UN blames sexual violence in South Sudan on military, government

The United Nations is accusing the South Sudanese government and its military leaders of abetting sexual violence against women and girls.

According to the UN Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan, it is a “hellish existence for women and girls” with widespread rape being perpetrated by all armed groups, who are “neither discouraged from, nor held accountable for, their predatory behaviour.”

After all, the acts happen during frequent raids involving house-to-house searches accompanied with looting of food, produce and livestock, for their subsistence.

Rachael Onnab (not her real name) from Central Equatoria told the commission, “...they started biting me...they (four men) did not talk among themselves. Two of them held my hands down while others raped me.... I was screaming... but they put their hands over my mouth and punched me repeatedly on my chest.”

A woman in Eastern Equatoria testified of how she and her 15-year-old daughter, survived the brutal incidents of sexual violence, and how they continue to suffer severe physical and psychological injuries, following the multiple rapes. Her sexual assault resulted in paralysis of one leg.

A teenager, Mary Achol (not her real name), said soldiers kept her at the barracks for six months, raping her in turns. “I was forced into sexual slavery and repeatedly raped, while also being forced to cook and wash clothes.”

Following the repeated rapes, she told the UN investigators that she conceived, giving birth to children. She explained that she has been compelled to remain with one of her abductors who fathered two of her girls.

Besides concerns related to the children conceived from the rape, the women expressed fears of being exposed to sexually transmitted infections and related disease, particularly HIV/Aids. Fistula injuries are also common in South Sudan.

In the 48-page report, survivors recount horrific stories of being raped at gunpoint, or being captured and taken to encampments in forested areas where the perpetrators have set up temporary shelters. Numerous women and girls who suffered gang and mass rapes described how they were left for dead by their perpetrators.

Many survivors showed the commission scars from their ordeals, in most cases from assaults with a piece of wood and or guns and other blunt objects.

“South Sudanese men must stop regarding the female body as ‘territory’ to be owned, controlled and exploited,” said chair of the UN Commission Yasmin Sooka.

Brutality

The UN said it had conducted interviews with victims and witnesses over several years, in which overwhelming numbers of sexual violence survivors have detailed “staggeringly brutal and prolonged gang rapes” perpetrated against them by multiple men, often while their husbands, parents or children watched.

“These accounts are unfortunately just the tip of the iceberg. Everyone, inside and outside governments, should be thinking what they can do to prevent further acts of sexual violence and to provide adequate care for the survivors,” said member of the commission, Andrew Clapham, of the report “Conflict-related sexual violence against women and girls in South Sudan,” released on Monday.

Incidents of rape and sexual violence documented by the commission indicate that adolescent and underage girls, and young women below the age of 30 years old, are specifically targeted by armed men, uniformed and non-uniformed, identified as part of regular or of non-State armed forces, including from different units of the South Sudan People’s Defence Forces and the South Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army-In Opposition. The rape and sexual violence were carried out along ethnic lines.

In 2018-2019 the government publicly rebuked Médicins Sans Frontières for reporting about the cases of sexual violence and rape rather than investigating those said to be responsible.

Witnesses also reported that the government spread word that victims seeking medical treatment for sexual violations would be arrested.

“Where women have reported these crimes, they encounter major obstacles to accessing the justice system and threats of retaliation, given the extremely high levels of impunity,” said the report.

Some witnesses were harassed by government officials who sought to undermine their testimonies and discourage any further reporting of sexual violence.

Humanitarian responders told the commission they were concerned that the government’s actions and findings in their final report had been extremely detrimental to efforts to prevent sexual violence and encourage survivors to seek services in a timely manner.