Sudan interim constitution not gender sensitive – ONG

Dec 12, 2005 (KHARTOUM) — The director of a regional NGO network called SIHA says that the interim national constitution does not address the issue of gender balance in governance.

SIHA regional director in Khartoum, Hala al-Karib, claims that the comprehensive peace agreement addresses gender balance but that the interim constitution does not stipulate how gender balance will be translated into local laws and polices.

Al-Karib told Sudan Radio Service during a telephone interview that there are no clear laws to protect women from violence in Sudan.

“There is a high deficiency in all our laws and policies regarding the protection of women from the ongoing violence against them” she said.

She pointed out the urgent need to revise all the legislation and laws concerning women and to identify very clearly the crimes against women in these laws because people can refer to it and when women go to report what is happening to them they will not lose.

“For example the current law on rape is not clear and it is confused with the law on adultery while there is not any connection between the two because rape is a crime”.

SIHA – meaning outcry in Arabic – is a regional network of women’s rights organizations across the Horn of Africa.

(SRS/ST)