Title

Strengths in Somali families

Source of Publication

Marriage and Family Review

Abstract

Somalis populate an area on the Horn of Africa which includes the country of Somalia and parts of Djibouti, Kenya and Ethiopia. They share the same language, religion and culture. The majority of Somalis are pastoralists, although urbanization is a growing modern phenomenon. They belong to stratified clan or tribal structures and follow time-honored traditions based on Islamic practices and customary law, called xeer. The civil war, which began in 1988, pitted the state against certain clans and then degenerated into inter-clan fighting, followed by intra-clan fighting. Throughout the conflict the population was subjected to atrocities: slaughter and rape was widespread, property and livestock were pillaged, infrastructure was ruined. The turmoil sent shock waves through the society, causing tremendous changes which stretched traditional coping strategies to the limit. © Copyright (c) by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.

Document Type

Article

Publisher

Informa UK Limited

First Page

71

Last Page

99

Publication Date

8-27-2007

DOI

10.1300/j002v41n01_05

Author First name, Last name, Institution

Hawa Ibrahim A. Koshen, Zayed University

Scopus ID

34548603519

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