Two teenage girls in Morocco face up to three years in jail on homosexuality charges after they were caught kissing. According to Article 489 of the Moroccan Penal Code, any person who ‘commits an unnatural act’ with an individual of the same sex may be sentenced to six months to three years of imprisonment. In […]

Recently, the Huffington Post re-published an Associated Press article on Sufi resurgence in Somalia. Following the withdrawal of the armed militant group Al-Shabab from the country’s capital of Mogadishu, Somalis are once again allowed to engage in Sufi practices without fear of death and violent repression. The article paints a landscape of men and women […]

For more than 20 years there has been a continuous stream of bad news where Somalia is concerned with images of war, famine and piracy. Now with Al Shabaaab driven out of Mogadishu, and the Somali Transitional Government and African Union in control of the capital, Somalia seems to have joined the Africa Rising tide, […]

I was really looking forward to reading this book, as I still love young adult fiction and was intrigued to see what a Muslim take on the genre would read like. From Somalia with Love focuses on 14-year-old Safia who lives with her Mum and two older brothers in the heart of the Somali community […]

According to a recent study carried out by Transparency International, Somalia was deemed to be the most corrupt nation in the world. The economic and political instability of Somalia has made it the site of many human rights violations, particularly against women. Females are underrepresented in the workforce as well as education. In fact, slightly […]

Raaz for MMW: I found Nomad Diaries a wonderful introduction to the lives of Somali women living in the United States.  There were times where I was reminded of my own immigrant grandmother and mother as I read about Nadifo’s life. As I mentioned in my review of Nomad Diaries, I am not familiar with […]

In Yasmeen Maxamuud’s novel, Nomad Diaries, Maxamuud tells the story of an upper-class Somali woman, Nadifo, who comes to Minneapolis as a refugee in the mid-1990s during a time of civil unrest in Somalia. Maxamuud highlights the challenges Somali women face as they transition to life in America as the story follows Nadifo and her family’s […]