The Experiences of Persons with Disabilities in Somalia: Challenges Within Society and the Prison System
A Human Rights Documentation Report on Marginalization, Abuse, and the Systemic Neglect of Persons with Disabilities Inside Somalia’s Prison System
As the world marks Mental Health Awareness Month, persons with disabilities in Somalia continue to face systematic marginalization, abuse, and neglect — inside their communities and behind the walls of a prison system that has failed them entirely. Despite international commitments, the gap between law and lived reality remains vast.
Disability Rights Under National and International Law
On July 24, 2018, Somalia signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), and ratified it on August 6, 2019. The CRPD seeks to promote and integrate disability rights into existing laws, policies, programs, and institutions. However, the Somali government must take additional steps to implement the CRPD in a meaningful and enforceable way.
In December 2018, Somalia also passed legislation establishing the National Disability Agency (NDA) to develop vocational and livelihood training facilities to assist people with disabilities in accessing economic opportunities, promoting disability rights, serving people with disabilities equally, and ensuring no one is left behind. Implementation of the NDA’s mandate has remained inconsistent, with meaningful enforcement still limited.
Discrimination, Stigma, and Limited Access
Individuals with disabilities in Somalia experience pervasive marginalization and vulnerability, encountering discrimination, social stigma, and lack of access. Individuals with limited mobility or physical disabilities experience a reduced number of economic prospects, inferior health conditions, and lower levels of scholastic achievement compared to those who have full mobility or physical abilities. Individuals with disabilities are frequently socially isolated and face significant barriers to participating in everyday activities due to inaccessible infrastructure.
Furthermore, individuals with disabilities may encounter discrimination within their own families — including instances where parents isolate children with disabilities from their peers or treat them in a disparate manner compared to other family members. This domestic dimension of disability discrimination is among the least visible and least addressed aspects of the broader crisis.
Mistreatment, Sexual Violence, and Systematic Neglect
Persons with disabilities in Somalia encounter several challenges, including serious instances of mistreatment. In 2023, the Organization for Prisoners’ Rights (OPR) interviewed individuals with disabilities in Mogadishu. During these interviews, the individuals reported experiencing abuse, including sexual assault and physical violence. These accounts were consistent across multiple interviews and point to a pattern of exploitation and impunity rather than isolated incidents.
The population of Somalia includes a significant proportion of persons with disabilities, although there is no specific national data available. The World Health Organization estimates that disabilities affect approximately 16% of the global population. Across the entire country, there is a significant lack of infrastructure specifically created to meet the requirements of persons with disabilities, which worsens their exclusion from society.
Neglect of Persons with Disabilities in Detention
Even though the majority of people detained in Somalia’s jails and detention facilities have at least one disability, the government and prison authorities throughout the country have failed to address the needs of this vulnerable population. Prisoners with mental disability are subjected to longer terms of imprisonment and are frequently chained at home in prisons or mental health facilities that cannot meet their needs.
They are exploited, raped, and abused, and they are often being made to endure corporal punishment at the hands of prison guards. There is a deep-seated culture of neglect and brutality toward people with disabilities behind bars — one that has persisted without accountability, without investigation, and without meaningful response from the state.
Key Concerns Documented by OPR
- Sexual assault and physical violence against persons with disabilities documented through direct interviews
- Persons with mental disabilities subjected to longer terms of imprisonment than others
- Chaining inside prisons and confinement in facilities unable to meet disability needs
- Corporal punishment at the hands of prison guards
- Complete absence of disability-appropriate infrastructure in detention facilities
- Deep-seated culture of neglect and brutality toward persons with disabilities behind bars
- No national data on disability prevalence, leaving the scale of the crisis structurally invisible
These practices violate fundamental human rights protections guaranteed under international law — including the CRPD, which Somalia has ratified, as well as protections against torture, cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, and against arbitrary detention. Somalia bears specific legal obligations it is currently failing to meet.
“Imprisoning people with disabilities and subjecting them to abuse, chaining, and corporal punishment is not a governance gap. It is a human rights violation — documented, ongoing, and entirely within the power of the state to end.” Ismail Abukar, Chairperson, OPR
A Call for Urgent Reform: Beyond Symbolic Observance
Mental Health Awareness Month must serve as more than a symbolic observance. It must be a moment of accountability and urgent action for Somalia’s authorities and their international partners. The current system — in which prisons serve as the default response to disability without adequate care, protection, or accommodation — is not a policy solution. It is a human rights failure.
Reform requires full implementation of the CRPD, investment in community-based disability care infrastructure, accountability for documented abuses, and national data collection that makes the scale of this crisis visible. It requires the political will to treat disability as a human rights issue rather than a policing problem.
OPR Calls On Somalia’s Authorities and International Partners To:
- Fully implement the CRPD in Somalia’s prison laws, regulations, and daily operations without further delay
- Conduct an independent audit of all prisons and detention facilities to document and address the conditions of persons with disabilities
- Immediately prohibit chaining, corporal punishment, and all forms of physical and sexual abuse against prisoners with disabilities
- Invest in community-based disability care infrastructure so that prisons cease to function as the default holding facility
- Provide adequate staffing, disability services, and accessible infrastructure across all detention facilities
- Establish national data collection on the prevalence and conditions of persons with disabilities, including within the criminal justice system
- Hold accountable guards and officials responsible for abuse, rape, or exploitation of prisoners with disabilities
A Crisis Hidden in Plain Sight
Behind the walls of Somalia’s prisons are persons with disabilities suffering not only from their conditions, but from abandonment, abuse, and systemic neglect. They are there not because they are dangerous, but because Somalia has built no alternative capable of receiving them, and no adequate protection capable of defending them.
This Mental Health Awareness Month 2022, Somalia must confront a painful and long-deferred reality: disability cannot be treated with chains, isolation, and punishment. The continued mistreatment of persons with disabilities in detention is not a governance gap. It is a human rights failure — one that is documented, ongoing, and entirely within the power of the government, civil society, and the international community to end.
Persons with disabilities deserve dignity, care, protection, and freedom from abuse. Not chains. Not punishment. Care.
How to cite this piece
Organization for Prisoners' Rights. (2022). The Experiences of Persons with Disabilities in Somalia: Challenges Within Society and the Prison System — 2022. Mogadishu: OPR. https://opr.org.so/news/experiences-persons-disabilities-somalia/