(ERGO) – Vulnerable displaced women are in urgent need of skills training to be able to support their families in the central Somali city of Galkayo, as revealed by their recent loss of work collecting scrap metal for a living.
Magaalo Abdurahman, the chairperson of a committee representing 261 women scrap metal collectors, told Radio Ergo that most of them could no longer live from this work due to dwindling amounts of scrap in the streets and city.
She said many additional people displaced by drought had joined them last year, further depleting the pickings. Local garages, which were once the main source, had now installed machines to recycle the metal themselves.
“It has become hard to find metal and we have no alternative income,” Magaalo said.
“The women need to be taught new skills to earn a living otherwise their children will be sent out to work and will fall out of school.
“These people need to learn new skills – and skills require training so they can earn their daily living.”
One of the women in the group now struggling is Bintu Mahamud Omar, who still scours the streets daily, but can’t find enough metal worth selling.
Having relied on a daily $3-$5 from selling scrap metal she collected for the past five years, she and her five children are now surviving on credit, which is becoming hard to access.
“Many nights I couldn’t cook for my children, so I only made them tea and put them to sleep. When the shop refused to give us more credit, there were nights when the children went without food. Then we would go to a neighbour whose husband works, and after several nights of hunger we might get three cups [of food] or something similar but we don’t get that every day,” Bintu told Radio Ergo.
She owes $260 for food and necessities she borrowed from shops where she was a regular customer, and they are now pressuring her for repayment.
She has looked for other jobs but has no skills to offer. She has been unable to cover her three children’s $40 monthly school fees.
“When the scrap metal became scarce, I couldn’t afford the fees, so I had to take them out of school. Their father has abandoned them. I won’t leave my children in the wilderness. He doesn’t give me anything for them now, so they just stay at home and don’t attend school,” she said.
Bintu’s family was displaced from Mustahil in Mudug region in 2017, when drought caused them to lose their 110 goats and 40 camels and the crops on their one-hectare farm.
Similarly, Maslaho Diriye has been forced to beg for food for her seven children after giving up on collecting metal. Neighbours help her family with meals sometimes and they go to be hungry when they don’t have anything.
She stressed that the end of this work, which was her only source of income, has had a major impact.
“Before, we used to manage quite well. If I collected 100 kilograms of scrap metal a day, I would earn $10 from it. But now, we don’t find anything. It was much better for us when we could find the scrap as we used to make a living. Now we find none at all,” she complained.
Maslaho and her family have lived in Lafogeel camp on the outskirts of Galkayo since 2019, when drought and disease caused them to lose their goats in Qalaafe.
She turned to scrap metal after finding no other job she could do, having no knowledge of city-based work and no skills. She averaged $3 a day, which was enough for her children’s food.
The vehicle repair garages where she collected discarded metal told her two months ago they had nothing for her as they were reusing the metal now instead of discarding it.
Maslaho lives in small hut in the IDP camp that leaks during the rain. If it’s raining at night they have to stay awake until dawn trying to stay dry.
She has debts of $470 owed to shops where she used to buy goods that have now stopped giving her credit.
“I owe money for clothes, for water I fetched – I owe all this to a shop where I used to buy things. When I add it all up, the shop says $440 for food and clothes and for water I owe $30. I can’t pay them because I have nothing,” she said.
Like most of these women, she is the breadwinner in her family, in case because her husband, who used to do manual labour jobs in the city, is sick.
