AU in Darfur lacks women, rape training – Amnesty

July 18, 2006 (KHARTOUM) — Darfur peacekeepers should include more women and should be trained in women’s rights to help reduce widespread rape and sexual slavery, rights group Amnesty International said on Tuesday.

Thousands of women have been raped during three years of violence in Darfur, a region the size of France in west Sudan, and an underfunded 7,000-strong African Union (AU) peacekeeping mission has struggled to protect civilians.

“Teams investigating human rights violations must include a woman wherever possible … Those funding AMIS (the AU mission in Sudan) should provide training and expertise in women’s rights and gender-based violence,” Amnesty said in a report.

The report comes as the United Nations and aid agencies meet in Brussels to press donors to finance the AU mission and urge Sudan to accept a more able U.N. mission, a move it has repeatedly rejected.

In the report, Amnesty calls for more money and personnel for the AU mission, more independent reporting on rights abuses, the disarmament of militias and urges the AU to do more to protect civilians.

(Reuters)