Somalia’s Senators seek to learn from Rwanda’s experience in women’s empowerment

“As women, we chose to come to Rwanda because Rwanda is the mirror of women’s empowerment. We want to get information, experience, and share our experience as well,” Zamzam Ibrahim Ali told Rwanda Champions in an interview.

Zamzam Ibrahim Ali

She added: “We selected Rwanda based on its success on women’s empowerment especially in women’s participation in politics.”

The delegation held talks with Rwanda’s Senate President Dr. François Xavier Kalinda and the chairperson of the committee on social affairs and human rights, Adrie Umuhire.

During their meeting, they shared experience and the Rwandan Senators elaborated on what has been done and the lessons their Somali counterparts can learn from Rwanda.

Part of the discussions was the importance of having a higher number of women in parliament and their contribution to development, according to Rwanda Senate President Dr. Kalinda. He said that they also brainstormed on the importance of gender equality in politics.

Zamzam Ibrahim Ali revealed that the Somali has only 14 women out of 54 members of the upper house.

Somali delegation from the Country’s upper arm of the parliament.

“We have eight committees, and those committees are chaired by women. We are growing, and we want to extend our political persuasion, and that’s why we are here,” she said.

The Chairperson of the Rwanda Women Parliamentary Forum (FFRP), Murangwa Ndangiza Hadidja said that having numerous women in parliament has solved a lot in terms of enacted laws which other counties can learn from.

“In parliament, one of the things we do a lot is law review. We take great care to ensure that our laws do not discriminate between men and women,” Ndangiza said.

A notable example is the law enacted in 2008 that prohibits and penalizes any violence against women through the forum’s advocacy, which was highly welcomed by the people.