Sexual violence: The tragic and taboo scars of South Sudan’s conflict

In early April the South Sudan civil society group, known as Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), said the ceasefire and transitional security monitors have ignored widespread sexual and gender-based violence.

CEPO says the Ceasefire Transitional Security Arrangements Monitoring Mechanism (CTSAMM), the organisation tasked with monitoring and reporting peace agreement violations, fails to pass on information about sexual and gender-based violence in the war-torn country, calling it “wrong and unacceptable” and undermining respect for human rights.

Justice must prevail.

Women in South Sudan have suffered unprecedented levels of sexual violence, including rape, abduction and forced marriages in the past two years of the country’s conflict.

The monitors reported violations of the agreement between December last year and March this year in conflict-affected areas across the country, but focused on military violations.

Edmund Yakani, Executive Director of the Community Empowerment for Progress Organization (CEPO), says “this […] will empower the perpetrators of such cases to not feel guilty”, adding that “justice must prevail”.

The CTSAMM body has not responded to the criticism.

Both the warring parties, troops loyal to President Salva Kiir and those loyal to now First Vice President Riek Machar, have been accused of committing sexual violence in the greater Upper Nile region and Western Equatoria.

Sexually abused at gun point

An unwanted pregnancy, exposure to HIV and AIDS, physical pain, psychological scarring, the risk of social isolation, a lower likelihood of marriage and perhaps worst of all, forced marriage with the perpetrator, are the dire consequences of sexual violence.

Countless conflict-related rapes have occurred across South Sudan, especially in the Upper Nile region, over the two-year civil war. The potential consequences of rape and other forms of sexual violence in South Sudan for the overwhelmingly female victims (men also suffer attacks), are heartbreaking and long-lasting. Neither youth nor advanced age provide protection from such attacks.

Speaking to The Niles, M. N. G., a rape victim who was treated in an International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) facility, was only 16 years of age when she was sexually attacked in Upper Nile. “I was sexually abused at gun point,” she says. “They caught three of us, all women, on our way to the IDP camp,” she says, adding that they had the choice to either have sex with the armed “young men”, or die.

Another rape victim, S. K., walked for two days from a displaced camp in South Sudan’s former Unity State to a health centre after being sexually assaulted. She had already lost her husband in the conflict, and before seeking help, she had to arrange for someone to care for her four children. She says she couldn’t tell anyone about the assault, fearing the stigma she and maybe even her children would suffer.

Severe social stigma

“Sexual violence shatters communities and rips family bonds apart in provoking deep shame,” says ICRC’s Aurore Brossault, a doctor in charge of mental health and psycho-social support in South Sudan.

“How can mother and child keep the same relationship if the child had been forced to witness the mother’s rape? It is unimaginable! Even if nearby assistance is available – since wide swaths of South Sudan have no functioning medical facilities – the social stigma is so severe that too many choose not to seek help,” Brossault says.

Rape victims fear that their case will not be treated confidentially.

Many of the victims do not know that medical assistance can prevent disease and unwanted pregnancy or they are to scared to seek help. “Rape victims fear that their case will not be treated confidentially. And there is a general misunderstanding by the victims and the authorities whether victims of sexual violence need to report their case to the police before seeking medical treatment,” Brossault explains.

“I am not telling my relatives and friends because of stigma. People will disown me and see me as a useless person,” says a 29-year-old widow in a Protection of Civilian site (POC) in Juba.

Education is important to avoid stigmatisation. Last year the ICRC held sexual violence awareness building sessions with hundreds of South Sudanese including health staff, birth attendants, local leaders, police officers, members of armed groups and volunteers of the South Sudan Red Cross Society. Brossault says addressing communities and informing them about the barriers to access care as quickly as possible is crucial.

The support provided by the ICRC is tailored to the needs of the victims. “If a person reports a case within three days, we can provide medical treatment to prevent HIV, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases,” Brossault says.

Inflicting unimaginable pain

In late 2014, the Special Representative of the Secretary General (SRSG) on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Zainab Hawa Bangura travelled to Bentiu, to engage with the local commander of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), government authorities, UN staff, humanitarian workers and survivors of sexual violence.

After her visit, the Special Representative expressed her shock: “What I witnessed in Bentiu is the worst I have seen in my almost 30 years in dealing with this issue. This is because of the combination of chronic insecurity, unimaginable living conditions, acute day-to-day protection concerns and rampant sexual violence,” she said.

“The bodies of women and children are the battleground of this conflict,” she said. “In the words of a woman activist I met, ‘It is not just about rape, it is to inflict unimaginable pain and destruction'.”