With a warm smile, the year-old asserts that bringing peace back to his once thriving homeland means including women at all levels of security responses. Abdirashid oversees the prosecution of Sexual and Gender Based Violence SGBV and Juvenile crimes, and he is proud to lead an all-female team of eight prosecutors and assistants working to bring justice to survivors. Meanwhile, over 1, km away, in the island nation of the Seychelles, Marie-Antoinette Gedeon demonstrates how female leadership is keeping communities safer.
Admittedly empathic, attentive and solution-oriented, she employs characteristics often assigned to women as a strength that has helped her steadily ascend the ranks. After quitting her job in pharmaceutics, the year-old mother of two joined the police force as a sergeant before climbing her way up the ladder. Although the Seychelles and Somalia face starkly different security threats, both Marie-Antoinette and Abdirashid are joined in their belief that integrating women into the security response is essential to keeping communities safer.
And their two countries are not the only one facing security threats. Across East Africa, a plethora of terrorist groups operate, actively targeting civilian populations, including women and girls. Responding to these crimes effectively, then, necessitates a gender approach. Research demonstrates that there are widespread benefits to increasing the participation of women in law enforcement.
The development of gender-sensitive approaches to countering terrorism is proven to yield positive results, as women offer different strengths and approaches to terrorism prevention responses than their male counterparts. Studies show that female officers increase public trust, address the needs of women and girls in their communities, help prevent radicalization, respond better to gender-based crimes, and decrease corruption.
This, in turn, enhances the efficacy of early warning and identification of potential threats. Amid diversity in the cultural, political and security make up of Eastern Africa, a common goal stood out: the need to protect citizens from the reality of terrorism. While terrorism's impact varies across the region, and indeed the world, no country is immune from its expanding reach.
