Save the Children: Teenage girls are being raped by armed combatants in Sudan

Moatinoon
Teenage girls are being sexually assaulted and raped by armed combatants in Sudan in alarming numbers, with many survivors aged between 12 and 17 years old, said Save the Children.

The children make up some of the cases of sexual and gender-based violence as a result of the escalating conflict, with incidents of rape, sexual assault and sexual exploitation being reported by women and girls who have fled the conflict in Khartoum and other areas.

While the sexual violence is understood to be rampant, only 88 cases of rape as a result of the conflict have been verified. This includes at least 42 alleged cases in the capital, Khartoum, and 46 in the Darfur region. However, according to the Sudanese Unit for Combating Violence against Women, a Government Unit, this figure likely on represents 2% of total cases – meaning there have been a possible 4,400 cases of sexual violence in 11 weeks alone.

Some survivors are arriving in neighboring countries pregnant as a result of rape, according to UNHCR. There have also been reports of girls being kidnapped and held for days while being sexually assaulted, and of gang rapes of girls and women.

Save the Children staff are also reporting that some children are being targeted specifically for their ethnicity as well as their gender. Save the Children is also particularly concerned about children travelling alone, who will be at much higher risk of violence, abuse and exploitation.

Even before fighting broke out on 15 April, more than 3 million women and girls in Sudan were at risk of gender-based violence. This number has since climbed to an estimated 4.2 million people.

Sexual violence is often used as a weapon of war against children to terrorise them, spread fear and intimidation for political and military gain, to ethnically cleanse or humiliate an ethnic group, or to punish civilians for suspected support of opposing forces.