Sexual Violence In CAR
There is no doubt that the fight against sexual violence has a long way to go, and that victims support and services are considerably lacking. The damage of such violent acts reach much farther than the victim, the scope and depth of such acts effect entire communities and whole nations. The reach of such detrimental acts is global, and it has seemingly become a growing phenomenon of conflict.
However in the Central African Republic (CAR) a group of survivors are struggling to undo the damage of sexual violence, and while the struggle to defeat gender based violence is hard enough on its own, the women are facing another all to common hurdle. They are left to fight this battle on their own with little help from outside agencies and supporters.
“We’ve been left to fend for ourselves. We get little help from outside. Many of our members have died,” said the group’s chairwoman, Pelagie Ndokoyanga.
Sexual assault and rape are not rate in CAR, nor are they new to the country which has had decades of conflict ridden instability. An estimated one million people live in CAR’s conflict ridden region and the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates there are some 150,000 internally displaced persons across the country. Other estimates place the total displacement at 300,00, with 212,000 internally displaced more than 70,000 who have sought refuge outside of CAR.
The situation in CAR is also affected by the crisis in neighboring Sudan’s Darfur province, for which it suffers a spillover of violence, displaced people, refugees and rebel groups along the countries eastern border.
In the northwestern region of the country there has been attacks by Chadian armed forces crossing the border and invading villages, where they have been known to rape women and girls during their attacks. When the attacks increased during the increased unrest from early 2006 to early 2007. The ICC opened investigations in May 2007, after a request from the government.
“I was raped by a Chadian soldier in Betoko when our village was raided. Four other girls were raped on the same day. Some of my fellow [rape victims] have left the village; they were ashamed of what happened to us,” 21-year-old Celine Nadima said (Living with rape, harassment in the northwest).
In February 2007, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported that “sexual and gender-based violence strikes well over 15% of women and girls” in northern CAR.
“There is a dire need to expand the programmes that support the survivors of sexual violence and help communities to prevent it in the future,” affirmed Toby Lanzer, United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator in the CAR. (OCHA)
It is clear that much needs to be done to prevent, treat, rehabilitate and remove the stigma from survivors of gender based sexual violence and rape in CAR, as it is across the rest of Africa’s conflict ridden countries.