I Am A Somali Woman, Poetry by Sahro Ahmed Koshin

Genre: war, women, SGBV, leadership, culture, Somalia

I Am A Somali Woman
by Sahro Ahmed Koshin

I am the sister of the martyr.

I am the aunt of the potato seller at the local market.

I am the daughter of the local sheikh.

I am the injured of the revolution. The protester. The jailed. The detained.

I am the tortured. The exiled. The kidnapped. The raped.

I am the veiled. The non-veiled. I am a beautiful soul.

I am a Somali woman.

My skin is of ebony and ivory. I am young by spirit. Old by experience.

I am the pregnant. The wife. The single mother. The widow. The godobtiir and godobreeb tool

forcing me into marriage as the compensation payment for another clan’s peace settlement.

I am a Somali woman.

Yet I am not a victim. I am a leader.

Not a woman leader. But a leader who happens…