Fighting Al Shabaab as a woman in Somalia’s national army | Iman Elman | Mogadishu

Despite only being 21, Iman Elman is a military commander in the Somali Armed Forces. Writes Michelle Shephard in the Toronto Star, “When she joined the military two years ago, women were given two pairs of pants to sew together to make a skirt. Knowing it would be hard to fight in a skirt, Iman told them one pair of pants would do. Now she commands 90 men in her battalion.”