S. Sudan denies culture of sexual violence towards women

April 16, 2015 (JUBA) – South Sudan has dismissed a damning report charging its leadership and members of society have a culture of mistreating women and a lax attitude towards sexual violence, describing the claims as a misinterpretation.

Officials say the country has a good track record in enforcing the rule of law, derives its spirit from customs and traditions aimed at preserving women’s dignity.

“There is no policy of mistreating women. Those who are depicting the truth falsely have to know that protecting women and preserving their dignity requires not inciting them into illegal practices,” said cabinet affairs minister Martin Elia Lomuro.

The official was commenting on media reports attributed to the UN special representative for the secretary-general on women in conflict Zainab, Hawa Bangura, following the release of a report on sexual violence in conflict that looks at 19 countries, mainly in Africa.

Bangura said in countries where women are treated badly in peacetime, they fare even worse in times of conflict, with women often bearing an enormous brunt.

“One thing I can say to you categorically, South Sudan is a society that has no regard for women,” she was quoted by several media agencies as saying. “This is one place where I have confirmed by philosophy that if a country does not respect its women during peacetime, it cannot protect them during conflict.”

Factors such as forced disarmament, the circulation of illegal arms, mass displacement, cattle raiding, intercommunal violence and food insecurity meant women were particularly vulnerable to sexual violence, and were often afforded little protection, even from their husbands.

According to the report, unidentified uniformed men have taken to harassing and raping women and girls leaving UN protection sites to travel to markets, water points and firewood collection areas. The attacks often have an ethnic dimension that mirrors the divisions of the conflict.

The threat of further violence and climate of fear many minority groups felt, also made women vulnerable, Bangura said.

“Men who are scared they will be killed have to make a choice between going out and getting food for the family and getting killed, or sending your wife or your mother to go out and get the food and get raped,” she was quoted as saying.
“And invariably, they prefer the second option. Send their wives even though they know their wives will be raped,” she added.

Since South Sudan erupted in violence in mid-December 2013, there have been 53,079 new arrivals at Kenya’s Kakuma refugee camp, many of them unaccompanied minors. The report found that there had been a corresponding increase in reports of sexual assault, teenage pregnancies and forced marriage.

Similarly, in Dadaab camp, reports of sexual violence had also grown as the population increased, with safety and community protection measures such as lighting and fencing yet to be established in the new sections of the camp.

The report found the scale and severity of sexual violence inside South Sudan has also increased since the outbreak of the current conflict between government and rebel forces.

Between January to December 2014, 167 incidents of conflict-related sexual violence affecting 236 persons were documented, including 75 incidents affecting 116 minors. Women and girls were targeted in 95 per cent of these cases

More than 200 allegations of abductions of women and girls taken as “wives” and/or for the purposes of sexual slavery by both parties to the conflict are also under investigation.

Bangura has also called on the South Sudanese government to take a greater focus on women’s rights, empowerment and respect for women.

“Sexual violence remains prevalent in South Sudan, exacerbated by impunity and a militarised society in which gender inequality is pronounced,” the report found.

“Some women even face double victimisation if they report crimes to predatory security officials or are compelled to marry the perpetrator as a form of traditional settlement, as documented in Somalia, South Sudan and elsewhere,” the report found.

Lomuro denied that women in South Sudan faced discrimination based on their sex, saying he was comfortable working with any member of the society on the basis of their knowledge and competence.

He said it was not government policy to condone the behaviour of individuals – whether in their capacities as husbands, fathers and brothers – to engage in verbal abuse or sexual violence, including rape, against women.

Bangura was appointed as secretary-general Ban Ki-moon’s representative in 2012 after serving for 20 years in various posts in her native Sierra Leone.
As former minister of health in Sierra Leone, she worked to document some of the 65,000 rapes that took place during the country’s brutal 10-year-long civil war.

(ST)