Geneva - As the war in Sudan reaches its 16th month, the disproportionate impact on women and girls persists and must be addressed. They are paying the highest price, facing displacement, unlawful detention, home confinement, hunger amid a looming famine, increased gender-based violence, and reduced access to essential services, including for sexual and reproductive needs, as direct consequences of the ongoing war.
The power struggle between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) that broke out in Khartoum in April 2023 rapidly spread to other parts of the country, triggering widespread sexual and gender-based violence, forced displacements, unlawful detention, confinement of civilians, and pillage, with overlapping consequences on women and girls specifically.
The war has already led to extreme levels of displacement, both internally and across Sudan's borders. Over 2 million people—90% of whom are women and children, with one-fifth being young children experiencing acute malnutrition—have fled Sudan to neighbouring countries, including 484,000 to Chad. The vast majority of the displaced remain in Sudan, living with host communities.
Today, with more than 9.9 million internally displaced people (IDPs), Sudan is facing the largest internal displacement crisis in the world, and there is a growing risk that the violence will soon produce the world's largest hunger crisis as well. According to the latest data from United Nations Women, more than half of all IDPs are women and girls, and more than 7,000 new mothers could die in the coming months if their nutritional and health needs remain unmet.
Sixteen months of war have effectively created a devastating "war on women" that manifests itself in multiple and intersecting ways.
Since the outbreak of war in mid-April 2023, there has been an escalation in sexual violence against women. The widespread use of sexual violence as a weapon of war, including trafficking and sexual exploitation, has been common since the start of the conflict. Warring parties have subjected women and girls, aged from 9 to 60, to various forms of sexual violence, such as forced and child marriage, and prolonged captivity in conditions of sexual slavery.
Members of both warring parties have sexually assaulted women and girls also in front of their own family members, creating additional trauma for both the survivors and the witnesses, in addition to the potential stigma and other grim social consequences. In certain cases, the victim's relatives acquiesced to the forced or child marriage, in the hope that this might protect the victim of abuse socially and/or financially.
Even in temporary shelters, women haven't been able to find the assurance of security; a so-called 'measure of protection' cannot be identified as such if it doesn't take into consideration the gendered dimension of safety
Michela Pugliese, legal researcher at Euro-Med Monitor
All of the ongoing violence is worsened by the lack of emergency post-rape health care, psychosocial support, and other vital services, due to warring parties' attacks on healthcare facilities and medical personnel, restrictions on civilians' movement, ongoing fighting, unlawful restrictions on medical supplies, and the willful obstruction of aid. The physical and psychological scarring to survivors is immensely damaging, and, in certain cases, the injuries have even led to the victim's death.
The conflict's economic impact also exacerbates the conditions of internally displaced Sudanese women, who have lost their jobs, property, housing, freedom, and sources of income, and are forced to seek external aid, particularly in rural areas. The war has further marginalised many women, stripping them of livelihood opportunities and pushing many towards the risk of sexual exploitation and abuse as a last resort measure to support themselves and their families.
Even in the neighbouring countries of asylum, the conflict-driven vulnerability of refugee women and girls has been exacerbated by a lack of adequate assistance and limited infrastructure, leading to health and safety risks, physical harm, exploitation, and abuse, as well as GBV risks including sexual exploitation at border areas and in refugee camps.
A lack of privacy and security characterises many temporary shelters inside and outside of Sudan. Along the border of South Sudan and Uganda, for instance, or at the Metema Transit Centre and Kumer Settlement in Ethiopia, there is only one latrine available per 100 people, and the daily water allowance per person falls below global standards.
"Rape and other forms of conflict-related sexual violence against women and girls, including acts intended to humiliate, dominate, or instill fear, can no longer considered an inevitable byproduct of armed conflict or a lesser crime," said Michela Pugliese, legal researcher at Euro-Med Monitor. "They are war crimes, and must be held to account and acknowledged as such,"
Continued Pugliese: "Sudanese women and girls have paid the highest price of this war, facing displacement, hunger, increased gender-based violence and sexual assaults, and reduced access to essential services, including for sexual and reproductive needs, as direct attacks on their bodies.
"Even in temporary shelters, women haven't been able to find the assurance of security; a so-called 'measure of protection' cannot be identified as such if it doesn't take into consideration the gendered dimension of safety," she added.
Euro-Med Monitor stresses the obligation of conflict parties to refrain from using sexual violence as a weapon of war, recalling UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 (2000), 1820 (2008), 1888 (2009), 1889 (2009), 1960 (2010), 2106 (2013), 2122 (2013), 2242 (2015), and 2467 (2019) on Women, Peace and Security.
In particular, Euro-Med Monitor calls on all parties to the conflict to halt the fighting and respect international humanitarian law, including by enforcing a zero-tolerance policy for sexual violence, protecting healthcare facilities and medical personnel and facilitating humanitarian access, including to GBV response services. Euro-Med Monitor also calls on the United Nations and the African Union to urgently authorise an Independent International Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) for Sudan, giving it a mandate that includes the prevention and documentation of conflict-related sexual violence as well as assistance to survivors; to strengthen access to justice; identify those responsible and advance accountability and reparations; as well as support the International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation related to crimes taking place across Sudan.
Euro-Med Monitor emphasises that international partners and donors must invest in local, women-led organisations on the ground in order to fully address the gender dimensions of the crisis in Sudan and in neighbouring refugee-hosting countries. The international community must listen to Sudanese women and ensure their full, direct, and meaningful participation in relevant international fora for humanitarian plans and conflict resolution, especially as United States and Western policies in the resource-rich country have contributed to the creation of the crisis.
