Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 21:36:33 +0200
Women in South Sudan: 'They attack us at toilets or where we collect water'
Women who fled the fighting to live in camps on UN bases risk harassment and
sexual attack whenever they leave their tents
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* Andrew Green in Malakal for IRIN, part of the Guardian development
network
* Thursday 11 September 2014 12.17 BST
Julie Francis's self-imposed curfew starts when the sun sets. The widowed
mother of four has been living at the UN base outside Malakal since
December, one of more than 17,000 people who have fled there to escape
fighting in South Sudan's Upper Nile State capital. But the overcrowded camp
is not without its own dangers, especially for women and girls.
Francis can hear drunken teenagers hound women as they make their way around
the site's paths. She has seen the holes men have cut through the tarpaulin
walls of the showers so they can peep and leer at women. She has comforted
rape survivors.
"It is too much," she said. "They attack us at the toilets or at night where
we collect water." There were 28 reported cases of sexual assault in the
Malakal camp between January and June this year, according to the
inter-agency Global Protection Cluster. But aid workers acknowledge the vast
majority of attacks probably go unreported.
So Francis has decided it is best to push a bedframe in front of the
entrance to her tent as soon as it gets dark. If she or her daughters need
to go to the bathroom, they just use a bag. "People should take this
seriously," she said. "They should be serious to help. There are still
people who need to know that it is not right to rape."
Where, she wants to know, are the floodlights that could deter men hiding
near the latrines, or the regular UN police (Unpol) patrols to protect women
who want to visit their friends at night or go to the bathroom? Why, she
asked, does it seem like she is the only one taking steps to make sure she
does not get raped?
The problem is not in Malakal alone. Since fighting broke out in South Sudan
in mid-December, nearly 100,000 people have crowded into 10 UN mission in
South Sudan (Unmiss) bases across the eastern half of the country. They have
been dubbed protection of civilian (POC) sites. Though there are no official
statistics, humanitarian groups say sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV)
- including rape, beating, harassment and domestic violence - exists in
varying degrees at all of the larger camps, as does a growing resentment
among women and girls that more is not being done to protect them.
Increasing frustration
"Of course there's increasing frustration," said Nana Ndeda, advocacy and
policy manager for Care International. She has been talking to women in the
camps about their experiences. "They're getting very frustrated by the fact
that Unmiss is not able to provide the kind of security that they would
want."
What is most galling, she said, is that the strategies for what should be
done already exist. The 87-page guidelines for gender-based violence
interventions in humanitarian settings, compiled by UN agencies and
humanitarian groups, recommend lighting communal areas, creating safe spaces
where women can confidentially seek help, and consistently soliciting the
input of women and girls on how to improve the situation.
But in the early days of the conflict, with unprecedented numbers of
civilians seeking shelter at the UN bases and scores of humanitarian workers
evacuating, Unmiss employees were scrambling just to provide basic services.
"We had many more people than we could house and we needed to find a way to
still be able to operate the base, as well," said Derk Segaar, who heads
Unmiss's protection team. In the early days of the conflict, as people
flooded into bases across the country, "it was a matter of trying to get
them in a sustainable space".
Thousands of people are still living in shelters hastily constructed in the
early days of the fighting, when issues like SGBV took a backseat to
rescuing as many people as possible.
New camps finally opened in Juba and Malakal in June. Within the new spaces,
attention has been paid to the guidelines: women's toilets are stationed
near well-lit arteries and are separated from the men's, for instance.
Another site is due to open in the Jonglei State capital, Bor this month.
"It's not a matter of a few weeks or a few months and people will all be
happy to go home," Segaar said. "That's why we built these bases. We need to
be able to keep people safe and healthy for potentially a much longer period
of time."
Space constraints
But, at least in Malakal, there is still not enough space for all of the
displaced. In Bentiu, the largest displacement site with more than 47,000
people, rains have made it impossible to start work on a new POC site.
That has shifted the focus back to implementing other, more basic,
interventions to stop SGBV. And while Unmiss works closely with aid groups,
issues including lighting and toilets are "a very clear humanitarian
responsibility", Segaar said.
Ndeda said aid groups are constrained by the space issues - especially in
Bentiu, where "really you cannot fit in one more tent". That means they
cannot create permanent safe spaces for women. Instead, they have turned to
temporary options, taking advantage of empty rooms in health clinics to hold
temporary counselling sessions.
But she also acknowledged that, in her experience, it has been difficult to
find the funds needed. "Very few people were coming out saying they want to
provide lighting facilities," she said. That is starting to change. Oxfam,
for instance, is providing 6,400 solar lamps to people in Malakal, which
will make it safer for women to go to the toilet at night.
As peace talks between the government and rebels led by former
vice-president Riek Machar continue to sputter in the Ethiopian capital,
Addis Ababa, she warned: "There's no end in sight to the POC world." And
even if all of the camps are overhauled, security is going to remain a
problem.
Not enough police
Unmiss has about 1,300 police officers - including formed police units, who
are specially trained to deal with crowd control - deployed across all of
the sites, up from 900 Unpol assigned to the mission three years ago. But
Segaar said by the time they assign officers across all of the camps then
split them into three different shifts, only a handful are patrolling at any
given time. "I would say that's the biggest constraint we have," he said.
At the same time, the social structures that could have offered women some
protection have broken down. "Many of the protective mechanisms that might
have been in place before are not in place now," said Lea Krivchenia, a
senior programme manager with Nonviolent Peaceforce, a non-profit helping to
protect and engage women in some of the camps, as well as rural areas. That
includes community meetings and traditional justice systems, which have been
difficult to re-establish in the crowded camp environment.
Rachel Nayik has lived at the Malakal base since February. The former
secondary school teacher now organises weekly women's meetings in the camp.
She blames most of the SGBV on young men who have been traumatised by the
violence that started in mid-December. She said their experiences have made
them aggressive, which is then fuelled by the alcohol they turn to to
relieve the enforced idleness of camp life. "The traditions here don't allow
rape," she said. "It is only because of the war that it is becoming
rampant."
As SGBV continues, she told IRIN that women are worried that the attacks
have become part of the fabric of camp life. In the absence of more patrols
or redesigned camps, she said women living in the camp are willing to take
on the task of protecting themselves. But they want better options than
shoving a bedframe in front of their doors or going to the toilet in a bag.
Surendra Kumar Sharma heard the same thing during a listening campaign he
helped organise in one of the Juba camps. Sharma, chief technical adviser
for the UN Development Programme (UNDP), had money available for a pilot
project to improve conditions.
"Security was absolutely one of the major issues which was of concern to
everybody, especially for the women and children," he said. Leaders within
the base had already organised themselves into community watch groups, but
were looking for assistance to more effectively canvass the camp and prevent
crime - especially SGBV.
With Unpol, UNDP put together training on how to monitor the camp and defuse
potential aggression. They have been on the beat for nearly a month now.
Sharma said it is too early to tell if crime has come down, but he is
hopeful.
The community police groups fit the need to "find a solution to this problem
within the existing parameters", Sharma said. "If a solution comes from
within, and we support them in that, I think it's more likely to be
sustainable."
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