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IRIN Web Special on Separated Somali Children
Chapter 6: 'Deported' home: between two worlds
Children are sent back to Somalia to learn their culture and religion.
Photo: UNICEF
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Not all returnee children suffer in the same way. Diaspora children who arrive back to the homeland with parents and relatives benefit emotionally and practically from the uninterrupted family relationship and support, and benefit psychologically from having shared the experience abroad. In marked contrast to the "deported" unaccompanied child, returning diaspora parents and the children set out together on a path of re-establishment and re-assimilation.
But it is not an easy path, according to those who bring their children home. Parents said consideration for children was one of the biggest obstacles the diaspora faced in organizing a return home. "The children initially find they have nothing apart from school and home - it's a big strain on the parents. They try to cope by buying video games and videos," one mother told IRIN. It causes economic and psychological stress for the returning family. "You feel you are not giving the children a quality life. You get frustrated teenagers and terrified youngsters, you have to put them in schools with a poor education [standards] and certificates that no one recognizes."
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Somali girl, 14, sent back to Mogadishu
I moved to Ohio, in America, in 1993, and came back to Somalia in 2001. I am here to get my religious education. It should take two years. I want to go back. I want to get my university degree. I'd like to be a teacher or to work with computers.
The worst thing about coming back here was the heat and the dirt. The streets are not clean, and we are not used to the water, which is dirty and makes you sick. I have these scars on my legs from the infection I got when I first came. I didn't know Somali when I arrived, some people made fun of me. In Ohio I did not wear a veil, just a headscarf, and I prefer it that way. I don't really want to wear a veil here, but I have to wear it in my country. My mother tells me "we will go back when you learn your religion." But I don't know when that will be.
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The children also benefit from family support while they learn how to defend themselves. According to one diaspora mother, relatives have to appreciate what returnee children will be confronted with. "It's a tough environment and they won't survive if they are docile and quiet. They have to give money for their own safety. My own child used to take money to school - we know it was extortion from the gangs."
"Separated" children in Somali territories
However, some children who have spent most of their lives abroad with their parents get sent back to Somali territories alone. To a great extent, their circumstances mirror those of the "separated" children arriving in European and North American countries. Having brought them up overseas, the parents then decide that the child will be better off back in the homeland.
This decision frequently coincides with the onset of puberty, or early teenage-hood, when the child's attitude and behaviour changes, and identity becomes an issue. Diaspora parents might feel that they have failed to effectively inculcate their culture into their children, or conflict in the household arises from the generation "clash" in the post-war diaspora. When they are sent away, the children may not realize where or why they are going - much like those who are sent out to European countries.
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Zeinab, on bringing children back to Somaliland
I decided to return my children back home while they were still young so that they could learn their religion and culture and family values, which is hard to teach them abroad. I used to hate the life being led by Somali children in Canada. I saw many families whose children got spoilt and detested to be even called Somali.
There are problems here for the returning diaspora children - their inability to assimilate, and the lack of suitable education facilities. The children are not used to the existing Somali schools. Many refuse to go to school, or become withdrawn, or just don't leave the house. It's normal for children from abroad to be taunted and teased. They get called names and provoked at school.
There are gangs of youths here who feel resentful of the diaspora children, resentful that [the returnee children] have had a better life while they remained here. Most of the ones remaining lost their fathers in the war and are living with their mothers. They are resentful that [the diaspora children] have material possessions, nice clothes, a good education, so they implement a sort of protection racket, extortion
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But sending a bi-cultural child back to an "alien" homeland is replete with problems, IRIN research suggests. Some reject their traditional relatives and rebel in the Somali schools; the social experience that is expected to "straighten them out" proves counterproductive and they end up marginalized in much the same way as they did overseas.
In one case, a young teenager brought up in Sweden had been sent to live with his grandparents in Baidoa, southern Somalia. The father told IRIN that in Sweden the boy had become involved with a group of friends he did not trust, had started thieving, and become difficult to handle. The father said he was worried the boy would be taken into "police care".
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