Sexual and Gender Based Violence in Darfur
28 February 2005Fathia is 18 years old. She is sitting on the dusty floor of a makeshift shelter in Kalma Camp, one of the biggest camps in South Darfur, home to nearly eighty thousand people, displaced by ongoing violence in the region.
“My family and I came from our village on a donkey in June - it is about 80 kilometres from here. When our village was first attacked we were all in our house and noticed that some of the houses around us had started to burn. We all ran to a nearby farm to hide. But the Janjaweed found us and beat my mother with a stick. My sisters and me scattered into the bush but they came after us and pulled me from where I was hiding and made me walk in front of their camels, punishing me with a whip back to where my family were.” Her frail voice falters, but she continues with her horrific story.
Fathia in Kalma Camp where CARE is working women who have been attacked, often brutally, by the Janjaweed.
© CARE
“When we arrived they forced me to lie on the ground and pointed their guns and swords. Two of the men attacked me and the others forced my family to watch. They all came very close shouting - it happened again and again. Their commander told them to stop but I was too tired to stand up. After they left, my family took me to the hospital but we didn’t have a police record so we were not given any medicine, so we came here to this camp to be safe. I still feel in danger though - I think they may come and find me again.”
Fathia’s story is a common one in the many IDP (internally displaced people) settlements in South Darfur. Investigations are showing that extreme sexual violence is being used by all sides in the conflict as a weapon of the war, and this violence is on going. Reports are rife that even the Sudanese police forces, in charge of protecting the IDP’s are also attacking young girls.
CARE International, together with other agencies, is looking at the issue of protection in the camps, as well as providing psychosocial support to victims of trauma. One staff member said: "The nature of camps, including the ones around Nyala, means that women are vulnerable and constantly exposed to sexual abuse and exploitation. Sexual violence is very much an issue that must be addressed as part of any emergency response of humanitarian aid organisations. The NGOs (non-governmental organisations - such as CARE) and the UN agencies in Darfur are currently addressing ongoing large scale and systematic human rights abuses. Because of limited resources, up until this point our focus has had to be on monitoring and reporting of such abuses, as well as advocacy with the Sudanese government to comply with their obligations under international law and other agreements.”
She goes on to say: “Another important way of addressing sexual abuse and harassment is the IASC (interagency standing committee) Code of Conduct, which specifies the responsibilities of humanitarian agency workers toward beneficiaries. CARE, along with many other NGOs and UN agencies have pledged to implement the six core Code of Conduct principles in all of their programmes. CARE is also implementing a programme to provide psycho-social support to victims of sexual violence and has had discussions with UNHCR about the possibility of a UNHCR supported programme in the coming year to organize women in the IDP sites to implement their own solutions to prevent sexual violence."
A psycho-social counsellor has joined CARE’s team in Nyala to help establish this programme. Not only with they be dealing with the issue of sexual violence but also be setting up programmes to help IDP’s cope with other traumatic situations they have had to endure.
CARE’s team leader in Nyala stresses the importance of such a programme: “There have been terrible stories of people being held prisoners in their own villages after seeing their families killed. Trauma undermines peoples coping mechanisms because it keeps people in a state of fear. Sometimes it is hard to know what is causing their fear, and they are not currently in a position to be able to demonstrate initiative. Even simple things like collecting firewood can be associated with trauma because of incidents that have happened before - these have to be overcome. When you ask some people if they want to go home they say “never” because of such fear and we need to help them deal with this.”
For girls like Fathia, and their families, CARE’s programme will provide valuable support and with time, enable them to develop the coping mechanisms needed to return to their homes.
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