Sudan’s Invisible Refugees

For SIHA, a network for civil society groups working on gender equality in the
Horn of Africa, cases of women refugees have emerged as one of the major issues
consuming all the sub region countries.

Forced movement of populations between the Horn countries has been non stop for
over 30 years. Though the pattern keeps changing, the crises are on going for people
living in the Horn of Africa who are constantly forced to leave their homes and seek
refuge across borders. At the beginning at 2005 it was estimated by the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) that 730, 914 people had found
refuge in the Sudan. Despite the fact that Sudan has the highest number of displaced
people, the waves of refugees refuses to cease, the majority arriving from the Horn of
Africa sub region. Unfortunately, the international community has entered a stage
whereby their commitment towards refugee conventions and humanitarian principles
are no longer a priority; refugees are more or less a forgotten case.

Within this forgotten, vulnerable and fragile group reside women and children. As
well as tending to suffer from the most serious cases of war and immigration, women
remain a further hidden population amongst refugees, which further increases their
suffering.

The UNHCR has estimated that in 2002, women made up 51% of all 6.1 million
refugees whose gender had been recorded. They are a highly vulnerable population
because of both perceptions and traditions. Many have left most, if not all of their
family and support systems behind. Some have lost husbands and children to war,
famine or illness. A large percentage of women refugees have spent time in refugee
camps where conditions are crowded and frequently unsanitary. Many have been the
victims of violence themselves. All have left everything familiar behind.

The harsh reality of immigration and asylum rears its head from the offset of a female
refugee’s journey into foreign land. Mina spent seven days on foot crossing the border
into Gadarif, Sudan. Water was scarce and food, impossible. For seven days Mina did
not have a single meal; she was eight months pregnant. “When I left my country I
knew the trip would be difficult, but I didn’t realize it would be that hard. We slept on
the street and I always felt unsafe. I felt very alone, it was everyone for them selves.”

Amal, shares a similar story to Mina. But Amal’s pain and anguish began before she
even left her home land. The mother of two children, she had to leave one of her
children behind, carrying the other with her over the border. “The journey was very
difficult; there was hardly any food or water. When we passed farms we had to beg
for food.” She suffered from exhaustion and her child became ill due to the lack of
food and water.

Further problems arise as the women cross the border and enter Sudan. For Mina,
upon arriving at the UNHCR main gate, she was denied entry and the Commissioner
for Refugees (COR) office threatened her with deportation as she had no
identification. Mina camped outside the main gate for five months with no shelter
from the harsh weather. Authorities were aware that Mina was pregnant, as when she
arrived she was asked about her pregnancy. Despite this she was offered no medical
or pre-natal care. Sometime during her camp outside the main gate a group of sixty
people, including Mina, were arrested and detained for one week. A man who was
also detained and now lives with Mina told us that “they [the police] were raping
women in front of their husbands, they could only watch and cry.”

Violence and abuse against refugee and immigrant women and girls is evident and
documented, but refuses to cease. Women refugees are subject to rape and abuse from
their initial journey up until their first asylum countries and beyond. When they reach
their first asylum countries these women are systemically targeted by all forms of
violence and degrading treatment. They are not safe inside their temporary shelter and
are extremely vulnerable to all forms of violence.

Describing their risks as refugee women, these women told us that they even have a
fear of sleeping. As refugee women they have no rights, and are scared of being
harassed or raped. Amal highlighted a typical refugee woman’s predicament;
“because of my sex, we are more at risk. We fear working or living with men because
it is unsafe. We have no rights. We can be raped and are at risk from AIDS. They
[men] should respect us as women, just as they respect their mothers, because they are
also women.”

As well as fearing for their personal safety, lack of medical care is an added weight on
refugee women’s shoulders. Sana is currently eight months pregnant, and already has
three little girls that she carried with her over the border. Since arriving in Sudan she
has suffered severe medical problems regarding her pregnancy. Medical care is almost
impossible as she has no money to receive treatment. She says, “I don’t know where
to go for help and no one wants to help me” she further states that, “animals are
treated better than us.” It is access to medical care that is a giant obstacle; many of
these women don’t have the means of transport or the expenses to go to clinics and
hospitals. Pregnant women are especially vulnerable as they require regular check ups
and pre-natal and ante-natal care. Dina, a fellow refugee living next to Sana, has
suffered a miscarriage and fears becoming pregnant again because if she requires
medical care she knows she wont find it easily, or at all.

The future is bleak for these women. Many have waited months, or even years, for
status, identification, a chance to move on or simply the peace of mind to know that
they are settled. For some, returning home is not an option or even worse, a distant
dream. “I can’t go back to my mother land. I don’t think about it, how could I? If I
was to think about my home how could I have stayed here? How could I bear it?”
Mina doesn’t want to return to her homeland but states that “…here [Sudan] there is
only darkness for me”

We cannot even hope for peace and settlement for future generations as the next
generation of refugees seems destined to follow in the path of their mothers. Amal
tells us that she fears for her children, “I fear for their future. They have no education,
they are the future and they have no education, no home.”

For these women, and future generations, we can only wait for the international
community to open its eyes and fully address this, supposedly, invisible population.
There does seem to be hope in some form, as Amal told us, “I am better than when I
first arrived. Before I was blind with no eyes, at least now I have one eye open.”

By Einas Mansour

Photographs by Einas Mansour