10/13/2004

"This story is not as well known as the Janjaweed." Fatima began, sitting with us in a small hut that serves as a kindergarten in the camp of Abushouk, North Darfur where 50,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) currently live. "I myself did not see this but my daughter and three other girls went out to gather firewood for us. The soldiers at the camp [which the girls must pass] shouted at them and chased them. They beat them, looted their axes, and tried to rape them. Luckily the girls defended themselves and escaped."

This story is typical of the harassment and lack of protection that women in North Darfur are facing. All of the women that we spoke to in Abushouk complained about police intimidation of women. Since the Government of Sudan has increased the police forces in North Darfur to "protect" the people against the Janjaweed militia, the incidence of sexual violence against women perpetrated by the police and the army has risen. Rather than protecting them, there are reports that police are in league with the Janjaweed and have recruited many Janjaweed into their ranks.

The biggest protection risk facing the women in North Darfur is gathering firewood. They must leave the relative safety of the IDP camps each day to gather firewood for cooking. They must make decisions as to whom to send for the firewood. “Men will be killed, young women will be raped. Older women are only beaten,” one woman told us. The area around Abushouk camp on the outskirts of El Fasher is severely deforested so women must move further outside of the camps every day to find firewood. An aid worker told us that they had encountered young girls out gathering firewood on Thursdays when they should be in school because it was too dangerous to go out on Fridays, the traditional day off, since no one was moving around and the police could easily attack them.

When asked why the police were preventing women from gathering firewood, another woman said, "The police told us – the hawadis [white people] are here because of you. If you want firewood, they should give it to you." But no organization is willing to take on the enormous task of providing cooking fuel to the IDPs in the Abushouk camp.

There have been steps towards protecting women through technical solutions and through ones addressing the issue of violence and impunity. The UN Joint Logistics Center financed a study to find fuel alternatives and an NGO has begun teaching women how to build fuel efficient stoves in a small pilot program. Some NGOs are trying to find a short term solution by distributing fuel to the IDPs, but there is disagreement on how to do this. The UNDP has already begun working with a local organization to train police in human rights and rule of law.

These are encouraging steps but there must be more action taken. Instead of trying to find one solution to prevent the violence, the international community must strive for an integrated cross-sectoral approach to address both the root problem and its consequences. High staff turnover and a shortage of human resources to create and develop new programs in El Fasher are causing humanitarian organizations to struggle to implement the programs they are currently running.

The people of Darfur do not trust the government of Sudan to protect them. In Fato Barno, a small camp of 2000 people outside of Kutum, the camp management told us that they had seen the chief of police talking to Musa Hilal, and other leaders of the Janjaweed, who live just over the hill from this camp. “The police receive a phone call and they disappear,” they complained “then the Janjaweed come to the camp and loot our things and attack us.” “The government of Sudan will never protect us,” an angry IDP said to us. “They want to kill every black man and every black woman.”

Sarah Martin and Mamie Mutchler have spent a month in Darfur looking at the security situation for vulnerable people, especially women and children.