Living with the threat of rape in Darfur

The convoy of African Union trucks was driving up a hillside overlooking a small valley near Otash in South Darfur State, western Sudan, when the two women gathering firewood spotted the vehicles and instinctively took to their heels.

In response, the AU troops and civilian police, including a young Sudanese officer who had accompanied the patrol, ran after the women shouting greetings.

“We were scared,” Khadija Sebit Sulieman said. Still gripping the axe she had been using to cut wood, she added: “This is the place where the Arabs [militias] used to attack us.”
 
The presence of the young Sudanese officer only added to the confusion. “Some of the ones who attacked wore a uniform just like his,” she said, pointing at him.

The women were just two of the millions of people in Darfur region who have endured harassment from armed militias, especially the Janjawid, ever since the conflict began in western Sudan in 2003. At the time, rebels claimed to be fighting against the marginalisation of the remote region. The Sudanese government responded by arming militias, who are now accused of turning their guns on civilians in the region.

Aid workers say rape is widespread in Darfur, especially whenever the women venture out of the camps to find firewood to cook the food given by humanitarian agencies, so their families can eat. The arduous journey over boulder-strewn terrain to find the wood takes them 5km away from the relative safety of the camp into thorny bush where they face the threat of rape and possible abduction by the Janjawid.

AU police officers said the threat of rape is a potent form of psychological warfare, and in Darfur’s traditional society, many women are so ashamed they do not report it to the authorities. “The women feel very bad and humiliated after the attacks,” said AU civilian police officer, Henry Tanou, who was part of the patrol convoy at Otash.

Other Darfur leaders agree. “It will be difficult for a girl who has been raped to get married,” Sheikh Mohamed Abdallah Juma, a camp leader at Kassab in North Darfur, said after four girls in his area were raped. “Everyone in the village knows about the incident and will not want to marry her.”

AU patrols

Some observers wonder why the men do not collect the wood, but the women say the threat of rape is far less frightening to them than what would befall their brothers and husbands. “The Janjawid would just kill them,” Sulieman said.

To protect the women from the threat of rape by militias, the AU force in Darfur has instituted firewood patrols in some camps, where peacekeepers accompany the women into the bush. Female civilian police are part of every patrol — a measure aimed at making women feel more secure. 
 
The AU's 7,000 strong force has been deployed in Darfur since 2003, but critics say it has been unable to prevent widespread abuses against civilians. The AU denies this, insisting its forces have been able to stabilise the areas where they were deployed.

A United Nations Security Council resolution that calls for a gradual transition from the under-funded and under-equipped AU mission to a stronger UN protection force has been resisted by Sudan.

Sudan has proposed that instead of deploying a UN force of 17,500 troops and 3,300 civilian police, it will deploy 10,500 Sudanese government troops to "consolidate the security situation".

Photo: Derk Segaar/IRIN

African Union soldiers in South Darfur

To local Darfurians, however, the AU presence clearly provides some security whenever displaced women go out to collect firewood. “They clamour for us to come to the bush with them,” said Debbie Omoruan, a female AU station commander at Otash. “If it was only men they would not feel as relaxed.”

Rape widespread

Between October 2004 and February 2005, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) treated almost 500 rape victims in the region. Aged between 12 and 45, most reported the rape within 30 days and almost a third said they had been raped more than once. In more than half the cases, physical violence was inflicted in addition to the rape.

According to MSF, 81 percent of the victims said their attackers were armed militia or military men. Most of the rapes occurred when the women were outside their villages or camps, searching for firewood or water, and when going to the market or to collect belongings from another village. 

The Sudanese government denied the findings, instead accusing aid agencies of exaggerating the scale of the problem. But last week, a UN team of investigators said the government had failed to protect civilians and had participated in orchestrating and committing atrocities against its own people.

Violations included murder, torture, gang-rape, forced displacement and arbitrary arrests, according to the UN report, which noted that rebel forces were also guilty of serious abuses of human rights and humanitarian law.

Attacks on civilians are frequent, while rape and sexual violence are widespread and systematic. Reported incidents include gang-rape.

"Despite the well-known patterns of rape of women around IDP [internally displaced persons] camps, the authorities have done little to diminish the threat or investigate cases reported," the UN team said.

"All parties to the conflict must recognise that applicable human rights and humanitarian law standards must be respected during internal armed conflict and that the 'fog of war' is not an acceptable justification for violating these standards," they added.

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