Darfur female refugees facing rape and violence in eastern Chad

September 30, 2009 (LONDON) — Sudanese female refugees who fled violence Darfur to eastern Chad camps are regularly raped and subjected to other violence, said a report released by Amnesty International on their miserable situation.

Some 260,000 refugees from Darfur, most of whom are women and children are living in eastern Chad for more than five years. The refugees reside in 12 different camps spread out along the length of the Chad/Sudan border.

Over the past six years, more than 142,000 women and girls have fled insecurity and widespread human rights violations in Sudan’s troubled Darfur region, seeking safety and protection in neighboring eastern Chad.

The UN security forces and the Chadian government troops who work jointly to protect the camps are doing little, the rights groups said.

In a report to be released on Wednesday, ‘No place for us here: Violence against refugee women in eastern Chad’, Amnesty international says Darfur women and girls are facing daily violence sexual and other from villagers living nearby and Chadian army.

“The rape that countless women and girls experienced in Darfur continues to haunt them in eastern Chad,” said Tawanda Hondora, Deputy Director of Amnesty International’s Africa Programme.

“These women fled Darfur, hoping that the international community and Chadian authorities would offer them some measure of safety and protection. That protection has proved to be elusive and they remain under attack.”

Amnesty says girls experience sexual harassment at the hands of their teachers at schools in the camps. Some girls have reportedly been threatened that they would receive poor marks if they refused to have sexual intercourse with their teacher.

Inside eastern Chad camps the women are also facing harassment and rape from family members, other refugees, and staff of humanitarian organizations, the group said.

Further the Chadian police force, which is in charge of security in and out the camps and supported by the UN mission MINURCAT, have become source of insecurity and violence against the Sudanese refugees.

Despite all these human rights violations Amnesty said “perpetrators of rape and other forms of violence against refugee women and girls in eastern Chad are very rarely brought to justice.”

Amnesty International said that it is not possible to know the exact number of women and girls who have been victims of rape and other violence inside and outside refugee camps in eastern Chad, as women rarely report such crimes primarily because of fear of stigma, including from their own family members, and trauma.

A UN mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT) has been deployed in eastern Chad since September 2007 with a mandate that includes contributing to the protection of the refugees.

(ST)