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Sudan:
Helping Reduce Women's Vulnerability
March 3, 2006 -(UN Integrated Regional Information Networks) During
a meeting on violence against women in Kabkabiya town, North Darfur,
participants cannot agree whether a person who falls pregnant after
being raped should be charged with adultery.
The discussion takes place during a training programme organised by
the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Participants include Sudanese
policemen, local administrators, civil society representatives and
members of the African Union police.
The consensus is that, if immediately reported, the crime should not
lead to any charges, but some feel she should be arrested for adultery
if she fails to report the rape before giving birth.
The trainer refers to the legal precedent of the High Court of El
Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, which acquitted a woman of adultery
charges in January. Not all participants are convinced, however.
With a relatively stable humanitarian situation in many camps for
the internally displaced across Darfur, UNFPA says more needs to be
done to protect women from violence Training programmes on combating
violence against women and ensuring access to healthcare and legal
assistance are part of this effort.
According to UNFPA, approximately 80 percent of the encamped populations
in the strife-torn western Sudanese region of Darfur are women and
children.
"We're talking about a significant and potentially vulnerable
population in IDP [internally displaced persons] settings," said
Maha Muna, UNFPA emergency coordinator for Sudan.
"This means that almost the entire camp population is potentially
at risk of gender-based violence [GBV], and we know what those risks
are," she added.
GBV, Muna noted, was an anticipated outcome of conflict all around
the world. In some cases, rape was used as a strategy of war, but
where communities' support structures had been eroded by displacement,
violence occurred within the community as well.
"It is a critical issue, and we need to do a better job at monitoring
how often we're having gender-based violence, under what circumstances,"
she said.
Prevention
One measure that has proved to be successful over the past year has
been the organisation of joint patrols by the Sudanese police and
the African Union, which accompany women outside IDP camps when they
look for firewood.
Another strategy that has worked is the development of fuel-efficient
stoves that reduce the amount of firewood women need to burn for household
needs.
"The fuel-efficient stoves decrease the amount of trips outside
the camp," Muna said.
Women do not necessarily go out to collect firewood for their own
use, however, and many sell it in order to be able to buy things that
are not available through distributions, such as okra, a high-nutrient
staple food.
"So one strategy that we need to develop more is to develop income
generation projects," Muna noted.
One non-governmental organisation has started providing sewing machines,
which will be used to make sanitary napkins that can be sold or become
part of camp distributions.
"The distributions are not then just helping women to have an
income, they are also allowing for women's mobility, because without
it, you're basically in jail in your home until your menses ends,"
Muna explained.
"It has a tertiary impact. We are not just talking about income
for the household but we are also talking about women's mobility,
which reduces her vulnerability," she added.
As many income generation projects were organised around women's centres,
it also encouraged women to share information and come together in
a form of psychosocial support.
"Sharing information is an important protection mechanism, in
terms of what is your right for food distribution, what can you expect,
what is the process, so that exploitation is decreased," the
UNFPA emergency coordinator said.
Knowing that distributions could sometimes - when not managed well
- result in exploitation or gender-based violence, Muna also urged
for additional protective measures governing distributions.
"We need to make sure that female single heads of households
are recognised as the heads of their household and are able to have
a [ration] card," she noted. "We need to recognise that
sometimes you have elderly women who are maybe taking care of orphaned
children."
Response
Sudan has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the world.
Given that an estimated 25 percent of female IDPs are pregnant at
any time, according to UNFPA, access to and quality of reproductive
healthcare is a life-saving issue.
Given the low availability of doctors, especially in some of the rural
IDP camps, much of the response focuses on training midwives.
"We need to ensure quality of care and at the centre of that
is the midwife" Muna said.
The availability of equipment and supplies was another area of concern,
including family-planning tools such as condoms and pills, because
being pregnant could potentially be a life-threatening condition.
"We need to make sure that every pregnancy is a wanted pregnancy,
one where a woman is able to have a safe delivery," Muna stressed.
The provision of basic equipment for referral hospitals, some of which
were located close to an IDP camp and had experienced a 60 percent
increase in the number of patients they treated, was another priority.
One example was the provision of health kits that would support a
caesarean delivery, as an estimated 5 to 15 percent of pregnancies
result in a caesarean delivery in the Sudanese context.
"They need sterilising equipment," Muna said. "Equipment
that is not rusted and overused, because there aren't enough of the
supplies available in the referral hospital to manage this huge bubble
of caseload population."
Government response
In a growing recognition of the problem of gender-based violence,
all three Darfur states have established a state committee on combating
violence against women that is charged with identifying GBV and ensuring
prevention and response.
Joint action groups, consisting of local and international NGOs, UN
representatives and government officials, are providing the committees
with analysis and suggestions of priority areas for response.
On 25 November 2005, on the international day to eliminate violence
against women, a national action plan for eliminating violence against
women was launched, with specific targets for the training of police
and the provision of healthcare provision.
"Ultimately we know it's the government that is responsible for
ensuring protection in IDP situations," Muna said. "Our
challenge now is to figure out how to support those mechanisms to
carry out their mandates."
Two of the women on the state committee in North Darfur had also recently
attended the Darfur peace negotiations in the Nigerian capital of
Abuja, supported by UN Development Fund for Women.
Ensuring women's voices are heard early on in this process was crucial,
Muna noted, so that issues of gender-based violence in conflicts could
be addressed as negotiations were being carried out.
"It is important that women's experience of conflict is not forgotten
at the negotiating table, because it is certainly there at the battle-field,"
she said.
"So long as we neglect it," she added, "we are only
empowering half of the population to cope, overcome conflict and to
bring about peace."
[ This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United
Nations ]
From: http://allafrica.com/stories/200603030039.html
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