Ambassador Mariam Yassin Hagi Yussuf, Special Presidential Envoy for Migration, Returns & Children’s Rights – Office of the President of the Federal Government of Somalia.
Amb. Mariam Yassin was born in Mogadishu in 1977 and was the last born of a family of 5.
Unfortunately, when the war in Somalia erupted in 1991 her father was executed due to clan-based clashes and Mariam, a young teenager at the time was forced to flee Mogadishu and over-night became an Internally displaced person.
She lived for a few months with her aunt before travelling to Italy as an asylum seeker and joining the rest of her family. While in Italy she studied political science and did a masters in Anthropology and Comparative development. In Italy Mariam faced racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia, and this experience built the passion to help the most vulnerable, train minority groups, explain displacement and assist second generation migrants. While in Italy she also worked with international organizations in Europe and Somalia advocating for the rights of women, migrants, refugees, and minorities.
Despite numerous opportunities to work with International Organizations abroad, Mariam longed to return home and be more directly involved in the development of Somalia and returned in 2009 to work for a development organization (IIDA) founded by her mother, advocating for women’s rights.
Mariam Yassin, a mother of two, entered Somali politics following immense personal tragedy. She lost her husband of two years in September 2013 during a terrorist attack at a shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya. Rather than surrender to grief and anger, Mariam sought out forgiveness and through moral purpose, fortitude, determination and hard work plunged herself into tackling some of the root causes she believes are behind the violence and hatred that continues to plague Somalia today.
