A new report on the crisis in the Darfur region of western Sudan has identified rape as a systematic weapon of ethnic cleansing being used by government-backed janjaweed militiamen, and said Sudanese laws discriminate against female victims, who face harassment and intimidation at police stations if they try to report the crime.
The report, “Laws Without Justice: An Assessment of Sudanese Laws Affecting Survivors of Rape,” by the humanitarian group Refugees International, said rape was “an integral part of the pattern of violence that the government of Sudan is inflicting upon the targeted ethnic groups in Darfur.”
“The raping of Darfuri women is not sporadic or random, but is inexorably linked to the systematic destruction of their communities,” the report said. Victims are taunted with racial slurs such as “I will give you a light-skinned baby to take this land from you,” according to one woman interviewed in the Touloum refugee camp in Chad, recalling the words of a janjaweed militiaman who raped her.
For a woman to prove rape under Sudanese law, she needs four male witnesses. This requirement puts undue burdens on women in a traditional society where single women having sex can be sentenced to 100 lashes at the discretion of a judge.
A married woman proved to have had sex outside of her marriage can be stoned to death, said Adrienne Fricke, an Arabic- speaking lawyer who worked on the report.
