Custodian Police Open Skills Training for Women at Mogadishu Central Prison

MOGADISHU (SONNA): The Commander of the Somalia Custodian Police, Maj. Gen. Mohamed Sheikh Hassan (Hamud), leading a delegation of senior officers of the force, has officially opened a cooking skills training programme for women inmates at Mogadishu Central Prison, the latest step in the force's effort to send those in its custody back into society with a trade in their hands.

The programme is designed to equip the women, who are serving sentences handed down by the courts, with practical skills they can draw on to build a livelihood once their time is completed, and to return to their communities as contributing members of society. The course will run for a set period and combine classroom instruction with hands-on practice, raising both the knowledge and the practical craft of those taking part.

Speaking at the opening, Maj. Gen. Mohamed Sheikh Hassan said the programme forms part of the Custodian Police's wider work on the rehabilitation and reintegration of inmates, in which priority is given to skills that create work and income. He urged the participants to apply themselves fully to what the trainers put before them, to treat those teaching them with courtesy and patience, and to approach the course with discipline and seriousness. He told the women that further courses would follow this one, that new equipment and materials would be brought in, and that other groups of inmates would be trained in turn, with opportunities for those completing this course to continue building on what they learn.

Officers who attended the ceremony encouraged the women to make the most of the opportunity, describing a skill as the foundation of self-reliance and the beginning of a hopeful new life. The participants, for their part, welcomed the programme with visible enthusiasm, saying the training offers them practical abilities that can help shape their futures beyond the prison walls.

Behind the modest scene of a cooking class lies a serious idea about what a prison is for. A custodial system that releases people with nothing but the time they have served tends to see them again. One that releases them with a trade, and with the self-respect that comes from having learned it, gives them a reason and a means to build differently. Vocational training of this kind has become a standard element of correctional practice in systems around the world precisely because livelihoods are the most reliable bridge between custody and a stable return to community life, and its extension to the women held at Mogadishu Central Prison brings that thinking into practice in Somalia's own institutions.

It also reflects the quieter side of the Custodian Police's mandate. The force is most often seen in its security role, but the rehabilitation of those in its care is equally part of its charge, and programmes of this kind are where that responsibility takes visible form. For the women who sat at the opening ceremony, the measure of the day is a simple and personal one. Each of them will one day complete her sentence and walk out of the prison gates. The purpose of the programme opened this week is that when she does, she carries something with her that no gate can take back.