Sudanese Women Are Facing Difficult Conditions

Sudanese women continue to struggle with extremely difficult humanitarian conditions. Women have been subjected to various kinds of gross human rights violations since the war between the Sudanese army and the Rapid Support Forces broke out last year.

For millions of Sudanese women, the past year has been a living hell of sexual assault, rape, and forced displacement. Many have walked long distances on foot as they made their way to camps in neighboring countries; others waited at border crossings for months before obtaining visas.

The United Nations published reports last week documenting further violations against women in Darfur, including murder, forced displacement, and rape. Some of the victims are children. 

Condemnations of the violence compare the events unfolding today to the violence that devastated the region around twenty years ago. Over 200,000 people were killed at the time. One particularly notorious crime against humanity was the mass rape perpetrated in the village of Tabit.

Volunteers and human rights organizations accuse both belligerents in Sudan of detaining hundreds of women on trumped-up espionage charges, or merely because of their ethnic background.

The Darfur Lawyers Association announced last February that authorities in the city of Atbara (530 kilometers from Khartoum) had arrested Inaam Ahmed Khairy and Salma Hassan because they are part of the Messiria tribe and belonging an ethnic group associated with the Rapid Support Forces.

Research on education in Sudan conducted since the war erupted demonstrates the devastating impact it has had on the country’s 11 million students, half of whom are girls. Many could be forced into child marriage or flee their homes.