Sudan: Struggling to Show Solidarity

While in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan, on November 25th I attended the local inauguration of the global 16 days’ of activism against gender violence campaign. In a country which has often taken the official line that sexual and gender-based violence does not exist in its culture, I was pleasantly surprised to hear that such an event was taking place, and was even more impressed to see that it was a government-led event.

In the western Darfur province of Sudan there have been widespread reports of systematic rapes of women and children. Yet, in Sudan, many non governmental organizations (NGOs) have been prevented by the government from running programs that assist rape survivors and have threatened these groups with expulsion for talking publicly about violence against women. But there I sat at an official government event talking about violence against women. There were speakers from UN agencies and even a representative of local NGOs. Looking around the room, I realized that there were in fact very few local NGOs present. Unlike many other countries around the world, there did not appear to be any women’s organizations running public events as part of the 16 days’ campaign against violence against women.

I talked with a few local Sudanese women’s organizations to find out why they were not organizing any public events. I soon came to understand the difficulties that these groups were facing, and admired them for being able to carry on working at all.

I heard about how their staff members were frequently being taken away and questioned by national security and intelligence agencies about their activities and about their funding sources. Often when they organized a workshop to discuss violence against women it would be ruined by such disruptions. I heard about events, such as those organized on International Women’s Day, which were cancelled by government bans of public events on the days in question. I heard about how their organizations’ registration was frequently suspended by the government. And, I heard how many Sudanese women’s organizations that want to work with women in Darfur who are facing so many problems, are not permitted by the government to work there.

I also heard about the funding problems that these groups were facing. Some groups told me that they wanted to organize activities about violence against women on November 25th, but they couldn’t afford to do so. It is really hard for local NGOs to access funds that are much more readily available to international NGOs and UN agencies. Local groups just can’t comply with all the complex regulations involved in applying for such funds. They can often get funded to run individual activities, but not to pay their staffing or administration costs.

As one women’s activist said to me: “What’s the point of funding us to run eight workshops when we can’t pay staff to follow up on anything that came out of the workshops?” She talked about her frustration at the lack of support that international donors are showing towards local civil society organizations. Some of her words stuck in my head. “One day the UN and the international NGOs will leave Sudan. If they don’t invest in groups like ours now, then when they leave all of the advances made will be lost. Sudanese women, particularly Arab Sudanese women like myself, must be enabled to show solidarity with our sisters in Darfur now while they are suffering. If not, then the divisions in our society will never be healed.”

-Melanie Teff

Advocate Melanie Teff and Program Associate Camilla Olson recently returned from a mission to Sudan to assess the humanitarian situation in Darfur.