An edited version of the below was published in yesterdays Independent on Sunday. Apologies for delay between posts. My internet connection has been down since Thursday.
As fathers throughout Britain unwrap their polyester pyjamas on Sunday morning, imagine this. You’re sitting down to a meal with your family when you hear gun shots. Moments later you’re surrounded by militia pointing AK47’s at your family. You, the father, are given a choice, “We either rape your daughter or kill your son. You decide”.
The father was a relative of a Darfuri friend of mine. His daughter, Roa, was 4 at the time.
The UN has recognized rape as a deliberate weapon of war in Sudan since 2005. Yet, it steadfastly fails to provide adequate protection for the victims or any consequences for the perpetrators. UN special envoy, Angelina Jolie and William Hague co-chaired a summit to end sexual violence in conflict in London this week. Roa and her family could not be there.
Driven from their homes and their livelihoods they, like an estimated 4 million others, sought refuge in a displaced persons camp on the border with Chad. Given the government of Sudan (GoS) persistently obstructs access of humanitarian aid to the camps, Roa’s nightmare is far from over.
Three weeks ago the UNICEF representative in Sudan, Geert Cappelaere, warned that an entire generation in Darfur may be lost as a result of over a decade of violence in the region. Given that 60 percent of the displaced in Darfur are minors, he warned that the children growing up in the camps may not be able to return to a normal life. Many are traumatised having witnessed attacks against their families or being themselves subjected to violence, abduction, and other assaults. In addition, the malnutrition figures are very high. More than 80,000 children in North Darfur are severely malnourished. He warned that the world should not turn its back to the tragedy of the children in Darfur.
Despite the shocking nature of this very red flag and the fact that is was raised by a senior UNICEF official, apart from Radio Dabanga and Reuters, it was not picked up by the mainstream media.
In order to combat starvation, women and children in Darfur face the prospect of being raped and beaten on a daily basis. Leaving their homes and camps in search of food and firewood is highly hazardous. It’s where over 80% of the rapes occur. Some women refuse medical help after being raped because they say they fear being arrested by the Sudanese security forces. Many never reveal their ordeal to spare their family the stigma. Those are the “lucky” ones. Others are “branded” by their attackers (including facial scarring) so that they will never be free from “shame”.
Rape is an integral, strategic component of the genocide in Darfur. Women and children are routinely raped in front of their families, breaking minds as well as bodies in a bid to crush their will and erode family structures where virginity and chastity are sacrosanct.
A few years ago I collaborated with Ricken Patel, who since founded the hugely impactful campaigning group Avaaz, to organize a series of global demonstrations for Darfur. One of which focused entirely on rape as a weapon of war. We asked the women in the camps what the international community could do to help and that is what we campaigned for.
Firstly, they wanted whistles so that when women and children ventured outside the camps for firewood, they could raise the alarm if attacked. Citizens around the world simultaneously demonstrated outside their respective parliaments, blowing whistles against the systematic rape of women and children in Darfur. Having got the attention of our respective governments and the media, we pressed for the other key “asks”, which included; more UN peacekeepers to protect civilians, sending groups of policewomen from African nations to accompany the firewood-gathering trips, rape counseling in a bid to break the taboo of silence and increased medical treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.
Seven years on and there’s no sign of African policewomen and efforts to provide medical treatment and counseling have been obviated at every turn by the GoS. More peacekeepers have been deployed to the region, with a mandate to protect civilians, yet the raping rampage continues undeterred. We blow our whistles, said one woman, but no-one comes. The dins of their whistles, like their cries for help, fall on deaf ears.
After a decade of sexual violence being used as a weapon in the ongoing genocide in Darfur, a generation of women will never be able to have children due to infection or physical damage. Countless raped women (little data is collected or reported) who became pregnant by their attackers, or “branded”, will live with the stigma of rape for the rest of their lives. For the London summit to be of any use to Roa, it must translate into action. We owe her that.
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