Ilhan Omar visits Somalia to push for women leadership

Ilhan Omar with the Somali president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud at the presidential palace in Mogadishu. Photo/ Radio Dalsan

Ilhan Omar, the recently elected Somali-American US legislator met the Somali president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud at his Villa Somalia residence in Mogadishu to discuss women leadership and elctoral process as the counrty gears for the first elections.

Accompanied by her husband Hirsi Ahmed, Ilhan challenged the Somali leaders to promote women leadership.

After the meeting, Ilhan said she would push for the project to have women elected in top offices. Ms Ilhan is the director of policy at Women Organizing Women Network – a group dedicated to pushing East African women into civic leadership.

“Women can lead this country. Somalia is moving ahead,” she said, lauding the 30% threshold slated for women.

Ilhan Omar made history last month as the nation’s first Somali-American legislator with a commanding win  in a race that was predicted to go in her favour.

Ms Omar arrived in the United States aged 12 after fleeing the civil war that ravaged her home country, Somalia.She spent 4 years at a Kenyan refugee camp.

She migrated to the United States as a preteen, knowing only a few words of English to start living with her family in Minneapolis Cedar-Riverside area.