Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.
Today, nearly four years after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended over 26 years of brutal civil war, southern Sudan continues to be a place of acute poverty and underdevelopment. Juba, the capital of the south, is a town consisting of ramshackle, hastily put together homes and a steady stream of goats and dust through what could charitably be considered streets. With just 10 miles of paved roads in an area roughly the size of France, movement is difficult and development is slow to materialize, as we saw during our assessment mission to the region in November.
Despite the lack of roads or other infrastructure, hundreds of thousands of people are returning to southern Sudan after decades of war. They are not finding much to come home to. Refugees International has already documented the needs of returnees. But on my recent mission, I learned more about increasing gender based violence as families return to Sudan under extremely stressful conditions. Women in southern Sudan endure extreme restrictions on their freedom of movement, a constraint often imposed by husbands or fathers in a society where the male head of the household has the final say. Domestic violence is also highly prevalent, and rarely challenged.
One aid worker told us about some of the programs taking place throughout southern Sudan to help reduce the incidents of domestic violence. They have established counseling and sensitivity training for families that helps teach men what kinds of behaviors lead to domestic violence and more peaceful measures for controlling their stress and anger. Many women expressed that their lives were a little easier after their husbands were involved in these trainings.
Helping resolve issues of gender-based violence in the south is just one of the ways southern Sudan can begin to move towards stability and recovery. The new Congress and administration should work towards increasing efforts that prevent violence against women during and after conflict. This includes strengthening local women’s organizations that assist survivors and providing educational and economic opportunities for survivors.
We welcome argument but AlertNet will not publish comments that are racist, abusive or libellous.
Leave a Reply
When you submit a comment to us we request your name, e-mail address and optionally a link to a website. Please note where you submit a website address, we may link to it via your name. By sending us a comment, you accept that we have the right to show the comment and your name to users. Although we require your email address, this will not be published on the site, and is only required to enable us to check facts with you, e.g. if you are making a claim we can not confirm easily. Additionally, if you would like your comment removed at anytime, you'll have to use this e-mail address when you contact us. To remove a comment at any time please e-mail us at blogs-(at)-reuters-(dot)-com (address obscured to avoid spam) specifying who you are and what you would like removed. We moderate all comments and will publish everything that advances the post directly or with relevant tangential information. We reserve the right to edit comments in order to maintain the quality of the comments, and may not include links to irrelevant material. We try not to publish comments that we think are offensive or appear to pass you off as another person, and we will be conservative if comments may be considered libelous. Reuters will use your data in accordance with Reuters privacy policy. Reuters Group is primarily responsible for managing your data. As Reuters is a global company your data will be transferred and available internationally, including in countries which do not have privacy laws but Reuters seeks to comply with its privacy policy.
All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content in this article, including by framing or by similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.
Refugees International, a U.S-based aid agency, generates lifesaving humanitarian assistance and protection for displaced people around the world, and works to end the conditions that create displacement. The organisation was founded in 1979.
Email 
Print 
