International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women (November 25)

“The war is carried out on our bodies,” stated Saida M., partner of the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) in Sudan, summarizing the horrific situation of women and girls in her home country. “We have been hearing shocking eyewitness reports from the state of Gezira for weeks. A total number of 135,000 people are said to have been displaced from there in the last three weeks alone. Allegedly, girls as young as six and women into old age were raped, enslaved, or killed,” added Sarah Reinke, head of human rights work at the STP.

“International days like the one for the elimination of violence against women must bring about real change. Otherwise, they are just hollow rituals we should be ashamed of,” she criticized. “However, the German Federal Government still remains silent about the appalling suffering of women in Sudan, about the extremely high number of murders and rapes, and about hunger and expulsion. What else has to happen before effective measures to protect women are taken?”

The United Nations had recently reported a large number of girls and women who were missing in the refugee camps in Gezira and whose abduction was to be feared. “Many eyewitnesses stated that an increasing number of women had committed suicide after being raped – or as a means to escape rape. Some of those who survive being raped are rejected by their families and consider suicide as their only way out,” Reinke said. “Hundreds of civilians are said to have been killed in attacks on villages and towns in the state of Gezira. There, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are taking revenge on the civilian population because Abu Aqla Kayka, commander of the RSF and de facto governor of Gezira, and his fighters have taken sides with the Sudanese army and its allied militias. In order to drive the people out of Gezira, the RSF had apparently also diverted irrigation systems and canals into the villages, causing flooding and the destruction of houses.