Somali trade union asks new leader to address rights violations

A Somali labour union has urged the country’s newly-inaugurated President to urgently address the serious violations of key international standards for human rights by the federal government there. Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed, 54, a former prime minister, was earlier this month chosen to be the ninth President of Somalia. The Federation of Somali Trade Unions (FESTU) earlier launched a detailed report, “protection from impunity is as important as any bullet-proof vest,” which is backed by the International Trade Unions Confederation (ITUC-Africa) with support of Trades Union Congress (TUC), an umbrella organisation of Britains trade unions. “For many years’ Somali trade unions have been targeted by the Federal Government, in particular by numerous attacks on basic freedoms of expression, association and assembly in blatant contravention of national and international laws,” said Omar Faruk Osman, FESTU General Secretary. “We are now providing compelling evidence of these abuses and we expect the new administration to address them urgently.” The report charts a wide range of exploitative and dangerous working practices that put Somali workers regularly at risk. These include cases of union members killed with impunity, frequent abuses of the right to associate and peaceful assembly, de-registration of trade unions to make them illegal in addition to attempts to impose direct control on the latter. It highlights how the Federal Government of Somalia has repeatedly breached and violated the human rights of its citizens with complete impunity, particularly workers and their trade unions. It focuses in particular on how the leadership of the trade union movement has been deliberately imperilled in a concerted bid to demonise, discredit and destroy the voice of free trade unions. “Free and independent trade unions, belonging to the Federation of Somali Trade Unions (FESTU), were denied the space and freedom to organise and mobilise workers. In addition, they faced concerted efforts to disorganise and undermine them. The main architects of this campaign were government agents and officials,” said Kwasi Adu-Amankwah, General Secretary of ITUC-Africa. “Union meetings were raided and stopped, union members were killed and wounded, and trade unions were de-registered in order to make them illegal. Fake unions were set up, as the government sponsored the seizure of independent unions and union activists were threatened.” Osman says they request the new president to ensure that his administration abides by and implements the various decisions made by the International Labour Organization (ILO). In the report, their recommendations to the Federal Government include: to allow trade unions to exercise their internationally protected right to peaceful assembly, and implement in full the recommendations issued by the ILO Governing Body and ILO Committee on Freedom of Association. editorial@newtimes.co.rw

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Somali trade union asks new leader to address rights violations