Summary
The present report is submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 48/22, adopted on 11 October 2021, and covers the period from 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022. During the reporting period, the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Somalia, Isha Dyfan, undertook an official visit to the country from 28 March to 2 April 2022, and two consultative visits to Nairobi from 29 to 30 November 2021 and from 3 to 7 April 2022, where she engaged with several actors working in or on Somalia.
The Independent Expert conducted extensive consultations with senior government representatives, including the Permanent Representative of the Federal Republic of Somalia to the United Nations Office at Geneva, and the ministers responsible for women and human rights development, justice, and the environment. She also engaged with representatives of United Nations agencies and programmes, and of regional intergovernmental organizations, and consulted widely with civil society and directly with marginalized and minority communities.
In the present report, the Independent Expert provides an update on progress achieved to date by the authorities of Somalia on the seven key benchmarks mentioned in her preceding report,1 on the basis of political and security developments and the humanitarian situation in the country.
I. Introduction
1. The present report is submitted pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 48/22, adopted on 11 October 2021, by which the Council extended the mandate of the Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Somalia for one year, and requested that the Independent Expert submit a report to the Council at its fifty-first session and to the General Assembly at its seventy-seventh session.
2. The present report covers the period from 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2022. It is focused on assessing the situation of human rights in the country against the benchmarks for progress in improving the situation of human rights. It should be read in conjunction with the preceding report of the Independent Expert, presented to the Human Rights Council at its forty-eighth session.2
3. The report was shared with the Government of Somalia, in accordance with established procedure.
4. The Independent Expert welcomes the constructive engagement of the Government of Somalia with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, and with international human rights mechanisms, in particular the Human Rights Council at its forty-eighth session. At that session, the Permanent Representative of the Federal Republic of Somalia to the United Nations Office at Geneva was elected to serve as one of four vicepresidents on the bureau of the Council, representing the Group of African States, from 7 June 2021 until the end of that year;3 and the Council adopted the report of the Working Group on the Universal Periodic Review on Somalia on 1 October 2021.4 The Independent Expert also welcomes the Government’s engagement with human rights treaty bodies, particularly with the Committee on the Rights of the Child at its ninetieth session, on 10 May 2022.
Source: UN Human Rights Council