After four years of relentless devastation, the Darfur
region of Sudan is still a war zone, with hundreds of villages
in ruins, wells filled with sand, and desolation where crops
once grew.
While thousands have been killed and millions more displaced,
women and girls remain particularly vulnerable to violence. The
focus of UUSC’s program work in Darfur is to improve the safety
of women in refugee camps.
The situation in Darfur
Over 300,000 Darfurians have been killed, and over 2.5 million
have been forced to flee their villages by the Janjaweed and the
Sudanese military. While 250,000 of them have sought refuge over
the border in Chad, over 2 million people are living in
internally displaced camps within Darfur itself.
Darfur is peppered with camps, clusters of tents made of tarps,
clothes, sticks, and grasses. Those 2 million people are
dependent on humanitarian aid, but the Sudanese government has
made it difficult for humanitarian aid to reach them.
There is not sufficient food, medicine, services, and support
personnel in the camps. The camps are not a safe refuge for
Darfurians. Many Janjaweed, police, and military patrol near the
camps and, in several cases, have attacked both the camps and
the humanitarian organizations providing aid.
Gender-based violence
Women and young girls are particularly vulnerable to violence.
They leave the camps to seek the firewood they need to cook and
to seek work to pay for food, medicine, or fuel that they need
to supplement the aid they receive. This puts them at great risk
of rape and sexual violence.
UUSC is working with a consultant on the ground in the
internally displaced persons camps in Darfur, focusing on how to
improve safety for women and girls by:
Consulting with women in the camps to identify their needs for
safety and their ideas to improve it.
Working with women in the camps around how to organize for
improved safety.
Coordinating efforts among different agencies to improve
protection for women leaving the camps in search of firewood and
other resources.
Working with women and agencies to identify and implement ways
to reduce the need for firewood.
Identifying with the women safer income generation projects.
Supporting pilot projects for safer income generation.
Read additional reports on how rape and sexual violence are
being used against these women:
Amnesty International
International Rescue Committee
Medecins Sans Frontiers
