The community and Cultural

Deterioration!
Dedication
This article is absolutely dedicated to the entire Zande
Community on our planet. It is dedicated to the voiceless,
helpless and patient members of this Community for their
persistent endurance and struggle against hardship, wars,
oppression and exploitation since the time of our ancestors
(ancient civilization) and dated back to the beginning of oral
and written history. It is also dedicated to them for their
effort to co- exist together as an entity and keep our beloved
community together up to date.

Preface
The topic referred to here as “Community and Cultural
Deterioration” is sensitive, important to discuss and vital to
find an appropriate workable solutions to the issues presented
and discussed in it. The original title of the article posted on
Sunday 09/19/2010 was “Azande Women and girls on sell to other
tribes – a morale decadence for the Azande”. Later on, the topic
was changed to “Law to govern dowry”.
Terminology: Decadence = moral or cultural deterioration;
immoral behavior.
The title of this discussion paper has been changed in an
attempt to neutralize the tone of the debate and the atmosphere
during the debate. Our moral conscience tells us that doing so
will draw more female members of our community into the
discussion.

The article will highlight most of the problems that seem to

wear out our community and set it ready for collapse. It is
intended for readers in the Azande Community for instantaneous
solution action to the issues that have thwarted progress in the
community.

Acknowledgement
To begin with, it is of paramount importance to recognize a few
people here for their role in this discussion.

First and foremost to recognize are the Governments of South

Sudan and the successive Governments of WES for the
determination and continuous effort exerted in maintaining peace
in the region up to date. I also thank and praise the successive
Governments of the State for bringing us all the way long to
where we are today compared to other Southern States.

Secondly, to be recognized is the man who shed light on this

topic and made us aware of the situation in our community as of
current --- Eng. Charles Kisanga. He is a very energetic
dedicated and outspoken politician who can add or subtract
political momentum to create a balanced genuine political
equilibrium when necessary. Therefore, he is highly commended
for his effort and good wish for his people.

Thirdly, I recognize the man who volunteered to summarize the

main points in the previous discussion and compiled them into
one single document. --- Mr. Sanango Edward. Mr. Sanango
sacrificed his time and energy to do that piece of work and he
is an example of many the community has been waiting to have and
we must recognize, appreciate, and encourage his effort in the
Community.

The fourth person I will recognize here is Eng. Justin Kiffaya

who continuously contributed with wonderful ideas and questions
that shaped the discussion and propelled it in the right
direction. We are thankful to such people who are willing to
seek durable solutions to problems in their backyard with open
mind and heart.

The fifth person I will recognize is the only lady who

participated in the discussion with wonderful view points and we
applaud her for coming forward to represent the entire female
block at the time when female voices and view points were very
critical in turning the debate around --- Ms. Mary Aurupai. Ms.
Aurupai did not shy away from the discussion. Mr. Mary, please
don’t get discouraged or disengaged from fruitful discussions
provided it is within the context of human development.

Sixth, I will recognize the man who did not waiver to ask the
most strategic question during the discussion --- Mr. Paiyo
Charles Angelo. Mr. Paiyo’s momentous question compelled the
debaters to focus on the way out from the said decadence “=
moral or cultural deterioration”. His one single question “what
is the way forward then?” asked for a clear outlet or exit
strategy that can be used to walk out our people from the human
catastrophe they are in. Mr. Paiyo please do not hesitate to
ask important questions when need arise. Please you are reminded
that your community is proud of your line of thought and you are
strongly commended for that.

The seventh person I will recognize here is the man, who cited
an example from the Dinka community in Khartoum during the civil
war, what their distinguished elders did to retain the existence
of Dinka, prevented the dilution of Dinka culture and ensured
that they continued to exist as a single entity in all walks of
life whether it rains fire or ice. The man to recognize here is
Mr. Ayoub Elie. Please Elie keep up with your curiosity, good
observation and timely analyzes. That is another method of
learning and Mr. Ayoub Elie we commend you for that.

The eighth recognition will go to all those who participated in

the discussion one way or the other and requested for part two
of the discussion. Please thank you all for your participation.
Keep on with the same spirit.

The ninth person whose effort will not go unrecognized is Dr.

Justin Zowai who brought up the discussion weeks later and
commented that something must be done about it. Dr. Zowai your
comment wasn’t late because the problem itself isn’t over yet.
It is never late to comment on an ongoing disaster. Thanks for
your concern and encouraging comment. Keep up with the same
spirit.

Lastly but not least is the person who did the most wonderful
thing to the community---Ms. Judith Agi. Her effort will not go
unnoticed. We will recognize her for generosity, consideration
and effectiveness. Thanks to God, we have such wonderful ladies
in our community in modern history. When our people were
unclothed and need immediate help, she was there to cloth them;
when our people were thirsty and needed water, she was there to
water them; when our people were hungry and needed food to
survive, she was there to feed them; when the LRA were chopping
our people, raping our daughters, sisters, mothers and aunts,
she was able to send rain coats, boots, cameras and other items
to the Arrow Boys to follow them. That is what Jesus requests of
you, Judith. That is what He wants each and every one of us to
do. We may not be able to serve Him directly but through His
people we can. Ms. Judith Agi, God bless you and we thank you
very much for your swift move to aid your people.

Contents
 Prostitution
 Reckless behavior
 Lack of interest in marriage
 Irresponsibility, self interest, wrong guidance, bad advice.
 Dowry
 Inferiority complex
 Religion
 Initiative, motivation, curiosity, sacrifice, egocentrism
 Poverty
 Addiction
 Pride
 Wrong upbringing
 Shyness
 Peers
 Joblessness, boredom, loneliness
 Learning disability
 Neglect
 War
 Homelessness
 Family history
 Imbalance of power
 Poor Communication
 Culture
 Media Coverage
 My view and conviction
 Suggested solutions
 Conclusion
 Topics for future discussion
 Articles from Sudan Tribune.

Introduction
This topic is one among many that have contributed enormously to
the setback of our community. Abstaining from discussing matters
of importance to our community is not a good option but a
limitation that will continue to have severe consequences on our
people. We are a community of intellectuals, elders, leaders and
youth. It is our duly obligation to bring about favorable life
conditions to those from whom we originated.

Today, our Community is faced with manifold challenges than ever

before, and so is our nation. These challenges have built up
over the last half a century. We also know beyond doubt that our
beloved Community is hollowed up and it is at the brink of
collapse and extinction. It is an undeniable fact that our
community is at war with the ghost LRA of Uganda and together
with the nation of South Sudan we are at the verge of entering
into a new phase of a conventional war with the Arab north
should the CPA be watered down or dishonored. We also understand
that it will require adequate time, a lot of effort and energy
to decelerate the speed of most if not all of these problems.
So, it is actually a race against time.

Fundamentally, it starts with finding the root causes of any

problems, followed by durable solutions to avert their
recurrence and the implications that may arise during and after
the changes. However, what we and our beloved people in Zande
Community can do at this time is not to fold our hands, take a
back sit and wait indefinitely while concentrating blames on
others or the authority in the State for the total misfortune of
the Azande people. Those in charge of the State’s affairs did
not bring the problems into existence nor did they wish their
own people bad luck in the first place. It won't be a just claim
that the responsibility of solving the problem rests solely on
their shoulders.

As a fragile and fractured Community, we're disadvantaged in any

eventuality and thereon, I ask you all to join me in the search
for a better way to help the authority in our community, WES and
South Sudan with some ideas to halt the human catastrophe in our
Community and State at large. We can bring the situation under
control, and thereafter, we can declare victory by saying we did
it when we see our people reclaim their cultural values which
they inherited from their ancestors since Biblical time! We can
celebrate our success when we see the Azande people transcend to
a functional modern society capable of existing as an entity and
interacting with others on equal footing. We can raise our
thumbs up when our people are able to uphold their values,
integrity, and aspirations. What we cannot do today is to
promote ourselves to the ranks of political witches or political
wizards wishing our impoverished people the worst of all bad
lucks! We will never ever allow that to happen under our watch.
We owe them quality leadership. We owe them better services. We
cannot wait to ride them like horses to fortune. We cannot sleep
when our people stay awake all night long worrying about the
future of their kids and their own. We cannot rest and leave the
outcry and suffering of our people go in vain. We cannot leave
our weak ones unattended. Our people deserve better than that.

Dear fellow tribesmen, we in our beloved Zande Community are

faced with the worst classified natural disaster defined by one
word, extinction.
Several researches reveal that Zande Tribe is heading for
extinction due to many obvious reasons, the summation of which
include but not limited to the factors outlined in the table of
contents above and those below to be discussed on a later date.

So to speak, it is clear that our community is in urgent need of

our personal and collect contributions.
It is believed that only by examining the root causes that
factor into prostitution will we end the sexual exploitation and
abuse of women and children, and thereafter, slow down the
rising threat it causes to our community.
Prostitution!
Terminology: To prostitute = two Latin words: (preposition)
pro and (verb) statuere. Compounding the two words together
gives a literal meaning that stands as "to expose", "to place up
front".

Definitions: Prostitution is generally defined as performing,

offering, or agreeing to perform a sexual act for money,
property, token, object, article, anything of value, power or
even as a hobby with someone who is not a spouse.

The exodus of women to prostitution is a complex matter and deserves

critical analysis to diagnose the root causes of the immoral act.
Though women take most of the blame for the act of prostitution, men
play central role in the development and promotion of prostitution and
the activities that revolve and rotate around it. We cannot exonerate
men from blame. Women are role models in the society and they are
expected to demonstrate decency in that aspect of life. Unfortunately,
when they are absorbed into misbehavior, they are quickly and easily
awarded with bad credit. The bad credit can be an enormous blame that
can last for a woman’s entire life span. In short, there is high
expectancy for the integrity and moral value of women than men in the
society. Women are mothers, advisors, sophisticated and expected to
exhibit a higher degree of decency, tolerance, wisdom and many more.

In the eyes and minds of the commons, it is ok for a married man to

have extramarital affairs with another woman besides his wife because
he is a man and men are always like that; they are cheaters; they are
all the same. If a married woman has extramarital affairs with another
man then she will definitely have no place in the society. She will be
looked down upon and she will be renamed “p-r-o-s-t-i-t-u-t-e”. In
front of the Creator, both of them are sinners because the two
together sinned simultaneously. They deserve the same labeling on
earth and deserve equal punishment under Eternal Laws (God’s Laws).

It is best to ask, “Why do people get involved in the act of

prostitution? It is only then that someone can try to figure
out how to fix the root causes of the problem “rather than
treating the symptoms of the problem without knowing the real
causes. It is also absurd to draw an abstract conclusion that
doesn’t hold water with certain groups of audiences.

Reckless behavior: acting without due consideration to self

protection or protection of others. For instance, having
multiple sex partners is recklessness, fatal and immoral. That
can cause harm to self or others in many ways, and the harm can
have a short or long term effect on the victims or the community
in general. Examples include violence, contraction or spreading
of dreaded diseases, corrupting the society and so on. For the
benefit of doubt, let us consider some comparative examples
here.
For convenient and representative purpose, let us represent
Zande women girls by mango trees bearing fruits and Zande men/
youth are represented by birds or monkeys. Then assume these
mango trees bearing a variety of fruits ripen and unripe/raw
(green). All of a sudden some monkeys or birds come by the mango
trees, climb them and begin to eat the fruits greedily. When a
monkey or bird sees a beautiful fruit on a different branch of
the mango tree, it jump and grabs the fruit, bite it and look
around for more; when the same monkey or bird sees another ripen
fruit with flamboyant color, it just drops the one in the mouth
and jumps to capture the next colorful fruit. When you at those
monkeys or birds, you find them too busy jumping from one fruit
to the other, biting and dropping them as they change positions
on the tree branches. These exercise becomes repetitive and a
habit of almost all the monkeys on the tree. Briefly after the
monkeys start feeding on the mango fruits, you will find a lot
of spoiled fruits under the tree. That is how most men in our
community handle our female community members.
Yet another example: some ancient Europeans from southern Europe
once lived greedy lives. They liked food so much that they did
not want to leave any good food uneaten. They used to fill their
stomach with food up to the throat and yet when they found
another tasty food, they stimulated the back of their tongues in
order to vomit the old food out from their stomachs and create
spaces for the next tasty food.
That is exactly what men in our community do with Zande women
and girls. That is too sad. There are very many highly educated,
uneducated, brown, chocolate, black and too black Zande women
and girls out there with wonderful back ground and family
history striving for marriage. Surprisingly, they are all
ignored, marginalized, and dumped without due consideration. The
question of high dowry isn’t the main reason. I am in accord
with the fact that this blunder is caused by short sightedness,
lack of interest in marriage, irresponsibility and carelessness.
It is also linked to inferior complex which will be discussed
later in this article. But let me tell you that “what goes
around comes around. Today, you mess up with the life of someone
else’s daughter. Tomorrow, God gives you daughters and someone
somewhere will come and mess up with their lives too. But the
golden rule is to establish a rule that will protect your
daughters and the daughters of others equally. This is the time
to do it right.

Lack of interest in marriage: Lack of interest in marriage

among adults and youth is brought about by the absence of
enforced community laws, rules and regulations, strategy and
vision. Our government does not have the laws in place that
punish perpetrators of sex crimes ranging from spoiling school
children to prostitution. It is and must remain a grave crime
for anybody to have sex with a minor. A minor is a girl or a boy
under 17 years of age. Perpetrators of this crime need to be
brought to book. The crime doesn’t end up with spoiling school
children, but denying them of better future and depriving the
Community from “would be” the great leaders of the people. The
chiefs are not empowered to deal with such crimes at the
chieftainship level. They are not fully empowered to oversee the
administration within their territorial integrity, and act to
deter such unsuitable practices from becoming the habit of the
people. The youth are not empowered, oriented and guided for
future leadership. Former or informal up bring, guidance,
orientation and training of youth have positive impact on youth
as they are in transition to community, state or national future
leadership during their adulthood. Together with the chiefs,
they can do the community policing job to discipline members of
the community effectively when need arise.

Irresponsibility, self interest, wrong guidance and bad

advice: there are wrongly brought up members of our community
who feel that they normally remain static without aging. This
category of people keep chasing girls or young men up as the sun
rises and sets without the fear of any repercussion despite the
fact that they are aware of the danger posed by deadly diseases.
They don’t see through the same eyes ordinary people see
through. They see through different eyes, and have their own
theory and principle that contradict the normal principle of
life and God’s Commandments. Knowingly or unknowingly they have
substituted normal life with immorality and they think that it
is ok to re-write God’s Commandments in a way that can suit
their own interest. Whether poor or financially stable, it isn’t
a matter of concern to them to marry or even think of it. To
them kids and wives are burdens and can prevent the maximization
of enjoyment. In the course of doing so, they tend to slow down
the growth of our population one way or the other.

Some ugly scenarios have been happening and allowed to go

unchecked by the very elders who claim to be leaders in the
community. For instance, a Zande woman got drunk, stripped off
her clothes completely and danced with bare body in public for
few pounds in a foreign country. Some Zande elders were present,
over excited while celebrating the act in partnership with a
certain Arab human trader. When few Zande elders protested
against that blasphemy, some of those Zande elders and the Arab
business man condoned and defended the Zande girl. The main idea
behind this practice was self interest. The Zande elders were on
the pay roll of that Arab trader who in turn used to obtain
money and other materials from Western Embassies and UNHCR for
Refugee cultural exhibition. Secondly, the said elders did that
to seek favor from the ill behaved Zande woman who took off
clothes from her body to dance in public. To silence everyone
and to legalize such act, the so called elder(s) complained
bitterly against those who stood firm against that blunder. That
is morale debacle. It is an absolute mental failure or collapse.
To anyone with a healthy upstairs (mind), it is conclusive that
many elders from our community have gone off track. There is a
proverb that “If someone knows nothing and he knows that he
knows nothing, at least he knows something; and on the contrary,
if someone knows nothing and he doesn’t know that he knows
nothing, then he does know nothing.” We cannot lead our people
with selfishness, ignorance, lots of errors and miscalculations.
Such attitude is detrimental to any reform and if it continuous
to exist in our minds, our community will be doomed to failure
and desolate.

Some parents, relatives and friends are out of touch with

realities. They don’t tell young people the truth because either
their own minds are twisted and can only think best in that
direction, they are selfish and put their self interest above
the well being and future of the young ones, or they are bad
advisers who are out there to advise anyone in bad faith.
Now examine these pieces of advice and draw your own conclusion
as to whether they are helpful to our children or not.
They are real pieces of advice from mothers, relatives and
friends to young girls: girls are always luckier than boys. They
don’t suffer much when they grow up because there are many men
out there who will love and help them. When girls grow up, they
always find many men who love and care for them. Girls always
look for well off men and fall into their hands; and these men
in turn help the girls and their family members. Girls don’t
have problem because there are men there for them. My elder
sister fell in love with a man when she was 13 -15 years old and
that man was very kind to us in the family. “My daughter, don’t
you see the way other girls live? You know well that you are
beautiful, why don’t you find any Kawaja and befriend him so
that he can help us?” My daughter, why don’t you go to the big
city, town or club and find rich men there and bring us some
money home? My elder daughter went to Wau, Juba or Khartoum and
brought me these clothes, dresses, shoes and so on, God bless
her.

This sort of advice can hardly bring up any good generation of

people in the community. They can only make sense if they are
reversed and told with emphasis on education, health and the
dehumanizing effect of the practice. Early sexual relationship
can endanger girls’ lives, force them to drop out from schools,
catch and spread diseases, make them unproductive (sterile),
expose them to bodily harm, give them bad reputation, degrade
their human value, a cultural taboo and sin against God. More
concentration of advice should flourish on the importance of
education, family building and better future so that these young
people can be able to differentiate between wrong and right when
they grow up into adults. We cannot try to trick them into going
out with men to bring us money or other valuables. We cannot
trick them into getting spoiled, or endangering their lives.
That isn’t right at all. Remember that they are still blind at
that young age and they depend on our advice and guidance to do
things right. If adults keep pumping bad advice into the minds
of young people at these young ages, they will send more people
into prostitution and graves than they will be able to prevent
from perishing so early in life. I don’t know how others think
about it, but overall, it is sad to recollect all that our young
ones go through in life.

Dowry: Although high dowry can scare and prevent poor men and
women from marriage, yet it is thought of as a negotiable
arrangement. It is a naked fact that dowry is never paid all in
one day, one month or one year. Dowry is paid over decades if at
all possible. Though high dowry does not factor properly into
the reasons for reckless behavior and lack of interest in
marriage, it remains well among the daily excuses of people who
show less or little desire for marriage or improved behavior.
Such weak factors can be eliminated if the community chooses to
do so.
The Intellectuals, Chiefs, youth and community leaders can
organize a conference in which such issues can be tackled and
resolved fruitfully.

The Dinka, the Nuer and many other tribes in South Sudan did it
during the civil war and so can we. They introduced a system
where a Dinka man can marry a Dinka girl on credit. That type of
marriage is simply done on the bases of documented agreement. It
means the bridegroom owes his in-low all the charges agreed upon
in the marriage and he has to pay it over a certain period of
time when condition becomes favorable. If Mr. X wants to marry
Ms. Y and Mr. X does not have money or its equivalent to pay,
then Mr. X will have to sign a document of obligation
(promissory note) undertaking the responsibility to start paying
the money within a given period of time and in a reduced form if
and only if Mr. X is a community member. If Mr. X is a non –
community member, then Mr. X will pay 20 to 100 times the dowry
a community member can pay depending on what the relatives of
the bride wants. The Dinka and Nuer did that to save their
population from extinction. We too can do it for the same
purpose. It is disappointing to see a majority of Zande youth
completely uninterested in marrying Zande girls in order to
uphold and upkeep the traditional values of the Azande.

Inferiority Complex: There exists some form of inferiority

complex among many of our young men. Many Zande girls have
graduated from Universities, colleges and Institutes today than
ever before. What is disturbing is the fact that you hardly hear
that these girls are getting married to their community male
members at the same rate they are graduating. What is so
difficult about marrying a Zande girl who happens to be a
graduate from a University or College? After graduation, these
girls wait, wait and wait no more for their fellow Zande men to
come by and ask them for marriage. Unfortunately most of them
find themselves avoided or abandoned. As they find themselves
aging and desperate for marriage, they decide to surrender to
any men outside their community for family building and
reputation protection. Several studies reveal that the main
cause behind this short coming is inferiority complex that has
crippled most of the young men who are supposed to step forward
and marry these ladies in order to build prosperous families and
save the image of the community. As this scenario continuous, we
end up losing many outstanding and resourceful mothers to the
outside communities than we bring their equivalents from outside
into our community. When we see our own sisters and daughters in
the hands of others, we either become jealous or disapprove of
their exit from our community. The question is “do we as a
community have a plan in place for maintaining them? Sooner or
later there will be scores of Zande girls graduating from
colleges and Universities and they will follow suit if we don’t
act now to reverse this failure in the community. It is the duty
of all of us to see to it that we care for one another. Many of
our girls disappeared into the wilderness for the good or the
worst. Some lost their lives and others ended up miserably while
a few succeeded and lived well. We cannot shy away from them; we
cannot be afraid of marrying them; we cannot mock at them; we
cannot play with their lives; we cannot look down upon them and
despise them; we cannot ignore them; we don’t have to treat them
like that. Without them we can’t be strong and without us they
too can’t be strong and progressive. In every community, men
develop suitable policies for their communities of which women/
girls are a part. Intellectuals in the community have to play a
major role in eradicating the element of inferiority complex
from the hearts and minds of our youth. We can organize
conferences, workshops, seminars and meetings to discuss ways
and means of putting a full stop to that kind of thing.

Religion = faith = The relationship between humans and God.

Religion is not just a way of life as some people assume. Some
people go to church because that is what they have been doing
since birth. They wake up on Sunday mornings, get dressed and go
to the Church. It is important to know that going to Church is
absolutely different from going to the Church. We go to Church
to pray, listen to God’s words and so on, but we go to the
Church to visit the Church, meet our friends there, see people,
talk etc. The latter does not help play any positive role in
building a good community at all. Many marriages are done
outside the Churches in violation of God’s commandments. Church
blessings hold marriage together. There is likely hood that in
its absence, marriage can fall apart easily. That is because the
marriage has not been sealed with God’s blessing-Matrimony.
That practice produces many unmarried people than it does
produce married ones. At the end of the day, we end up with many
angry men and women whose marriage ended up bitterly. Another
scenario is the co-habitat system. That is referred to as
pseudo-marriage. It is a false or fake marriage in the sense
that it is neither legal nor blessed. It is situational,
temporary, unbinding and it does not conform to the norm of our
society. At the end of the day, we end up with an enormous
number of sexually active single people in the community when
these groups of people cease to leave together. That poses a big
threat in this era of terminal diseases, ethno-politics and many
more challenges.

Lack of initiative, motivation, curiosity and

sacrifice (time, energy and resources),
selfishness and ego-centrism: can be interpreted as a
dubious behavior by the souls of our beloved community. Ever
since, our intellectuals have never assembled to one place to
talk about community issues substantially. Instead, they have
been somehow destructive to any initiative brought forth by any
good wisher. They haven’t been curious to see, examine and
understand what other communities do for their people. Most of
them are obsessed with their personal calculations. Political
calculations are hard to balance sometimes, but the question is
“how long are our people going to wait for these political
equations to balance before they are declared extinct?” The
tactics we ought to avoid is to stay aloof watching things fall
apart for our people.

My dear readers, be informed that the time for ego-centrism

(self centered), individualism (special, not general, and
designed for use by one person) is gone. It is outstandingly bad
and shocking to step aside unsympathetically and watch our
beloved ones struggle for decades. What difference does it make
when a community has or doesn’t have generous and visionary
intellectuals? It is worth noting that, the soul of a community
is in its intellectuals. No intellectuals in a community will
mean a soul-less community. Selfish intellectuals will mean
selfish souls. Blind intellectuals will mean blind souls and
hence no vision, and so the community is stuck and can’t move
forward. Consequently, it will begin to wear out and tear apart.
Unconcerned intellectuals will mean unconcerned souls. Generous
and visionary intellectuals will mean generous and visionary
souls. When a community exists with a lot of egocentric and
individualistic intellectuals, the community will not move
forward smoothly as there will be a lot of dishonest struggle
for political targets. The result of this will be devastating
and egregious.

Poverty: ranges from no income to low income. It affects us

directly, creating a lot of tensions in our daily lives.
Poverty has direct impact on student progress as it affects
their education fees and pocket money, accommodation, transport
fees, feeding allowances etc.
Extreme poverty can cripple brides and bridegrooms, and
condition them to lose confidence in each other. Those with weak
faith can easily trade marriage life with free life style devoid
of accountability, obligation, responsibility and anything along
that line. As time goes on, they mature and get adapted to
bachelorism. To this type of people, the chance of survival and
prosperity increases with an increase in the number of partners.
That habit in turn exposes its practitioners to the danger of
contracting sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV/ AIDS;
Hepatitis A, B, C; Human papillomavirus (HPV) that causes
various cancers in male and female reproductive organs;
Gonorrhea; syphilis and Tuberculosis. Most of these viral and
bacterial diseases are deadly and terminal. Gonorrhea, syphilis
and other diseases can cause sterility in humans if not treated
effectively and on time. Sterility and insufficient protein
diets are the main cause of the exponential extinction of Zande
ethnic group.

A section of super poor people looses hope in life and

thereafter, they develop a condition known as hopelessness where
they don’t see life or human value useful. At this point, some
tend to mess around with others within or without his/ her
community. They do that in substitution for loses in life.
Others indulge in heavy drinking of alcohol with the hope that
bad fortune can be curtailed by so doing.

Addiction: Alcohol and Opium can drive someone to

prostitution. One loses control of himself or herself when drunk
or under the influence of opium. Some men who purchase these
items tend to attract the sellers with a large amount of cash on
display for such acts and beyond. Some people tend to prostitute
in order to earn money and buy such substances with it. There
are also some who are highly addicted to sex and care less about
the damage it causes to self and the society. Stress too counts
as a factor for prostitution. For some people they tend to
substitute their loss in one area (cause of stress) with sex so
that they can comfort themselves for that matter; other people
substitute their loss with alcohol or heavy drinking, others
remain depressed and aggressive. In either situation, the future
looks gloomy.

Pride: some men and women link their appearances to sexual

opportunity. They think that being cute is a visa to the sex
world. Some cute women woo men with their beauty and some cute
men also woo women with their appearance. These people mess
around a lot as they have a strong connotation that they are
universal sexists. In your life time, you might have come across
one or more friends who enjoy talking about themselves as cute,
liked by many girls or men, had a good time with X or Y; Or A
and B fought over me here and there; I had two, three, four etc
boy / girl friends at the same time; they give me a lot of
money; I like “P” because he/ she is cute but I like “Q” because
he/she gives me money/valuables; although Ms. A is too lazy, I
like her because she is too cute etc. That kind of reasoning is
in appropriate and risky because it can amount to (a) total
damage to one’s reputation (b) bodily harm (c) contraction of
dangerous diseases or all of the above and many more.
(c) Wrong upbringing: Wrong upbringing by the wrong people in
the wrong place and at the wrong time = Improper parenting and
poor community guidance. The way we lead our Community differs
to a greater degree from the way leaders in other African ethnic
groups do, specially our South Sudanese brothers. Most of our
young people grow just like wild trees which don’t need advice
or guidance to do so. Elders and the Community leaders have no
program for young people. Intellectuals have no program for the
community and the young. There is no one there to hold the
torch, light it, and lead the young, the old and the blind out
of darkness. No planers, no people with distinctive vision to
show others the way forward. As a result, a sizeable number of
our people miss the fundamentals of civilization, charisma, and
leadership development. Therefore, most of us lack: the instinct
of reasoning out things rationally; the ability to use the power
of mind to transform the academic knowledge we acquire in the
class rooms into real practical aspects of life, and incorporate
them into real solutions for daily problems people face in life.
Scoring an A, B or C in the class room is one thing, but using
those grades to change things outside the class room is very
important and challenging. That is what makes the difference and
we call that Change. That is what distinguished our late beloved
leader Dr.John Garang from other people with the same academic
and military credentials in the country. That is why Presidents
Kwame Nakuruma of Ghana, Nelson Mandela of South Africa; Abraham
Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Reagan and Clinton of USA; and Prime
Minister Ghandi of India top the list of best leaders on our
planet. That is the responsibility God bestowed upon us and we
will be held accountable for our failure if we don’t execute it
correctly and with urgency to avert the suffering of the people
in our community.

Shyness (Zee): is also a deadly / destructive factor in our

lives. We call it respect in Zande, but it is not. What on
earth can make a strong person look weak? Zee! When parents
indoctrinate children to have the sense of zee and when the kids
grow up, it becomes worst to the extent that they can give up
any cause and give in or submit to anybody because they can’t
stand firm and defend themselves due to shyness. Most girls are
spoiled at this point and grownups are wooed for material or
insignificant benefits. In other communities, that isn’t the
case. Kids are conditioned to develop manhood or feminism at
earlier age, be tough in reasoning and in all walks of life.
That is achieved through constant meetings, gatherings,
workshops, seminars, conferences and common parental and
community guidance. We all know that success is not easy to
achieve. The road to success and victory is very rough, hard,
thorny, long and difficult; hope is the vehicle that can get us
there.
Sacrifice is the price to pay when we want to get things done
the right way. Avoiding all these isn’t a solution but a
drawback and prolonged failure.

The inability to compare the past and the present and then use
the comparison to predict the future is lacking among our
community leaders, intellectuals and elders. Given that we the
Elders, Intellectuals and Leaders do not put our role into play
and we tend to concentrate blame on the young and the victims of
the undesired misfortunes, there is a glimpse chance that the
equilibrium can shift to the right side any sooner.

Peers: Young people who live with peers/ friends, poor parents
or relatives are frequently pressured or forced into premature
sexual relationship with other peers for fun or with grown up
men for favor or with the aim of material gain. One example of
that is the tragedy of the young Zande girl who was said to have
been married to an old Arab man in Ezo County just before the
elections last April. Sometimes the relationship can end up with
partnership in sex only, cohabitating, marriage or anything to
that effect. Other girls or young men are forced into the act by
friends or partners and eventually, they get accustomed to it.
That sort of arrangement collapses sooner than later since it is
only conditional and not love based. The victim can move on from
one sex partner to the other regardless of age and other
constraints that may impede fertility in the long run or even
lead to early death. Parents, communities and elders shouldn’t
allow that kind of thing to happen under any circumstance.

Joblessness, Boredom and loneliness: factors in as sex

drive for some people. When idle and bored, they want to find
something interesting to fill the gap with. They can either
embark on heavy drinking of alcohol, heavy smoking, or heavy
intimacy practices. Some people tend to be asocial, aggressive,
or quiet. One group whose members think positively always has
the tendency of moving out of the vacuum quickly but surely.
They join the main stream (people) and get involved in everyday
activities which definitely keep them out of trouble.
In many instances, they opt to move on to an advance level where
eruption of happiness and/or prosperity is likely to happen.
Those who bank their effort in sex, smoking and drinking or
aggression end up in a disastrous conditions which are likely
irreversible. The best option for this situation is counseling
(rugute) with specific objectives. The community can arrange and
carry that task out without problem. We don’t need approval from
the Governor, the President of South Sudan or the Chairman of
African Union to do that. We can do that in form of Volunteering
Organization or at the County or Sub-county level. Funding can
be obtained from NGOs, the Government, UN, the Embassies and the
community and individuals.

Learning Disability: Some students drop out from school

because of learning disability. In that part of the world
(Zande land) there are no facilities or the means to help kids
with a variety of learning disabilities. As a result, the
disadvantaged students quit schools at early ages. Finding
themselves idle, bored, unskilled, poor, unsocial, and
incompetent to carry on with normal daily life functions, they
simply slip to the other side of history in search of fortunes,
fame and heroism. The State Ministry of Education can assist
with that by designing an appropriate program to help those who
are at learning disadvantage. Other nations have this program in
place and so can we. Even North Sudan has it. It can range from
special couching known as remedial classes to programs designed
especially for the deaf and the super blinds. That needs time
and more resources which our State and the nation of South Sudan
don’t have right now. However, that can be considered later in
the future.

Neglect: Some parents and relatives tend to neglect their young

ones and pay less attention to them most of the time especially
in their teens. That behavior has a profound effect on young
ones as they are always on the move trying to explore the world
and gain some experience. They can indulge in heavy drinking;
routine sexual activities and consequently, they can drop out
from schools or tend to be at odds with the parents if the
latter try to interfere when situation is out of hand. Of
course, too little too late. As children drop out of schools,
they are rendered with no skills, poor education back ground,
and no alternative but an obvious risky choice to survive. Poor
parenting, bad peers or wrong friends can exert maximum pressure
on submissive children to engage in sexual and alcoholism
practices. That of course is detrimental to the well being of
such poor children as they don’t have the means to provide food
for themselves leave alone medical treatment if they fall sick.

War: is associated with destruction of humans and their

property. During war time, there is a state of anarchy and
despair. Some people known as desperados take law into their own
hands; they loot properties; they rape women and girls; they
kill and do whatever they want and yet they remain unaccountable
for their own behavior. Most women and girls are spoiled at this
time as they have no one to come to their rescue. Diseases
spread uncontrollably, death rate becomes high and hope becomes
diminished. People run away for safety and mix up with other
people from different communities and cultural dilution becomes
eminent. Marriage becomes remote as everyone doesn’t have the
capacity to do so. Prostitution hits its highest record.
However, as situation returns to normal, we need to get over it
and reorganize ourselves and our community for our common good.
Mixing up politics with policy is a risky approach at this
point. The best way is to take politics out of policy in order
to deliver anything tangible to our people.

Homelessness: contributes a lot to the down fall of our

children. If a child doesn’t have where to live, the child will
tend to stay with friends or move from one house to the other in
search of better life. In the course of doing so, bad actors can
cease this opportunity to influence the homeless child and drive
her/him into sexual misconduct, constant practice of which will
turn the child into a prostitute and subsequently the child ends
up as a sex worker in the nearest town or city where many
customers are wealthier. Some Zande families in main cities are
also to blame for mistreating children who come to the cities to
seek better education and have nowhere to stay but opt to seek
accommodation with relatives or families they are acquainted
with. Communities other than ours take excellent care of such
adventurous school children and that is why we find a big number
of educated people among the Moru, Kuku, Shilluk (Chollo) and so
forth. Our people simply find it a chance to use these children
as house mates, force them into hard labor or block them from
success one way or the other. That is too bad and we as a
community have to eradicate that kind of primitive style of
handling community affairs.

Family history: family history heavily loaded with

prostitution also plays a significant role in wooing young ones
in such a family or neighborhood into prostitution. Careless
sexual remarks or discussion in the presence of children or
young ones gives them a clue to what that act is and eventually
they also want to put what they hear into a trial. That is a
learned behavior and it is all that such children know.
Young people with low esteem tend to be submissive and easily
misled by others in a negative direction. That can include
smoking cigar or opium, drinking alcohol and soliciting sex with
bad partners. They have no self confidence, and always believe
that they are less fortunate than others.

Most young girls and women who have no alternatives always make
it to big cities thinking they will find better life there and
perhaps help themselves and the family. Without any skills or
profession, they end up in wrong crowds and caught up in
prostitution. Some of them are mothers of young or old kids;
they are used to money and they have no means of raising the
children on their own, perhaps abandoned (family breakdown) by
the fathers of their children; mom and kids need money badly for
survival. As the future looks dim or dark, moms begin to look
for empathy rather than sympathy from anyone anywhere any time
regardless of its implication to the family and the community
they come from. .
We all know that in business, demand = supply. Therefore, when
the demand goes up, the supply will go up too, and in this sense
more and more beloved ones will disappear into that ugly system
and especially if the public attitude warrants it and endorses
the media coverage that have it as easy or quick money.
In a situation where there is no support net works, no
rehabilitation programs, no training, retraining, or any
monetary support to uplift status of individuals or groups of
women, they tend to be drowned in a situation of hopelessness
and they feel isolated, ignored and marginalized. For their own
survival, they get co-opted into the world of prostitution where
they can survive and cope up with life.

Imbalance of power: this is a derivative factor that

contributes immensely to the sexual exploitation of women and
minors by bosses who abuse the power bestowed upon them by
virtue of their offices. This imbalance of power gives a major
advantage to more men than women and so most men do take
advantage of women in many ways including the use of their
offices, private or public money and so on. That social
inequality is one of the major causes of prostitution among
working class officials. They use the same tactic to spoil
school children, spread diseases, break up established families
and woo the victims into prostitution and so forth.
As intimacy becomes commercialized / tariff, natural love/
affection fades / erodes away rapidly in the minds and hearts of
those who are in that sort of business. So to speak, it honestly
becomes next to impossible for that kind of people to engage in
a well orchestrated productive marital life. That leads to the
fact that the ex-combatant of commercial intimacy remain
predators of immorality and bodily pleasure regardless of the
huge ethical deficit it depicts.

Poor communication: There is no doubt that the

overwhelming majority of our community members have no
compliment for loquacity. There is great difference between
talking sense and talking nonsense. We can’t ignore the fact
that talkativeness is powerful and it works. Members of the
Dinka, Nuer, Bari and other communities in South Sudan are
loquacious. They talk, talk and talk again. None of them want to
miss the chance to talk. They sit under the trees and talk from
sun rise to sun set. They talk about everything. Talking is good
because it trains people to speak their minds without fear or
shyness. It trains people to talk logic and communicate messages
across to the other side. They criticize, condemn or praise
without fear. Kids are not separated from older people because
when they sit together kids learn faster and better. In their
houses, they gather in the evenings and discuss things of
necessity and take them forward from there the following day.
What they discuss in the houses, in the offices, on the
weekends, under the tress and in the luak or Murah and so on
have significant impact on their communities. That is what the
Shilluk, the Kuku, the Moru communities do too. In all meetings
or gatherings, young people are always the organizers and part
of the attendees of these gatherings. Old people don’t wrestle
with the young for leadership in those things. Old people don’t
cause or look for trouble; they don’t play tricks to cheat or
hide part of the fund for their personal use. They are always
honest when it comes to that because they know what it means to
them as a community. Old people already had their time and young
ones too have to have their time to train for better leadership
in the future, and it is the duty of their elders to couch them.

To the contrary, members of our community think that loquacity

is another word for “mbusa ngbaa” in Zande. Mbusa ngbaa simply
translates as exhausting the mouth for nothing. So our beloved
people don’t want to exhaust their mouths for nothing. Talking
about issues that affect our daily life can’t be equated to
nothing. Discussing community matters is equatable to the way
forward and that is something very vital for progress and the
well being of the community members and the nation at large.
What remains disturbing is the nature of our talks in the
community. People are very excited to talk about social life or
enjoyment and their personal achievements to signify their
importance rather than discussing issues affecting the general
population in the community.

Old people are always dismissive of the presence of young people

on the grounds that young people are not supposed to sit
together with old people and listen to what they say (secrets or
stories).
The question is that “how will these young people learn? How
will they develop the sense of leadership? How will they learn
to talk bravely and logically? How can they reason and talk
logically, appropriately and based on organized ideas? You see
my dear beloved ones, leadership is of dual nature: inherited
and acquired leadership. Lucky ones are born with leadership;
the unlucky ones acquire it through training achievable in many
ways—from parents, community, self struggle, education, and
experience and so on. If we do not meet to talk effectively
about our problems, who do we expect to come and talk about them
for us? Do we expect the Governor in Yambio to go to our
villages, towns and cities to sit down there and crack his/ her
head and come up with a solution to them? Or do we believe that
the Governor in Yambio knows everything so he/she is just
supposed to bring a blanket solution and erase all our suffering
with it?

In the actual sense, we must sit down, discuss our problems with
the help of our intellectuals, leaders and so on in the
villages, towns, and cities and thereafter, we can register a
visit to the Governor’s office to present our problems there or
raise the problem to the Parliament through our mouth pieces to
the State or national Assembly. Those mouth pieces are the MPs.
We too can find some solutions to problems and implement them
immediately. Unfortunately if we care very much about our mouths
and care less about the future of our children, we will keep
sinking deeper and deeper making it very difficult for our
children to come out of the deep hole we have dug for them.

My dear brethren, this is the time for all of us to put our

differences aside and work for our people one way or the other.
This is the time to separate policy from politics and work for
the interest of our people. This isn’t the time for beauty
contest. Political beauty contest is a very harmful game to the
well being of our people. We don’t need to keep it in play all
the time. Intellectuals need to work with the authority to move
things forward. Let us come together to resurrect the hope and
aspiration of our people and now is the time to do it right.

The Culture: normalizes and promotes prostitution by

condoning it and viewing it as a way of life for sexually active
people.
The question is “Where are these women and girls going to come
from? They are going to come from our own families, aren’t they?
As prostitution becomes normal, more and more women and girls
will enter the practice. Is this our solution to women’s poverty
and unemployment?
Certainly, it is not. If poverty and unemployment problem for
women and girls in the society is solved easily by turning most
of them into sex workers, the State will have created the worst
health problems in human history: spreading of untreatable
diseases, inflicting mental and bodily harm to humans and
promoting immorality to its highest level since the destruction
of Sodoma and Gomorrah.

Within the culture, elders, leaders, intellectuals, churches are

the voice of moral authority. Unfortunately, in the battle
against prostitution as a form of immorality, the voice of moral
authority that condemns all forms of sexual exploitation and
abuse is being lost. In the past, they were accused of being
“moralistic, so they have retreated into “non-judgmental”
positions. They need to re-engage in the debate. There is an
important role for churches, elders, leaders and intellectuals
to play in describing the harm of sexual misbehavior to men,
women, children, families, and religious communities, from the
grassroots to the top. They need to use their voice of authority
to combat the increasing sexual normalization, commercialization
and the exploitation of our dear beloved ones. They need to
explain to the grassroots that sexual misbehavior of such nature
is harmful and dehumanizing and it contributes to the spread of
terminal diseases.
Media Coverage: directly or indirectly portrays commercial
intimacy as a quick and easiest method that torpedoes women to
glamorization and prosperity through wealth acquisition.
Reporting such behavior as an immoral act that has no place in
both the eternal world and our human society, can do a great
good to the community than this piece of interview that follows:

“The work of a prostitute offers women an exciting life, a

certain kind of independence in doing this job”, interesting
interpersonal relations, meeting different people, and a number
of other experiences of which the traditional women are denied
of.” In confirmation to this, another prostitute stated that “In
my line of business I don’t have a prepared schedule according
to which I have to work. I start working whenever I want. I stop
whenever I want. I don’t have a boss who would constantly keep
an eye on me. I’m independent”.

The focus of reporting should be disease spreading; immorality,

violence; the threat caused by illegal immigration and smuggling
of humans into the country as sex workers, and rectification of
proper laws to combat wrongful doings in the country etc. It
shouldn’t dwell on the prey (what attracts women to prostitution
and how fast they can prosper in that line of business).

It should present those men spoken of in the interview with

Sudan Tribune below as people who spread diseases intentionally
in the country and that should be equated to capital murder as
it suits the description of both capital sin and crime against
humanity. There is no fantasy or fallacy in immorality and
cultural depletion. The community has a complete moral
obligation to fight it to its eradication, and ask the
government to set a gold standard by rectifying and ratifying a
law that will guide the moral behavior of its citizens. That is
how we measure success; that is how we measure strength; that is
what our children will remember us for; that is the duty God
bestowed up on us and that is the fine road He wants us to walk.

As for me, the one thing I don’t’ want is watching prostitution

in progress in my neighborhood; I don’t want to see others
suffer and die due to negligence by the Intellectuals, leaders
and the politicians. Yes, it is true we cannot be absolutely
protective of ourselves to avoid all forms of misfortune, but we
got to try our best always; we got to try helping others one way
or the other.
I don’t know about you whether that is what you enjoy watching
in your proximity. I don’t know if that is the kind of fun you
want your beloved ones to have under your watch; I don’t know if
that is the legacy you and your family want to have? I don’t
know what you want your children to be when they grow up? I
don’t know how you want people from other communities to define
you and your community? Think about all these! What can you and
I do in our capacity to improve the self esteem of our
community?
My view and Conviction!
There is no hope without wish. We usually wish for something,
work hard and hope to get it. Sometimes success comes after
several attempts depending on one’s luck and God’s willing. But
flipping over to the wrong side isn’t a solution at all. It is a
self inflicting destruction or suicide. Keeping silent and
contributing nothing is doing nothing to help the situation.
The fact that the society turns a blind eye to the immoral
behavior of men wooing women with money and other valuables
into prostitution, and instead, places the entire blame on women
for prostitution is disturbing in nature.

It is worth mentioning that women are the victims of

prostitution and not the perpetrators. Men solicit women with
money, valuables, power and many more. They exploit women and
corrupt them. They do not place demand for Holy marriage,
instead they need short cuts to cheap gains. This practice
corrupts women and our society in particular. As they gain from
time to time from men, they tend to like it, and finally advance
their career in that direction. How can you hold a victim
responsible for a crime she has been driven into by a wrong
doer? Is that fair enough?

It is self evident that when a person is trained well in a

certain discipline, the person will excel in it and then move on
along that line. That is what our fellow community members have
done with their sisters from generation to generation and from
century to century and at the end of the day they hold their
sisters squarely responsible for the training and the jobs done
after the training. The question is “Who provided the training?”
When students’ achievement is high or low, teachers are always
praised or blamed for that. Who are the teachers in this
particular situation?

Prostitution is associated with male dominance and less

identified with female nature. Females usually give in easily to
temptations of wealth, power and comfort. The majority of those
exploiters possessed by that ideologue take advantage of
immature young people, girls, women, young men and men who are
either cute, poor, homeless, helpless or solace in this society,
and they use them to satisfy their bodily desire”

Watching a loved one entangled in a risky style of life and

battling with the uncertainty can be a complex ordeal. People do
recover, every single day, but they can't do it alone. Any
technical assistance offers a ray of hope to those who feel
their life is spinning out of control and they don't know who to
turn to for help. It gives them real practical solutions and
ways to begin their road to recovery.

That said we hold these to be self evident that under natural

condition, all people are equal, independent and reserve the
right to pursue better life, freedom and happiness.

Suggested Solutions include but

unlimited to the following:
1. Banning prostitution completely. The parliament must pass a
bill to be signed into law by the Governor or President of the
country depending on which parliament puts the bill together.
That law will declare prostitution illegal and a crime against
the State or the nation and therefore punishable under the law.

2. As for those harboring prostitution, they can be subjected to

heavy fine, jail time or both under the law. This people can
range from those who mother and father prostitutes by availing
them houses or centers for prostitution, to parents and
relatives who give away their child daughters to man/men in
exchange for wealth or valuables such as the case of the little
Zande girl who was given to an old Arab man in Ezo County just
before last April’s Election in South Sudan.

3. The community / authority can introduce the “touch and take”

policy also known as the “take her/him all” policy. That is to
say “if a man knows a woman as a woman” ---having sexual
relationship with her, he is bound by law to take her as a wife
right away and with no any excuse. In the event of rape, the
rapist must go behind the bars for a reasonable number of years
that will make him/her regret the act of doing so. That method
is used by the Kuku and other communities in South Sudan. We too
can embrace it in order to salvage our community from extinction
in the next two to four decades.

4. Neighborhood Security and mandatory reporting: That system

can be very effective and disciplinary in nature. That simply
means, if you notice any suspicious activities in your
neighborhood, report it to the authority right away and your
name will be concealed under the law. Sometimes, it may be a
sign of real danger. It could be prostitution open house going
on in your neighborhood; it could be drugs being sold and
unfortunately gun fire may erupt and you or your beloved ones
can be hit by an astray bullet. Mandatory reporting will save
your life, the life of your family and that of the generation to
come.

5. Empower the chiefs to discipline the community.

6. Community policing: the government and chiefs can designate
certain level of power to the youth to monitor and bring to
light certain undesirable moral behaviors, practices, activities
and many more. That will help the authority quell any such
behavior before it anchors itself well into the society.

7. Educating the general population to encourage the use of

protective devices and maintain regular interaction with medical
personals.

8. Prostitution should be discouraged, prohibited and be made to

disappear.

9. Both prostitutes and clients are wrong doers, criminalized

and seen as immoral.

10. Abolitionism: prostitution itself and most associated

activities are illegal, in an attempt to make it more difficult
to engage in prostitution, prostitution is heavily discouraged
and seen as a social problem.

11. We could greatly reduce the number of victims, if the demand

for them was penalized. If there were no men seeking to buy sex
acts, no women and children would be turned into sex objects.

12. If there were no false messages about prostitution, no women

or girls would be deceived into thinking prostitution is a
glamorous or easy acquisition of wealth.

13. Prostitution is associated with the spread of sexually

transmitted diseases (STDs) such as HIV, Hepatitis Viruses etc,
but the encouragement of safer sex practices, combined with
regular testing for sexually transmitted diseases, has been very
successful when applied consistently. In nut shell, regular
testing for STD and Photo ID be made mandatory for all the
people in the State or nation.

14. Provide an alternative way of living for the poor people

come out from prostitution. The alternative can be any form of
technical assistance such as self help projects be it business,
farming, job training, employment, education etc.

15. Refer to ex-prostitutes as sex victims and provide them with

adequate counseling followed by rehabilitation. A third party
can be solicited to aid the program.

16. Free movement of young people be restricted unless for a

genuine reason and with an approval by the parents / guardians.
That will keep them in check all the time. That will be
absolutely good for education and it prevents them from falling
into wrong hands that will mislead them in all walks of life.
17. The Government, Intellectuals, leaders, women or youth can
organize a conference/seminar/workshop to tackle all of the
above and many more problems facing WES and our community in
particular.

18. If most or all Zande men were to take marriage seriously as

a basic principle of life without which they would have no value
or place in the society, a greater number of our women and girls
wouldn’t have been there to be wooed into prostitution any time
sooner. These highly educated Zande women in particular and the
uneducated ones together are our valuable resource we can’t do
without. At this juncture, Zande men are highly advised not to
ignore or marginalize them, but to spot their whereabouts, marry
them with honesty, dignity and faith and, love them care for
them, treat them humanely and keep them safer. Question: “if we
follow that piece of advice, will they stay with us or they will
still abandon us and embrace immorality?” I believe most of them
will stay with the husbands and do just fine. That is the
education we can offer to our community. That is the education
and training we can give our beloved ones. That is one of the
cultural pieces of advice our children can inherit from us. We
are humans, unholy and therefore we can make mistakes but let us
always try to correct them, get over them and move forward with
our everyday lives. If we dwell on them, or bog down to
problems, then we are heading in a wrong direction.

19. Put together a robust action plan in order to boost the

capacity of our people to cope with the growing socio-economic
development in the nation. Perhaps introduce and encourage
something like community or group farming, group and individual
business, import and export etc.
20. Provide some basic skills training in a variety of areas
that will include but not limited to driving, computer knowledge
and typing skills, book keeping, fashion design, micro business,
welding, building, carpentry, child care /day care, mechanic
(cars, motor cycle, bicycles), repair work (shoe, watch), agro-
economics, tailoring, co-operative societies, private schools,
grant writing, sport teams and sport clubs, music bands and so
forth. There are so many things out there at stake that we can
do to elevate the standard of living of our people. Make no
mistake to think that it is about us and not about the people of
our community.

21. Device a mechanism that can be used to measure success and

failure and then make some adjustments for improvement in areas
of failure.

That way we can get things going rather than firing blame on
specific people and not aiding them to overcome the difficulty
our people are passing through. It is also effective than
adhering to the monkey business of hide and seek whereby we stay
aloof and watch what others are doing, wait until the moment is
right and then we jump in to cease that opportunity. It is about
nation building and not trick building or self building. Don’t
be confused about that. Nation building needs collective effort
and for that reason yours and mine are needed.

Conclusion:
Dear respectful leaders, fellow Intellectuals, elders, women and
youth, our community is ablaze. It is in a state of shamble. It
is at the verge of shattering. Rambling while our beloved
community is shattering will be bogus for all of us. It will be
a regrettable history. Both oral and written history will not
forgive us for the neglect of our community and the suffering of
our people. Not doing something will clearly demonstrate our
lack of conscience. We cannot have it both ways. There are
numerous challenges that need a lot of good ideas for a bright
future. Lack of action and too much blame can only worsen the
situation rather than solving them.

It is also important to know that the value and weight of a

community is determined by the level of its organization, the
participation and input of its people in the national, regional
and international policy shaping. Of course, you know better
where we stand today and that is our value and weight nationally
and internally. What I can’t tell you is the future of your
beloved ones. That is because I don’t have a horoscope to do
that. To me, that is unacceptable in modern era.

The only way forward is to expose our community to a drastic

reform and that can happen if and only if the reform starts with
you and me. You may wonder why should a drastic reform start
with us, or how can it start with us? There are two steps to
achieve this goal: reform our minds and then reform the
community.

We can reform our minds by changing the way we think, talk and
do things. To reform the community, we need to power the
community with new ideas. That is the innovation we need to
reform community at this difficult time. That is the only
guarantee for an effective reform in our community. That is what
our people need right now. Our people have waited so long for
this type of change or reform. Their patience is immense and
immensurable. Our selfishness has barricaded them from the
minimum standard of reform they need to elevate themselves to a
position well enough to sustain their normal daily living
without too much worry. That isn’t what they deserve. With all
these in light, I argue you to wake up, rise and contribute with
ideas for modernization in order to rescue your people from
extinction.
Now is the time when history will begin to hold us accountable
for all our actions and inactions. Now is the time when we need
to roll up our sleeves, pull out the problems facing our people
from the villages, towns and cities, dissect them, examine them
one by one and come up with workable plan of action to fix them.
Now is the time when our education, experience, sacrifice and
courage can make the difference. Now is the time when blaming
others is of less significance but an additional fuel to the
already burning situation. Now is the time for team work and
quality leadership. Now is the time all of us have to come
together as the sons and daughters of one community to build WES
and the nation so as to make them a better place for living for
our children. Now is the time petty politics or retail politics
must be separated from reality for the sake of humanity, mankind
and God’s creation. Now is the time the truth cannot be ignored,
but said loud enough to wake every one up. It is up to you to
decide what you can do or don’t do for your people, but don’t
always decide what your people should do for you. If we know
something and we choose to do nothing that means we have acted
inappropriately towards our community. It means we have acted in
bad faith towards our people. Doing nothing means we have chosen
to hammer the last nail into the coffin of our community. That
will be the worst history since the creation of mankind. We need
not to allow that come our way. We must be mindful about the
future of our children and the generations to come.

Topic for future discussion

 Illiteracy

 Weak and loose community

 Dysfunctional organizational strata

 Unconcerned Intellectuals

 Ineffective leadership

 Development

 Political and socio-economic awareness

 Wrong vision

 Wrong strategy
God bless you all!

Kassiano, Bill
USA, 651-235-1257

Sudan Tribune Article

By Mayom

October 4, 2010: (JUBA) — Prostitution in Southern Sudan is on the

rise. Juba, the capital city of the semi-autonomous region and growing
adultery by married women, most of whom have been flowing into Juba
from the neighboring countries of East Africa such as Congo, Uganda,
Kenya, Ethiopia and Tanzania.

These sexual trade workers are mostly foreigners while others are
Southern Sudanese girls and ladies as well as northern Sudanese ladies
who decided to move to the South and access sexual freedom away from
the Islamic law prohibiting sex in the North. Such Sudanese girls who
involve in commercial sexual intercourse are those girls who have
adopted East African cultures and Arab girls who escaped Islamic law
in Khartoum and flew to stay in Juba leaving behind their families.

Sudan Tribune had conducted interviews with some of such prostitutes,

who told about their sexual life in Southern Sudan, which they said
was centered on making money rather than love.

Ugandan woman, Ms. Lora William, confirmed that she came to Juba to
get wealth through prostitution. “There is no love – only money can
make you everything you dream to get in Juba. Only relatives working
in government would get you everything you would like to achieve in
the Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) system. Few of my friends are
working in government offices as employees as well as few of them are
private secretaries," she revealed."I was just a school girl in
Kampala at Kampala International University (KIU) but unfortunately I
got pregnant. I was deceived by my classmate and after he knew that I
was pregnant, the guy disowned me immediately and my parents dismissed
me from family house. I have nowhere to go then I decided to go to
Sudan. As I just reached to Arua [Ugandan town close to Sudan border],
I got a tall Sudanese man who loved me at a lodge and I started to
have sex with him that night. On my way to Juba, he told the migration
office that this is my wife and I was allowed to enter into Sudan
through his approach to Sudanese migration authority," the Ugandan
lady narrated.

An Ethiopian sex worker, Ms. Fruiti Magabsi, said the proximity of her
country made it easier to travel to Sudan. "I came to Juba in 2009. I
managed to arrive Sudan through my friend who was a South Sudanese
soldier who [previously] got trained in Ethiopia. He told me to visit
Sudan. I was a married woman in Ethiopia but this Sudanese man
influenced me to leave my husband. He always told me that he was not
married and he was also a big man in Government of Southern Sudan. The
guy had a lot of money in his wallet and all the money were Dollars
with Euros. I decided to leave my two children and joined this man in
hotel and I followed him to [southern] Sudan through his instructions
using Kenya road by land while he traveled by air leaving me
behind."Since I arrived to Juba, I did not see him and his contact
numbers which he gave me were all fake. I wondered what to do; I
started to sell myself to men in lower price for me to sustain life. I
sold myself to sleep with man with 50 Sudanese pounds. I managed to
get two thousand Sudanese pounds in one week. I do use condom when I
go for [sexual] intercourse with men because I see them so much thin.
Many of men always rejected to sleep with me using condom during
sexual intercourse. I told them to use condoms but they rejected my
advice, they demanded [preferred] to pay a lot of money to have [non-
condom] sex with me," she said”. ”There is no love in Juba, only
money can prove [buy] everything," she said.

Walking to Custom [Market], the former market in Juba which is located

at Western part of Juba town, a Tanzanian woman, Ms. Jenifer said that
Juba is bridged to make wealth through sexual trade.

Jenifer affirmed that “there is high chance in commercial love to

build houses and to have more cars free of charge from Sudanese
officials here in Juba. They love sexual intercourse and they can pay
what you demand them to pay before you go to have sex with him.""I
divorced my husband in my country because our life was so bad. I
decided to come to Sudan to make money and not to have love with one
man in the Sudan. I am not ready to have a child with any Sudanese man
at the moment but when I see time is near for me to return home, I
will own one tall man to have a child with him and I will escape to my
country while pregnant," she said.

Ms. Entisar said that "I left Khartoum when Lubna Hussein was harassed
by Khartoum public police in trousers dress case. She complained that
life in Khartoum as a girl is bad. "You are denied by parents not to
go out with your friends. You can love somebody in your heart but
difficult to express yourself and for me I believe this is an insult
to God. There is body need and you are denied to do it – this is
injustice," she said."I do stay here in Juba and I am happy the way I
am treated by Southern boys. There is no harassment. I do go to Custom
Market at night to have sex with men in price of 20 Sudanese Pounds. I
do have sex so that I can pay house rent and sometimes I travel back
to Khartoum," she explained.

Southern Sudan is experiencing rising sex trade where you can find sex
workers in towns including Wau, Rumbek, Juba and Aweil. The Government
of Southern Sudan has overlooked the issue of sex workers while
community leaders are complaining that cultures are changing since
sexual workers introduced commercial sexual intercourse in the
country. Southern Sudan is governed by cultures and they believe in
their respective traditions but since the signing of Sudan’s
Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), Southern Sudan got swallowed with
foreign cultures imported by Sudanese children who were brought up in
Western life. Health authorities in the region have warned of serious
threat posed by the killer disease, HIV/AIDS, which is feared to have
been infecting people at an alarming rate, particularly in the states
bordering Kenya and Uganda.
Sudan Tribune
South Sudan launches HIV/AIDS awareness campaign

By Julius N. Uma

October 8, 2010 (JUBA) An estimated 4.7 million people in Southern

Sudan, according to recent SSAC statistics, are said to be at risk of
acquiring HIV, yet only 60,000 of them have so far benefitted
voluntary counseling and testing (VCT) services.

To-date, prevalence rates are said to be very high in the post-

conflict region, with Western Equatoria recording the highest rate of
7.1%, Central Equatoria 3.9%, Eastern Equatoria at 3.2% and Jonglei
State at 2.9%.

While speaking at the campaign launch yesterday, Dr. Esterina Nyilok,

the SSAC Chairperson said the HIV/AIDS awareness campaign, which will
climax with the December 1 World Aids day event, aims at not only
remembering those living with the disease, but also those who have
dedicated their efforts towards fighting it in the region.

Dr. Nyilok emphasized the importance of VCT and urged the population
to fully utilize the existing facilities put in place by government
with support from development partners and donors.

“We need to encourage our people to go for voluntary testing and

counseling. Knowing your HIV status is the first stage in deciding to
adopt positive behavior change actions and or adopt to live positively
with HIV”, the SSAC chairperson remarked. She decried the south’s
rampant levels of human rights violations, saying such practices fuel
the spread of HIV especially among marginalized groups. She appealed
to the public and private partners to joins hands in efforts to make
the campaign a success.