Sudan peace merchants bank on women to end deadly conflict

Sudan's civil society movements are looking to women's expertise to help end the country's conflict.

The revelation came this week in Nairobi, where a group of Sudanese women gathered to discuss alternative solutions to the 20-month war between the Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), a conflict that has defied several peace offers.

They gathered under the umbrella of the Civilian Democratic Forces Coordination, also known as Taqqadum, under the theme "Activating the Role of Women in Ending War and Building Peace". 

This decision by Taqqadum, led by former Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok, was the first such move to elevate the role of women in Sudan. 

Critics had argued that peace offers that failed to take off had largely ignored women, either as victims of the war or as solution-makers at the table.

Taqqadum itself has offered itself as a third way of resolving the war by addressing its root causes: bad politics and governance.

It too has gained little traction, but its expansion to include women's groups, having drawn in clerics and other armed groups who have since laid down their arms, means that its influence among the Sudanese is growing.

At the Tribe Hotel in Nairobi, the women's groups said they had 
suffered more in the war.

Hadia Hasb Allah, head of the Women's Sector lobby in Sudan, said women could promote values of tolerance and peace in Sudan. 

The gathering, she said, was already a positive spirit of dialogue that the warring parties needed to end the war. 

"Women have always been at the forefront of the struggle for a secure and stable nation," she said, referring to the role they played in the protests that forced Omar al-Bashir from power. 

In this war, the statistics are staggering. Some 8 million people have been internally displaced and a further 3 million have sought safety outside Sudan. 

More than 20,000 people have been killed in the conflict. 

These include horrific scenes of hospitals with maternity wards being bombed or aid being restricted to nursing mothers. 

According to a report by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, there were 46 maternal deaths in Nyala Teaching and Kas Rural hospitals in South Darfur between January and August. 

"The lack of functioning health facilities and unaffordable transport costs mean that many women arrive at the hospital in critical condition. About 78 per cent of these 46 deaths occurred in the first 24 hours after admission," the charity said in a situation report.

When women suffer, children suffer too. In August, for example, 30,000 children under the age of two were screened for malnutrition in South Darfur. 

Of these, 32.5 per cent were found to be acutely malnourished, well above the World Health Organization's emergency threshold of 15 per cent in a given population. 

"We know Sudan is a challenging place to work, but there is no point in waiting for the challenges to go away," said Gillian Burkhardt, MSF's sexual and reproductive health programme manager.

"It's already too late for many mothers and children. Risks need to be managed and solutions found before more lives are lost."

Medical experts say malnutrition and sexual violence are directly linked to the war, as groups have blocked or allowed aid in depending on whether the population supports them. 

The suffering has included horrific sexual assaults. In October, the UN's Independent International Fact-Finding Mission for Sudan described the "sheer scale of sexual violence" in Sudan as staggering. 

"The situation faced by vulnerable civilians, especially women and girls of all ages, is deeply alarming and needs to be addressed urgently," said Mohamed Chande Othman, chairman of the fact-finding mission.

Sexual violence, the team found, included rape, gang rape, sexual exploitation and abduction for sexual purposes, as well as allegations of forced marriages and trafficking for sexual purposes across borders, mostly in towns captured by warring factions.

"In Darfur, acts of sexual violence have been committed with particular cruelty, using firearms, knives and whips to intimidate or coerce victims, while using derogatory, racist or sexist slurs and death threats," it said. 

"Many victims - often targeted because of their gender and real or perceived ethnicity - were simultaneously beaten, sometimes with sticks, or lashed. These acts of violence often took place in front of family members, who were also threatened."

Earlier, a Human Rights Watch report accused the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) of widespread rape, including gang rape, and forced marriage of women and girls in Khartoum.

The report, Khartoum is Not Safe for Women, said widespread sexual violence, as well as forced and child marriages during the conflict, coupled with a broken health system, also meant that victims could not be helped to recover from trauma, which also became a mental health problem.

In Nairobi, the 20-22 December workshop heard that victims must be at the table for peace in Sudan to be held.

Dr Anji Sultan, a peacebuilding expert, presented a paper on women's experiences in war-torn countries, drawing lessons and comparing them with the current situation of women in Sudan. 

"The active participation of women in peace negotiations is a critical element in achieving long-term stability," she said.

Ms Abla Karrar, in another presentation entitled "The Women's Sector's Vision for Ending War and Building Peace", focused on the severe impact of war on women, particularly gender-based violence. 

The paper revealed that nearly seven million women and girls in Sudan are at risk of sexual violence due to the ongoing conflict, making gender-based violence a central issue in the Sudan crisis.

The paper also discussed the economic and social challenges facing women, including the burden of supporting families after losing jobs, and the psychological trauma associated with post-traumatic stress in the context of continued instability and deteriorating services.

After the workshop, the women issued a declaration on
- Strengthen women's participation in peace processes: 
- Addressing gender-based violence: Addressing sexual violence and child marriage as urgent priorities in any peace efforts.
- Unite women's efforts for peace: 
- Seeking international support: 

Additional reporting by Aggrey Mutambo