<<previous  |  index  |  next>>

Government’s Response to Sexual Violence

The government of Sudan has repeatedly denied that sexual violence is a problem in Darfur. As recently as March 2007 President Omar al-Bashir said in a television interview, “It is not in the Sudanese culture or people of Darfur to rape. It doesn’t exist. We don’t have it.”⁸² Authorities also respond to allegations of sexual violence by demanding evidence, in breach of victims’ confidentiality, ostensibly so they can take action. When the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights issued a report in April 2007 on sexual violence during large-scale attacks in Jebel Mara, the then minister of justice, Mohammed Ali al-Mardi, noted, "We always seem to get sweeping generalizations, without naming the injured, without naming the offenders ... or supplying us with sufficient facts.”⁸³ As one UN worker put it, “The government officials usually ask us to name the alleged victims, which of course we cannot do, so they say we have failed to provide evidence and continue with the denials."⁸⁴

In spite of this hardened position, the government has taken some action to address the crime of sexual violence in Darfur. In 2005, it adopted a National Action Plan on Combating Violence Against Women and created state-level committees to combat violence against women in the three Darfur states.⁸⁵ Also in 2005, the Ministry of Justice created a special unit to coordinate implementation of the national plan. This unit has attracted funding and support from international agencies, such as UNFPA, and in June 2007, it led an evaluation of the state committees.⁸⁶

In August 2007, the Ministry of Justice issued a forceful declaration affirming the Sudanese government’s “zero tolerance” for sexual violence and renewing its commitment to implementing the National Action Plan.⁸⁷ According to information the government provided to the UN Human Rights Council in October 2007, the government has also drafted orders to the armed forces prohibiting attacks on civilians during war, including violence against women. It also stated that it had deployed 40 female police officers and 21 new police investigators to Darfur, and additional prosecutors to towns that had previously lacked prosecutors.⁸⁸ Finally, with support from UNICEF, the government agreed to set up Family and Child Protection Units, modeled after a project in Khartoum, in the police stations of Darfur’s three state capital towns.

These initiatives represent steps in the right direction. But, as the Human Rights Council report concluded, they are not sufficient. The state-level committees established in 2005—although potentially effective—have not had any significant impact. They are hamstrung by a lack of funding and leadership, and their work plans lacked clear objectives, targets, and time frames.⁸⁹ Female police officers, to the extent they have been deployed to towns in Darfur, are low-ranking officers assigned to administrative tasks or the women’s prison, rather than to investigate sexual violence crimes.⁹⁰ In the beginning of 2008, it was still too early to assess the performance of the UNICEF-supported Family and Child Protection Units.

Nevertheless, as noted above, the Darfur judiciary has brought some perpetrators of sexual violence to justice.⁹¹ The number of cases remains very low. As the Council report concluded, “there appears to be a gap between the number of reported cases and the much lower number of cases of prosecution for rape and other forms of sexual violence.”⁹² Still, the trials show that in principle, the judicial system can work to promote accountability for crimes of sexual violence committed by soldiers and militia—provided military authorities are willing to cooperate with police and prosecutors seeking to investigate, arrest, and prosecute members of the armed forces.