Softly spoken with assertive undertones, Fadumo Dayib is the first woman ever to run for the presidency of Somalia. As a Somali female campaigner, she was a “shero” of mine before I met her.
The odds are stacked against Dayib defeating incumbent Hassan Sheikh Mohamud; she isn’t even listed as a candidate in analysis in regional media and has said herself that she has little chance of winning.
But Dayib’s courage says something about my home country and how far it’s come. So far, the daily death threats she receives are greatly outweighed by the overwhelming support from fellow Somalis. Dayib believes Somalia is ready for female leaders and the fact that she can run at all is in itself cause for
Living in Finland, she says, gives her many privileges she wouldn’t have had in her own country, and she wants to extend these to women and girls back home. Dayib wasn’t fully literate until the age of 14 but now has several degrees in international public health, including one from Harvard, and is currently a doctoral candidate at the University of Helsinki. Born in Kenya to Somali parents, as a child Dayib was deported back to Somalia with her family. When civil war broke out shortly thereafter, the family was forced to leave again, ending up in Finland.