment that I had been dreaming about for 460 days, and then there she was. When she held me, in her arms felt like home, like I had come home." 

Book excerpt: Author tells story of fifteen months of harrowing captivity in Somalia

TODAY

Amanda Lindhout said reuniting with her mother, Lorinda Stewart, on the first day after she was released following 460 days in the hands of kidnappers in Somalia, "felt like home."

Lindhout had been flown out of Somalia and driven to a hospital in Nairobi by a private security team a day after being released following a ransom payment when she embraced her mother, Lorinda Stewart, for the first time in nearly two years.

In her new book, “A House in the Sky,’’ Lindhout shares personal details from the time she spent in captivity, including the beatings, starvation and sexual assaults she faced and how she fought thoughts of suicide. She spoke about her ordeal with Guthrie on Friday and also gave an in-depth interview in an hour-long report by NBC News correspondent Kate Snow that will air on “Dateline’’ Friday at 9 p.m. ET.

Journalist recounts horrific kidnapping ordeal in Somalia

"Extremely difficult conditions throughout those 460 days, much of that being kept isolated in the dark with chains around my ankles, being abused very regularly,'' she said. "It wasn't always easy, but I found that as things progressively got worse, I needed to find something to hold on to, some kind of light in that situation, and so for me it was thoughts of returning home one day or what I would do with my life afterwards if I was to survive. That gave me hope just to make it through a day or make it through an hour." 

On Aug. 23, 2008, she was kidnapped by about a dozen men pointing AK-47 assault rifles at her vehicle when she went to visit a refugee camp outside the Somalian capital of Mogadishu. Lindhout, who was 24 at the time, was abducted along with 36-year-old Australian photographer Nigel Brennan on the morning of their fourth day in Somalia. They were freed in November 2009 after both of their families raised money and split the cost of getting them released.

Lindhout and Brennan briefly escaped from their captors about five months into the ordeal, but were re-captured. 

TODAY

Journalist Amanda Lindhout and Australian photographer Nigel Brennan spent 460 days in the hands of Islamic rebels after being kidnapped in Somalia in 2008.

"We were feeling really desperate, sure that our captors were probably going to kill us even if they did get the ransom that they were demanding from our families,'' Lindhout said. "We planned and executed an escape, which was using a pair of nail clippers, carving out a couple of bricks out a bathroom window, and we made it out. We were free for all of about 40 minutes and found our way into a mosque where we hoped that we would find help, and of course it didn't take long for our captors to track us to that mosque and drag us out of there. What happened after was much worse than anything we had experienced up to that point." 

Lindhout denied rumors that she gave birth to a child while she was being held.

"I absolutely did not have a child in captivity or give birth while I was there,'' Lindhout said. "It's unfortunate that these sort of tabloid headlines continue to circulate even all of these years later. Absolutely, that's not true." 

She decided to write the book, she said, because her story is emblematic of the power of the human spirit. 

"I don't think it's something that's unique to me,'' she said. "I think it's the human spirit inside of all of us that has an enormous capacity to survive. I went through something that was exceedingly difficult, so I had to dive pretty deep to find out what I was made of, so I had the opportunity to do that.

"I'm also a reader myself, and I wanted to tell a story that was going to be entertaining, taking the reader through my early travels around the world, and then ultimately into the dark part of the story, which was when I was abducted," she added.

Source : today.com

Madaxweynaha Somaliland oo Dhagax Dhigay Dhisme Rugta Kutubta Oo Heer Qaran ah Iyo Dhismayaal Loo Kordhinayo Was. Boosaha + Sawiro

Hargeysa - Madaxweynaha Somaliland Mudane Axmed Maxamed Maxamuud 'Siillanyo' ayaa Maanta Dhagax dhigay Dhisme Cusub oo loogu talogaly in uu noqdo Rugta Kutubt'a Heer Qaran (Somaliland National Library) iyo Dhismayaal  Cusub oo ay Yeelanyso  Wasarada Boosaha iyo Isgaadhsiinta, madaxweynaha ayaa waxa ku wahelinayey dhagaxdhigaasi wasiirka Arrimaha Gudaha, Wasiirka Madaxtooyada, Wasiirka Warfaafinta, Wasiirka Qorshaynta Qaranka iyo Wasiirka Wasaarada Waxbarashada.

Dhanka kale Wasiirka Boosaha iyo isgaadhsiinta Maxmed Abgaal ayaa sheegay in baahi weyn ay u qabeen dhisme cusub, waxaanu madaxweynaha ku aamanay in dhismahaasi ay u dhisaan.

FEMALE GENITAL MUTILATION: ‘MOTHERS NEED TO SAY NO’

Faduma Ali, 86, still remembers the pain of being circumcised at eight. Horrific as it was, she allowed her own daughters to go through the same ordeal. But when it came to her granddaughters, she decided to step in and stop it

By Homa Khaleeli

“As a little girl I would go looking for the cutters and ask them when it was my turn,” Faduma Ali says. “I thought it was exciting. I wish I had known then what I know now.”

It’s almost eight decades since Faduma underwent female genital mutilation (FGM), sometimes known as female circumcision, in Somalia. Today, sitting in her daughter’s lounge in north London, she says it has left her with a lifetime of pain and medical problems. Yet despite her own agony she felt powerless to resist the societal pressure driving the tradition, and insisted her own daughters have it done too.

But when her granddaughters faced the same fate, she knew something had to change. And as an older woman, her voice carried more weight. Faduma told her daughter not to let her granddaughters be cut. “Women can eradicate this,” she says. “Mothers are responsible for refusing the practice.”
Campaigners say that a tangled mix of family pressure, cultural traditions and religious motivations make FGM – illegal for almost 30 years in the UK – hard to eradicate. It has been documented in 28 countries in Africa and in a few countries in Asia and the Middle East.

The practice involves removing all or part of the external female genitalia (including the clitoris, labia minora and labia majora – and in some cases the narrowing of the vagina), and is usually carried out before the age of 15. As well as the risk of bleeding to death or infection, a terrifying array of physical and psychological problems can follow.

Today 30,000 girls in the UK are said to be at risk of this form of mutilation, while 66,000 live with the consequences of it. Yet no one has ever been prosecuted for carrying out or abetting the practice (which carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years).

This, say campaigners, is because children are unwilling to speak out against their families and communities and that is why Faduma, along with her daughter, Lul Musse, and granddaughter, Samira Hashi, have agreed to explain how – even in a loving and close-knit family such as theirs – such a custom can be perpetuated.

Samira, 22, is translating for her grandmother, who explains that growing up in the suburbs of Galkayo, a city in south Somalia, being “cut” was not just something she looked forward to, but insisted upon. “Everyone had it done,” says Faduma, 86. “If you didn’t, you were shunned. I saw it as something exciting.”

She was under no illusions about how painful it could be, however. “I saw it being carried out – most girls would try and run away. But it was part of our way of life. My grandmother and mother had had it done, so it seemed natural.”

Faduma’s father, who was in the Somali military, was not convinced. “He had a city attitude because of his travels,” says Faduma. He told her grandmother, with whom Faduma lived, that she was not to be cut. But Faduma convinced her grandmother to take her while he was away.

The cutter had no medical qualifications and performed the operation in the open air, without sterilisation or pain relief. Faduma was eight.

“There were four of us,” Faduma recalls. “But because I was the bravest I was told to go first.
“My grandmother and the other girls’ mothers held me down and the woman cut me with a knife. It’s like someone is cutting your finger off without pain relief. My blood was shooting into her face and eyes.”

Next, the wound and her vagina were sewn up, leaving her a hole the size of a match head through which to pass urine and menstrual blood. With no medical equipment, three thorns were used in place of stitches. Yet her ordeal was far from over.

“They gave you milk and waited to see if you could urinate,” she recalls. “If not, they cut you open a little more. For two weeks it is agony.”

Afterwards, she says, she boasted to her friends she had been cut, but never realised it would have such severe complications. “The minute you have it done you have problems,” she says. “When you have your period, it is very painful and when you have children it is very painful.”

Female genital mutilation, says Faduma, was intended to guarantee virginity before marriage by ensuring sex would be frightening and painful for girls. Giving birth, however, was nothing short of torture. Faduma had 10 children, but her first labour lasted five days with midwives forced to “cut me everywhere” to get the baby out.

Yet when her daughters turned seven, Faduma could not shun the custom. “Without it, my daughters would not have been allowed to marry,” she says. “There was not a girl in sight who hadn’t had it done.”
Now 52, Lul agrees: “You couldn’t go to school without it, or people would laugh at you,” she recalls. Her operation was in a hospital under anaesthetic, aged seven. “I tried to run from the operating table, but my mum and her friend held me down.”

The operation, she says, had a devastating effect on her life and affected her marriage. “When you have sex it is very painful and you don’t feel any pleasure. You will never enjoy sex.”

Giving birth was excruciating and complicated for Lul. Yet, amazingly, this did not affect her decision to have her own daughters cut. But her mother stepped in. “I was sick of it,” Faduma says, firmly. “Times had changed. Women were freer and had more power.”

She told her daughter not to do it. Yet Lul says she would have rebelled had they stayed in Somalia. “I would have done it even though my mother said no. All men wanted circumcision. If your daughters weren’t cut they would say they are like hookers.”

She believes it is up to men to take a stand. “This has to be a man’s campaign. Until men say stop, that this is not part of our religion and not part of our culture, it will still go on.”

For Samira, the very idea of this kind of mutilation is incomprehensible. Brought up in London, she was working as a model when she was approached by BBC3 to present a documentary about Somalia. Visiting the war-torn country, she met women who planned to have their daughters cut and saw a six-year-old girl who had been recently subjected to FGM. “I just didn’t understand how a mother who had gone through this pain could have it done to her children. I don’t blame the women, I blame the society that doesn’t stop it.”

Since the film came out last year, Samira has been touring schools with Save the Children to highlight issues facing Somalia. “One thing I have learned is that while people may say we are moving on, it still continues.”

Although Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities carry out FGM, mainstream spiritual leaders from all three religions have denied that the practice stems from religion. Samira believes the desire to control women’s sexuality lies behind it.

“I think women here are scared their daughters will become too westernised and not get married – that they will have boyfriends and go out, and this is why they have it done.”

Yet the subject, she says, is rarely discussed. “I go into schools with a high number of Somali girls, and they always seem shocked that it is part of our history and culture. We need women to talk about their experiences, men to talk about their marital experiences, clerics to explain it is not linked to religion and doctors to talk about the problems it causes. Then things will change – when we discuss what FGM is really doing.”

Source: The Guardian

SOMALIA TO SEND 1 MILLION CHILDREN TO SCHOOL

MOGADISHU (AFP) –  The Somali authorities are launching Sunday a campaign aimed at getting one million children in the war-torn nation into school, the United Nations’ children’s agency said.

The Go 2 School initiative is being launched simultaneously in the capital Mogadishu and in Hargeisa and Garowe, the main cities of the autonomous and semi-autonomous northern states of Somaliland and Puntland respectively.

The campaign, which will run for three years “aims to give a quarter of the young people currently out of the education system a chance to learn,” Unicef said.

At an estimated total cost of $117 million (89 million euros) for the three-year period, the initiative will include construction and renovations of schools, teacher recruitment and training, technical and vocational training for older children and special programmes for pastoralist communities.

Enrolment rates in the Horn of Africa country, which is struggling to emerge from two decades of civil war, are among the lowest in the world, the agency said, noting that only four out of every ten children are in school.

Many children start primary school much later than the recommended school-entry age of six and many more drop out early.

“Go 2 School is very ambitious, but it is an essential and achievable initiative,” said UNICEF Somalia Representative, Sikander Khan. “Education is the key to the future of Somalia — we have already lost at least two generations. An educated youth is one of the best contributions to maintaining peace and security in Somalia.”

Source: AFP

Somaliland’s book fair: A haven of jollity and calm

 

THE still unrecognised republic of Somaliland has been parading its de facto independence from its battered bigger brother, Somalia, with an international book fair in its self-styled capital, Hargeisa. Along with the reopening of a revamped international airport, the fair was intended to show the world that Somaliland is open for business, especially with the West.

At the jamboree, the literary talents of Somaliland were on display. Though Nadifa Mohamed, a novelist listed among Granta’s “Best of Young British Novelists for 2013”, was not there this year, her latest work, “The Orchard of Lost Souls”, recently published in London, was much mentioned. A largely British foreign line-up included Michela Wrong, author of books on Congo, Eritrea and Kenya; Mary Harper, author of “Getting Somalia Wrong”; a Scots poet and translator, W.N. Herbert; a Nigerian, Chuma Nwokolo; and a Kenyan poet, Phyllis Muthoni. Cheers and ululations in a packed auditorium greeted Hadraawi, Somaliland’s national poet.

The fair, now in its sixth year, is the brainchild of two diaspora Somalilanders, Jama Musse Jama, a businessman based in Italy, and Ayan Mahamoud, who lives in London, where she has run an annual Somali Week festival for several years. Prominent among the sponsors of the Hargeisa event were a number of “frontier” private-equity funds interested in oil and mineral rights. One of its unstated aims was to persuade Westerners that Somaliland is safe and stable. Compared with Somalia, whose capital, Mogadishu, is still periodically clobbered by suicide-bombers, dusty, bustling Hargeisa seems a haven of jollity and calm.

Source: economist.com