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On May 5, 2019, Bareedo Platform, in partnership with the Refugees Affairs Department (RAD), organized an impactful awareness-raising and advocacy campaign at Reception Center One in Bosaso, Puntland. The session brought together local authorities, migration officials, and migrant community leaders to discuss the urgent realities faced by over 30,000 migrants living in Puntland—most of whom are from Ethiopia.

The event focused on promoting migrants’ rights, safe migration practices, and enhancing collaboration between communities and institutions. Government actors such as RAD and the Migration Response Center (MRC) shared information on the support services available to migrants, while community representatives voiced pressing concerns about legal status, exploitation, and lack of access to justice.

Voices from the Field: Presentations and Perspectives

Mr. Burhan Huruse Hashi, Director of RAD, clarified the different categories of people on the move—migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers—and explained the tailored support systems available to each. He highlighted the government’s partnership with UNHCR in providing reception, legal aid, healthcare, education, and psychosocial support for refugees, while also noting that 60% of registered migrants in Puntland are Ethiopian nationals.

Mr. Barkhad Hamud from MRC Bosaso elaborated on the services provided to migrants, including registration, legal support, protection for survivors of gender-based violence, and referrals for trafficked or exploited individuals. The MRC collaborates with organizations like IOM, UNHCR, and DRC to ensure migrants receive holistic care.

Mr. Abdikareem Guled of Bareedo Platform emphasized the organization’s advocacy for inclusive migration policies, safe migration awareness, and capacity-building for duty bearers. He reiterated Bareedo’s role in monitoring mixed migration flows and supporting migrant-responsive service delivery.

Perhaps most powerfully, Ms. Yasmin Salah, a representative of the migrant community, gave voice to the daily struggles of migrants in Bosaso. She spoke of poor living conditions, lack of legal documentation, wage exploitation, and arbitrary detention—urging stakeholders to take immediate, rights-based action.

The Issues Are Clear. The Action Must Be Collective

Key issues raised during the session included:

• Absence of legal identity documents for most migrants
• Poor enforcement of labor protections and widespread wage theft
• Weak communication channels between migrants and government institutions
• Limited access to legal aid and redress mechanisms
• Inadequate support for GBV survivors and trafficked individuals
• Overcrowded detention centers with hundreds of detained migrants
• Language and cultural barriers limiting access to services

What Needs to Be Done: Recommendations from the Field

The report concluded with eight concrete action points, including:

• Launching mobile documentation clinics and legal awareness sessions
• Strengthening labor protections and complaint mechanisms
• Training police on rights-based detention practices
• Providing multilingual information materials
• Enhancing referral systems for vulnerable migrants
• Establishing Migrant Advisory Committees
• Building capacity among government and civil society stakeholders
• Improving data systems to monitor mixed migration flows and detention trends

A Shared Responsibility for Dignity and Rights

The Bosaso campaign session reaffirmed that ensuring migrant dignity, protection, and inclusion is a shared responsibility. The voices of migrants—especially women, exploited workers, and those in detention—must not be overlooked. With collective action from government, civil society, and international partners, Puntland can take meaningful steps toward a rights-based migration framework.

Bareedo Platform remains committed to championing migrant rights, amplifying community voices, and bridging gaps between policy and practice.

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#MigrantsRights #SafeMigration #Puntland #Bosaso #Refugees #HumanRights #BareedoPlatform

📌 For more information or to collaborate, contact: info@bareedo.org

Bareedo Platform Somalia supported the Department of Refugees, Returnees and Mixed Migrants (DRRMM) under the Ministry of Interior of Puntland, in development and designing of a set of comprehensive tools and operational procedures for managing mixed migration. This support and technical assistance significantly strengthened the department’s institutional capacity to monitor and respond to complex and evolving migration flows across the region. Bareedo Platform also contributed to enhancing the technical skills of both frontline and central staff in critical areas such as data collection, entry, analysis, and reporting.

As a result of this technical assistance, DRRMM began producing monthly, quarterly, and annual mixed migration movement reports, based on data collected from key entry points—including Tukaraq, Dhahar, and Alxamdulilah—and exit points such as Bosaso, Ceelaayo, and Mareero in Puntland, Somalia. These data outputs have played a crucial role in supporting evidence-based planning, policy-making, and protection programming.

Accurate and timely data production plays a critical role in shaping effective responses to mixed migration. In dynamic contexts like Puntland—where migration flows are driven by a complex mix of conflict, economic hardship, environmental factors, and cross-border mobility—producing, managing, and analyzing migration data is essential for government authorities, humanitarian actors, and development partners.

1. Informs Evidence-Based Decision-Making: Reliable migration data enables policymakers and practitioners to understand the scale, patterns, and characteristics of population movements. Disaggregated data—by age, gender, nationality, and push/pull factors—helps stakeholders make informed decisions about resource allocation, protection priorities, and legal or policy reforms. It moves decision-making away from assumptions toward evidence-driven planning.
2. Improves Service Delivery and Protection Responses: Data production supports the targeting of services to the most at-risk groups, including unaccompanied minors, women at risk of gender-based violence, or trafficked persons. By understanding where migrants are located, what their needs are, and how they are moving, actors can tailor their interventions—such as healthcare, shelter, legal aid, and psychosocial support—more effectively and equitably.
3. Strengthens Early Warning and Crisis Preparedness: Continuous migration monitoring provides early indicators of stress or crisis—such as spikes in arrivals, mass returns, or changes in migration routes. This allows governments and humanitarian agencies to anticipate emerging risks, respond proactively, and prevent escalation into humanitarian emergencies.
4. Supports Coordination Among Stakeholders: Data production creates a shared evidence base for national and international stakeholders, fostering better coordination between government ministries, civil society, and international organizations. This reduces duplication of efforts and strengthens collaborative planning and joint programming.
5. Enhances Transparency and Accountability: A transparent data system enhances public trust in migration management institutions and supports accountability mechanisms. It helps ensure that migration governance is grounded in rights-based approaches, and that services are reaching those who need them.
6. Feeds Into Regional and Global Migration Dialogues: Locally produced data contributes to national migration statistics and can feed into regional and global frameworks, such as the Global Compact for Migration or regional early warning systems. Puntland’s data, for example, plays an important role in shaping Horn of Africa-level migration responses and international cooperation on border and mobility management.
7. Supports Long-Term Policy Development: Over time, consistent data production builds institutional memory and trends analysis, which are crucial for designing long-term migration policies, integration strategies, and development plans. This includes migration’s impact on urban planning, labor markets, and social services.

In summary, data production is not just a technical activity—it is a foundational pillar of effective, humane, and rights-based migration governance. Investments in data systems, capacity building, and information-sharing mechanisms—like those supported by Bareedo Platform and DRRMM—are essential to ensure that migration in Puntland is managed responsibly, inclusively, and in the best interest of both migrants and host communities.

Bareedo Platform Somalia successfully conducted a targeted capacity-building training for staff of the Department of Refugees, Returnees, and Mixed Migrants under the Ministry of Interior of Puntland.

This is part of part of Bareedo Platform’s ongoing commitment to advancing safe migration practices and institutional capacity in Puntland.

The two-day training, held from November 5 to 6, 2015, in Bosaso, Puntland, brought together 29 key staff members from across the migration monitoring spectrum. These included:

• Frontline data collectors stationed at Puntland’s major land borders and seaports
• Central-level data analysts and database managers
• Monitoring and evaluation officers working within the Ministry of Interior

Facilitated by an expert from Bareedo Platform, the sessions provided intensive technical instruction focused on enhancing participants’ competencies in data collection, data entry, migration flow analysis, and accurate reporting. Emphasis was placed on ensuring consistency, reliability, and timeliness in migration-related information management.

This training is part of a broader initiative by Bareedo Platform to strengthen the institutional foundations of Puntland’s mixed migration monitoring system, equipping relevant departments with the tools, skills, and methodologies required for effective decision-making and protection programming.

By investing in the human capital behind migration monitoring, Bareedo Platform has not only improved day-to-day operations but also contributed to the regular and systematic production of reliable migration flow data across Puntland. This data plays a crucial role in informing humanitarian responses, policy development, and regional coordination on migration governance.

Bareedo Platform remains committed to supporting the Government of Puntland and its key agencies in building a migration system that is transparent, rights-based, and responsive to the complex realities facing both host and migrant communities in the Horn of Africa.