Somalia: with the boom in construction, women engineers are demolishing stereotypes

September 20, 2023

In a booming Somali capital, construction engineer Faduma Mohamed Ali has a lot of work, supervising male workers twice her age, while defying stereotypes in this conservative Muslim country in the Horn of Africa. Africa.

For example, she had to face social stigma, opposition from her family and harassment at work, but says she never doubted her career choice.

“I have always loved buildings and observing structures like those of mosques,” this 22-year-old young woman explains to AFP.

When she applied to study civil engineering? where she was the only girl in her class? those close to him did not understand.

“They said: How can a girl waste time studying civil engineering? It’s a man’s job,” says Faduma Mohamed Ali.

Even when she graduated and found a job in Mogadishu, the criticism continued: “They asked me: Are you crazy?”

In Somalia, where women represent less than a third of the working population, according to the World Bank, many parents disapprove of seeing their daughters collaborate with men.

But mentalities are changing.

An engineer for three years in Mogadishu, Fathi Mohamed Abdi, 23, claims to have been supported by her parents, who are “very happy” that she became the first to do this job in her family: “No one had ever tried “.

“They started encouraging me while I was studying and they continue to do so now that I am working,” says the young woman.

At university, she was one of only two women to study civil engineering. His choice paid off.

The construction sector is booming in the Somali capital, where the security situation has improved somewhat thanks to a military offensive launched a year ago by the government against the radical Islamists Shebab in the center of the country.

“Thanks to growing investments in the construction sector, there are many (employment) opportunities,” emphasizes Fathi Mohamed Abdi.

Hassan Mohamed Jimale, deputy mayor in charge of public affairs of Mogadishu, assures that the authorities want to see more women in the job market: “As a regional administration, we encourage women engineers. The department in charge of urban planning (employs) women engineers and we have a deputy director.”

But women engineers interviewed by AFP say they regularly face sexism at work.

“The speeches and bad opinions that people have of us as women engineers is what disappoints me the most. Men keep telling us that this profession is not made for women,” says One of them, Iftin Mohamed, 26 years old.

“Workers show insubordination when they are supervised by female engineers, they think we are weak compared to men,” she adds.

Salaries are not equal, she also points out: “Women are paid less than men in most cases, especially in private companies.”

A mason under the orders of Fathi Mohamed Abdi and other engineers, Abukar Hussein Ibrahim says he enjoys working with women but, according to him, this is not the case for many of his colleagues.

“Construction workers find it incredible to see a woman engineer supervising their work. They spend a lot of time talking about it (…) They constantly wonder why a woman was chosen and not a man,” explains this construction worker. 42 years old.

However, they will have to get used to seeing women practicing their profession, warns Faduma Mohamed Ali.

“I recently took part in a training and, to my great surprise, there were more than 100 girls,” she says: “It was rare before. Now things are changing.”