Somalia

Somalia, located in the Horn of Africa, is bordered by Kenya to the southwest, the Indian Ocean to the east, and Ethiopia to the west. It was formed in 1960 from two former colonies, British Somaliland Italian Somaliland. Beginning with a coup in 1969 by Mohamed Siad Barre, Somalia has repeatedly been subject to authoritarian rule, civil unrest, and clan warfare, and currently has no internationally recognized government. The humanitarian toll has been high, with recurring famines and epidemics of infectious disease as well as the toll of deaths from warfare. Somalia has many internally displaced persons as well as international migrants who have fled the warfare, famine, or epidemics in their native villages. Human trafficking is believed to be widespread in Somalia, with women and children at particular risk for sexual exploitation and forced labor.

Many basic population and human welfare statistics are not available or must be estimated due to the absence of a functioning central government. The population in 2009 is estimated at approximately 10 million, with an extremely young age structure: the media age is 17.5 years, with 45 percent of the population aged 14 years or younger. The population growth rate is also high at 2.8 percent, due to a remarkable total fertility rate (an estimate of the number of children per mother) of 6.5. The sex ratio is even in the population, with slightly more boys than girls born (1.03 to 1) and more women than men in the over-65 age group (0.72 males per female). The predominant religion is Sunni Muslim. Literacy is low for men (49.7 percent and even lower for women (25.8 percent). The estimated Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in 2008 is $600, although that figure should be interpreted with caution.

Not surprisingly, the standard of maternal and child health care is not high, and up-to-date statistics are not often available. The World Health Organization estimates that in 1999, 34 percent of births in Somalia were attended by trained personnel, and 32 percent of pregnant women received four or more prenatal care visits in 2001. In 2000, the maternal mortality ratio was extremely high at 1,100 per 100,000 live births, the stillbirth rate 44 per 1,000 total births, the early neonatal mortality rate 37 per 1,000 live births and the neonatal mortality rate 49 per 1,000 live births.

Many girls in Somalia are subject to the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM), which may involve surgical removal of all or part of the external genitalia and/or narrowing of the vaginal orifice. The risk of infection is high, and the procedure generally results in scarring. Adult women who have experienced FGM often find that sexual intercourse is painful and that both they and their infants are at greater risk of injury or death during childbirth.