Protecting Women and Girls in Darfur

Help Weave a Web of Protection for Women and Girls in Darfur

Peace is essential to ending the widespread violence in Darfur. But there are realistic, simple measures we can take right now that can make a genuine difference in the safety of women and girls — who are most at risk.

Women and girls are vulnerable to rape and violence when they need to leave the camps to find food, gather firewood, or earn money. Men occupy the highest levels of camp leadership, and women have had little opportunity or experience in speaking to the leadership about their concerns and problems. The international security forces that are supposed to protect civilians have not been trained to understand and respond to the particular protection needs of women and girls. Women lack sufficient resources to start income generation projects within the camps.

UUSC works through our partners in ten camps in Darfur to improve protection for women and girls in and around camps, by addressing the different causes of their vulnerability. In women's centers supported through UUSC, women are learning about their rights so that they can work out solutions, with camp leadership. Through the women's centers, women are forming firewood committees to coordinate with the international security forces in sending out biweekly protection patrols to accompany women gathering firewood.

There are many obstacles to ensuring that women and girls in Darfur are safe from violence. Weaving a web of protection is intricate and challenging, but together, we can help weave that web.

Just as UUSC's partners in Darfur are working to weave a web of protection for women and girls by implementing practical, straightforward measures, we, concerned individuals, are doing our part to help weave this web.

We believe that UUSC's work to protect women and girls in Darfur is strengthened and deepened by the work that local activists do in their community to educate others and advocate for the people of Darfur, particularly on the issue of gender-based violence.

• Read more about UUSC's programmatic work responding to the crisis in Darfur
• Learn what you can do to get involved!
• Visit our resources page to access educational materials and tools to mobilize your community to help weave a web of protection for women and girls in Darfur.
• Order Drumbeat for Darfur campaign materials, including posters, postcards, and t-shirts.
• Please e-mail us and let us know what you are doing to help protect women and girls in Darfur.

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