The Forgotten Youth of Somaliland: A Call for Justice and Recognition

Our meeting today is centered on discussing the challenges, we as young people, in the State of Somaliland face.
Sosato is a youth organization that advocates for the youth of Sool, Sanaag and Toghdeer that the international community seem to abandon.
The greatest challenge we confront is unemployment, as job opportunities in our country are extremely limited.
Every year, thousands of students graduate from our universities, yet less than 10% manage to find employment.
This situation has forced many young people into migration.The youth of Somaliland are not leaving because they desire to, but because they are compelled to.
If they could find jobs in their homeland, they would not risk their lives through migration that is not structured and safe.
The question we asked ourselves was:
Why has our country become a place of mass unemployment?
From our research we discovered that the root cause lies in a profound problem: our country has been impersonated.
Its sovereignty and legal documents are unlawfully held by Somalia at the United Nations.
This has led to the erasure of Somaliland, the erasure of us.
On 1st July Somalia completely shut down our country, Somaliland.
The unlawful UN seat Somalia occupies gave it political recognition to erase Somaliland’s right to exist as a State.
Our people were ordered to divert all trade, investment and even construction projects to Mogadishu.
They were forced to migrate to Mogadishu for work.
Later, Somalia made the decision to eliminate the people of Somaliland, committing genocide against us.Through immense struggle and sacrifice, and without any international assistance, the people of Somaliland survived this genocide and fully reclaimed their internal sovereignty while their external sovereignty is still intact although claimed unlawfully by Somalia at the UN.
Somaliland has made tremendous efforts and achieved remarkable successes. The world has witnessed our commitment to democracy, peace, and stability. However, despite these achievements, we, the youth who make up 70% of the population, continue to face widespread unemployment. From our investigation, we found out that this is because our government receives minimal international support and its revenue is very limited, leaving it unable to create sufficient job opportunities for Somaliland’s youth. We have tried to turn to online work, but here too we face another huge challenge: the world does not even recognize us. We cannot monetize on YouTube, Facebook, or TikTok. We are told that the only way to earn from these platforms is if someone living abroad creates accounts for us. But not every young person has such access. Similarly, we cannot participate in the financial markets. None of the stock market brokers operate in our country. Forex and cryptocurrency exchanges also reject our applications to join their platforms. Our country has no SWIFT code, a main barrier to economic progress. When money is sent to us from abroad through remittances, it passes through money transfer agencies that charge heavy fees. And when we send money outside, we face additional costs. To make matters worse, the President of Somalia has intervened and ordered money transfer agencies to erase our identity by registering us under Somalia’s name. This has shocked us deeply, because Somalia committed genocide against our people, and this ongoing action shows their intention to complete the genocide by erasing us entirely. We are shocked at the international community’s silence. Now we understand they don’t know we exist. Moreover, since our country does not have a SWIFT code, and SWIFT has not permitted us to join the global system, we cannot even buy goods online like other nations. We also lack a postal code, because the Universal Postal Union (UPU), a United Nations specialized agency responsible for global postal services, does not allow our country to become a member. As the youth of Somaliland, we feel that the world has neglected us, and that both private companies and UN-affiliated agencies have denied us the ability to overcome these restrictions. The international community has unfairly punished us, blocking us for Somalia’s sake. Yet it is Somalia that stole our sovereignty, registered itself at the UN with our identity, occupied our land, and massacred our people for 31 long years. There is no greater injustice than attempting to erase the very existence of an entire people, to isolate them, and for the world to turn a blind eye. What we need, first and foremost, is for Somalia’s ongoing genocide against our people to stop, and for its false claims over our land to be rejected once and for all. As the youth of Somaliland, we call for the removal of the severe restrictions imposed on us unlawfully in all aspects of our lives. We deserve life, liberty, and security. We are peaceful, hardworking, and respectful.l