In this important
and shocking exposé Ann McFerran discloses the atrocities perpetrated by the warring bandits of Sudan, known as the Janjaweed. Just as their names connote - “devils on horseback” - the Arab bandits have been a grave curse on the women of Darfur. In the midst of a prevailing ethnic war, the Janjaweed have suffered a great number of Darfuri women by their indiscriminate acts of assault and rape. And still, today, the bane continues into the lives of new
victims.
Given free rein by the Sudanese government, the Janjaweed have engaged themselves in an on-going campaign of procreating Arab
children through the violation of non-Arab women. For as a child’s identity is determined by the father, the Janjaweed have pushed and upheld the cause: wipe out existing non-Arabs with a new generation of Arab children.
Viewed as deserved instruments for this cause, the women are shown no regard, but rather scorned and treated as unclean for not having gone through the customary ritual of genital mutilation which presents a woman pure and circumcised. For this shortcoming, the defenseless women are constantly being condemned to extreme violence of sexual abuse.
One victim out of many is Nafisa, a mother who once surrendered herself to the “devils” in order to save her children from being chased to death. She was caught, abused and ravaged so violently until she bled. “Slave woman” the Janjaweed called her: “Your children will be Arabs and they will inherit the land!”
Right after the incident, she considered with great trepidation the prospect of becoming pregnant. Having five kids and having being abandoned by her husband for another woman she couldn’t quite bring herself to accept the situation. “I could not afford to be pregnant,” says Nafisa. “My children will be shamed by the Janjaweed baby.” But soon she confirmed her fate. She was pregnant.
But, regardless of her initial disdain for the child in her womb, she later, after delivery, accepted the baby anyway, and this she did with love and affection. Somewhere in the midst of suckling sounds made by Gisma, her baby, she manages the declaration: “The love I feel for my daughter is as powerful as the hatred I feel for her father.” Gisma is part of me.”
Her experience represents the general ordeal that most victims of rape go through in Sudan. However, contrary to her case, the end of the story had been tragic for some other victims of the same crime. For the sake of reproach, innocent infants have been denied the chance to life. Many raped mothers reject and kill their offspring. Some secretly go to doctors seeking for any means possible to terminate their babies. And others, by themselves put their babies in plastic bags and thrust them through pit latrines.
Plainly, conceiving babies without husbands to lay claim to them seated very badly with their traditions. It brought shame, without an iota of understanding. Standing against reason was the notion: pregnancies were only the result of wanted sex, between wife and husband.
Joined with the misfortune brought by societal belief is the fact that women that report rapes risk their lives. In a land where even the government denies the existence of rape, a victim cannot make a charge without substantial evidence. And according to the Sharia law she’ll need four male witnesses to testify to a rape. Thus, if a report is made without this requirement she faces the likelihood of being judged an adulterer and stoned to death.
But in spite of this, the norms are now being challenged by the women themselves. They are beginning to talk boldly and strongly. Ironically, the injustice and crimes done against them has set in them a positive transformation. With resilience and power they’ve mustered groups to propagate their own cause for survival, and they have sought for the attention of the international community to find ways in obtaining reasonable safety for themselves and their children, and of course, for the future.
In consonance, the international community have, according to claims, progressed to a point where nothing less than an ethical outcome will be extracted from the on-going negotiations with the government of Khartoum. And, within the looming threats of sanctions, enforcements of arms embargo, legal charges that may lead to the International Criminal Court, and the arrival of a strengthened AU/UN hybrid force lies the hope that the women of Darfur might one day be rid of the “curse of the Janjaweed”.