The heartbreaking life of Somali refugee women in Indonesia – in pictures

Escaping unimaginable atrocities in their home country, the refugees face poverty, hunger and homelessness in Jakarta

Aaron Bunch, Australian Associated Press

Main image: Homeless Somalia refugee Stahil is one of 13,800 asylum seekers and refugees in Indonesia. Photograph: Aaron Bunch/AAP

  • Stahil, a homeless Somali refugee in Jakarta prepares to pray in a boarding house. The 23-year-old, whose family rejected the al-Qaida-affiliated al-Shabaab group’s version of Islamic law, fled Somalia after her father was murdered and she was targeted for shaking hands with a man. There is ‘severe hunger’ here, she says.
    Homeless Somalia refugee Stahil

  • Somalia refugee women sit at the Mosque of al-Barokah in Jakarta for safety at night. Like many refugee women smuggled from their country to Indonesia after al-Shabaab militants raped them or murdered their family, they have fallen through the aid safety net and live on the street.
    Somalian refugee women sit at the Mosque of Al Barokah in Jakarta for safety at night. Like many Somalian refugee women smuggled to Indonesia after Al-Shabaab militants raped them or murdered their family, they have fallen through the aid safety net and live on the street.

  • Rahma poses for a photograph in Jakarta. The 25-year-old narrowly escaped death when militants beheaded her father and burned her remaining family members alive in an attack on her family’s business, which had government employees as customers.
    Homeless Somalian refugee Rahma

  • Somalian refugee Igra descends the stairs of a Jakarta boarding house. The former hotel owner fled her country in 2015 after militants threatened to cut off her hands for refusing to close down her business.
    Homeless Somalian refugee Igra

  • Refugee women cannot legally work or access social security in Indonesia. The women say their appeals for aid from the UNHCR and aid organisations have been turned down. They drift from one boarding house to the next where they beg other refugees for food.
    Somali refugees in an Indonesian boarding house

  • Igra sits in a boarding house in Jakarta. If the women are fortunate, they will stay in a boarding house for a few days before the landlord moves them along to sleep rough or on the steps of a local mosque.
    Igra sits in a boarding house in Jakarta.

  • Homeless Somalia refugee Anisa sleeps on the verandah of a Jakarta boarding house. At night refugee women living on the street face the added danger of sexual violence. They say men regularly try to force them into sex or proposition them with offers of as little as a dollar.
    Homeless Somalian refugee Anisa

  • Safiya sits with her eight-year-old daughter, Sabrine, in a friend’s room in Jakarta, The pair were smuggled to Indonesia following the beheading of Safiya’s government-employed husband by al-Shabaab in 2015.
    Homeless Somalian refugee Safiya sits with her eight-year-old daughter Sabrine

  • Twenty-seven-year-old refugee Suad’s family was killed by a bomb in Mogadishu. She fled Somalia after she was abducted, raped and held captive by militants.
    Refugee Suad poses for a photograph

  • Somalia refugees sit in the street at night in Jakarta. The women say not only do they have difficulties accessing food, they also face nightly dangers from men looking for sex.
    Homeless Somalian refugee women sit in the street at night in Jakarta.

  • Refugee Igra sits at the Mosque of Al Barokah: ‘I don’t feel safe here at night,’ Igra says. ‘On the street I am vulnerable to anyone.’
    Homeless Somalian refugee Igra

  • Stahil and Safiya sit in a Jakarta street at night. There are 13,800 asylum seekers and refugees in Indonesia. Two-thirds are dependent on aid or live in government-run immigration detention centres, according to the UNHCR.
    Somalian refugees Stahil and Safiya sit in a Jakarta street at night.

  • Igra, a former hotel owner in Somalia, fled her home in 2015 after militants threatened to cut off her hands for refusing to close down her business.
    Igra poses for a photograph.

  • Somalia refugees Norta and Khadro walk at night in a Jakarta street.
    Somalian refugees Norta and Khadro walking in a Jakarta street at night.

  • Many Somalia refugee women sleep around Jakarta’s already full immigration detention centre for months hoping for access, or queue for help at the UNHCR’s corporate office.
    Women sleeping on the street at night.
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