Every morning in Hargeisa, women hoping to get casual work can be seen sitting on rocks in front of Hawadle football ground on Idacada road, waiting for an employer to come past and pick them.
Most of these women leave their houses early in the morning in the hope of landing a job. Others go knocking on doors to find cleaning jobs.
But with tough economic times and unemployment rife, women like Najma Isse Muhumed, a mother of seven, are becoming increasingly desperate. Najma hasn’t had any work for the past three months.
She had been washing clothes, cleaning and cooking, bringing home $6-10 a day that covered her family’s needs. But after five years of domestic work, her employers told her they couldn’t afford to keep her on.
Najmo said they depend now on food from their neighbours. Whenever they can’t find anything, they sleep hungry.
“We have got nothing, we can only pray to God to help us in this situation,” she said.
She owes $400 in rent arears for the last five months and has been warned of eviction by her landlord. Having suffered previous evictions from other rented houses, she is feeling stressed about how to raise the money.
Her children have been sick with fever for a week but she has no money to take them to hospital for treatment.
She still goes out job hunting every morning.
“I leave my house at around 9:30 am, it is hard since there is no medicine to give the children. I try to console myself because I know it’s God that provides,” she said.
Najma said accessing water in their neighbourhood is difficult. Water trucking services charge $7.5 for a barrel of water which she can’t afford. Sometimes when they find food they lack water to cook a meal.
Five of her children were attending a local school but she hasn’t been able to pay the $5 fee per child since losing her job.
Factors contributing to the economic downturn include the recent fire that destroyed businesses in the city’s Waaheen market, conflicts in some regions, and the elections in Somaliland scheduled for November. People appear generally to be spending less.
Sahra Ismail Nur, who had domestic work for the past three years, is also jobless now. She said her employers have been hiring younger girls from the rural areas who accept pay as low as $40 a month.
She has not had regular work for the past two months. She occasionally gets called up for a one-off job although the poor pay doesn’t buy them a single meal.
“We don’t have water in our house and it’s hard to get water. I only tell God about my dire situation, there are many hardships,” she said.
Food prices have also been rising. Sahra has been taking food on credit from a local store but the store owners informed her that with a debt of $250 over three months they are stopping the facility until she settles.
She has been looking for work anywhere including in municipal offices but has had no luck.
Asiya Mohamed Hashi, a mother of two, has not had any income since May when the household she regularly worked for told her they couldn’t continue paying her $50 a month for cleaning. Her job used to cover the rent, food and education for her children.
“It has affected us, we have nothing. It was good before when we would get a job every two days that covered our needs. The work was hard but we wouldn’t have to beg people. We are now sitting at home and we don’t know what to give the children,” she said.
Asiya said the work was hard and the house owners sometimes failed to pay her the agreed wages. She lives with her sick and elderly mother and is worried about being able to pay for her medical bills.
She moved from Burao in 2018, hoping to find better work in Hargeisa than selling samosas and snacks in the street as she used to do. She feels very disappointed and fearful of the future.
