Farah Abdullahi Abdi (Faraax Cabdullaahi Cabdi)

Who is she?

Farah Abdullahi Abdi is a human rights activist and refugee from Somalia (Wikipedia, Farah Abdullahi Abdi). She is the asylum and migration policy officer at the organisation Transgender Europe (same source).

Early life

Her family fled the war in Somalia when she was three, stayed in a refugee camp and then moved to Nairobi, where she grew up (Wikipedia). She spoke English, Swahili and Somali (same source). See Somalis in Kenya.

The journey to Malta

At 16, after facing rejection because she is gay and transgender, she left Kenya (Wikipedia). She travelled through Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan and Libya, and reached Malta by boat in 2012 (same source). She says she was imprisoned five times on the way and forced to work unpaid on building sites in Libya (same source). In Malta she was briefly detained, although she was a minor (same source). See migration routes.

Writing and advocacy

In Malta she worked as an interpreter and became a columnist for Malta Today, writing about the treatment of migrants (Wikipedia). In 2014 she spoke at the European Parliament, with Terre des Hommes, for the protection of child refugees (same source). In 2015 she published her autobiography, Never Arrive (same source).

She later moved to Berlin, citing racial discrimination in Malta (Wikipedia). She is a fellow of the Alfred Landecker Foundation and the Torschreiber Foundation for writers in exile (same source). She spoke at the LGBTIQ+ Human Rights Conference of EuroPride in 2023 (same source). See Somalis in Germany.

Awards

She has received the International Bremen Peace Award and the Queen's Young Leaders Award (Wikipedia).

In short

A Somali refugee writer who crossed to Malta at 16, wrote about migrants for Malta Today and now works for Transgender Europe in Berlin.