Status of women must be addressed for lasting peace in Sudan Commentary
Status of women must be addressed for lasting peace in Sudan
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Lyric Thompson [Policy Analyst, Women for Women International]: "Last week Sudan celebrated an ironic anniversary. In name only, it was the fifth anniversary of peace – specifically, the comprehensive peace agreement (CPA), the official armistice signed to end one of Africa's longest-running civil wars in 2005. The CPA was supposed to signal the end of a war that is estimated to have displaced 4 million and claimed the lives of over 2 million, infamous for a brutal campaign of rape. Yet residents of Africa's largest country know today's Sudan is far from peaceful. "After the CPA we celebrated; we thought it was over," says Karak Mayik, country director for the humanitarian and development aid organization Women for Women International, "but every year since, the violence has been rising. Things are not fine in Sudan."

US Secretary of State Clinton echoed Mayik's concerns in her remarks on the anniversary, stating that, "[v]iolence in the South is rising and tensions continue in border areas," estimating that 2,500 people had died and 350,000 been displaced in 2009 alone. Meanwhile, a senior adviser to President Omar al-Bashir sounded an ominous prediction, proclaiming war would be the result of next year's referendum that may well end in Southern secession.

In addition to outright violence, today's Sudan is also plagued by food insecurity, with more than 6 million people dependent on food aid. And President Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, a development that was greeted with the government's expulsion of 13 major aid groups providing critical assistance to the many hungry and displaced Sudanese.

From where Mayik sits as a Sudanese woman, war survivor and humanitarian in Southern Sudan, the next year is a critical one for her country, especially for women and children. She spent years in a Khartoum-based camp for people displaced by the war and now risks her life daily to equip women with valuable rights training and economic opportunities that will enable them and their families to rebuild. She recalls one instance last year when violent tribal clashes erupted near Women for Women International's offices. The violence threatened the lives of many, and displaced thousands of women and children, who found themselves without food, shelter and water. Mayik's staff put together the few resources they had to buy food, blankets and clothes for hundreds of displaced people stranded on Women for Women International farmland. The governor of Lakes State, South Sudan, recently gave her the title of "Commander of Nonviolent Forces" for her efforts. Even against a backdrop of violence and instability, these women were building bridges of peace and security.

So what is the American plan for Sudan? How will America work to quell the fighting and empower the grassroots movement for peace that Commander Karak and her colleagues are waging? Thankfully, President Obama has pledged to "confront the serious and urgent situation in Sudan." Last year, the Obama Administration released a carrot-and-stick strategy for the country that critically focuses equally on the obstacles to peace in the West and in the South, prioritizing both the crisis in Darfur as well as the implementation of the CPA. According to Mayik, US efforts should further focus on the main challenges impeding peace, including critical development issues such as land administration, water availability, oil sharing and lack of infrastructure. If unresolved these issues threaten to compromise the country's coming referendum, which we continue to hear may provoke another war.

There is increasing discussion on these points. Yet there is one tremendous gap in the policy discussion that has yet to be addressed: gender. From the unveiling of last year's Sudan strategy to last week's anniversary remarks, a gender agenda for peace in Sudan is absent. In a country where the violence of war has been profoundly gendered and a majority of the population engaged in civil society efforts to rebuild is female, this seems shortsighted.

This is nothing new, although it is something of a surprise in an administration that has from the beginning established gender as one of its key priorities, from the establishment of the White House Council on Women and Girls to the naming of an Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues. The White House must remember that women are more vulnerable to displacement and violence in conflict, and yet have been historically excluded from peace negotiations. From Liberia to Rwanda, women on the continent have demonstrated their vested interest in and powerful action on peace and security. Yet during the landmark signing of the CPA, Sudanese women were underrepresented and have continued to face social exclusion and some of the worst violence to date after the war. As Washington turns toward Khartoum in the critical year ahead, will the women again be forgotten?

It can only be hoped that they will not. There is perhaps no better image of women's valuable, everyday contributions to peacemaking than the image of Mayik and her staff working to educate, feed, clothe and protect the vulnerable in times of war. This is the everyday work of implementing peace, and in declaring Mayik the "Commander of Non-Violent Forces" the Governor demonstrates extraordinary recognition of an ordinary truth – women are the architects of peace and are invaluable allies in our attempts at peace-building. As we look toward next year in Sudan, a year of important elections and what is hoped to be the full implementation of the fragile CPA, we must not forget these strong women, who if engaged, can be the engineers of a true and lasting peace in Sudan. Stronger women do build stronger nations."

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