| dc.description.abstract | This study looked at the observance of human rights and peace support operations in Africa, a case study of AMISOM in Somalia. The study acknowledges that there are challenges that are faced when trying to observe human rights in peace operations in Somalia. There is a lot of empirical evidence drawn from the AMISOM peace operations in DR Congo, South Sudan, and many countries in the developing countries. The study aimed to answer the following questions: 1) what mechanisms / instruments are in place to support human rights in Somalia? 2) what is the status of human rights in Somalia? and 3) What strategies have been adopted in observing Human Rights in Somalia?
The study set out two hypotheses namely that Poor implementation of mechanisms for observance of human rights increases violation of human rights in Somalia and Human rights in Somalia are violated by the entities that are mandated with protecting them. The case study design was used to generalize the situation in the Horn of Africa. Random sampling was employed in selecting the respondents. This consisted the residents in Somalia regions where peace operations have been taking place. Key informants included staff working with AMISOM, civil society organizations, transitional government of Somalia, and Human rights watch. Semi structured questionnaires were filled online by the key respondents. Translators were used for the community members who did not understand English. The data was then analyzed by use of excel.
The findings revealed that the commonly violated human rights were right to dignity, freedoms of movement and expression, right to life and displacement. While Al-Shabaab and Warlords were blamed to be the root cause of violation of human rights, those responsible for protecting human rights were highly blamed for violating them. These included the AMISOM, Transitional government of Somalia and the NGOs operating in Somalia. Various challenges to observing human rights were identified: weak institutions, poor implementation mechanisms, lawlessness, lack of or poor government structures, lack of human resource capacity and poverty.
The study recommends that the existing mechanisms / instruments of protecting human rights should be reviewed so that those found culprit of violating human rights can be prosecuted. There is need to sensitize communities in Somalia about their human rights and where and how they should report cases of human rights violation | en_US |
