Radio Miraya
2664: NW: From victimhood to empowered citizens: Survivors of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (CRSV) as change agents in their communities in Western Equatoria State
We're bringing you latest current issues, discussions and information. Nationwide on Radio Miraya. Hello, and good evening to you listening to Nationwide. My name is Andy Martin. I'm coming to life from Juba. And this evening, our topic of discussion is going to be focusing on the survivors of conflict related sexual violence, the CR-SV has changed against in their communities. More special, our target is going to be looking at the Western Equatorial State. And that's what we are going to be discussing on. And just to remind you, our lines should also be open to you in the middle of the discussion where you can call on 091-206-2079, or 091-206-2950, or you can send us your comment or SMS number 091-217-7141, those are all our lines, you can get in touch with us, or you can visit our Facebook page, drop your comment there, and I'll be reading some of them has the coming right here. And I'll be joined by three guests in the studio here who will be telling us more about it. Like I said, our discussion is going to be focusing on the issue of victimhood to empower citizens, survivors of conflict related sexual violence, change against and also render them economically independent in their communities in Western Equatorial State. And this project has just been completed and was implemented by Rural Development Action Aid, and the United Nations Mission and South Sudan Women Protection Advisory Unit with funding from the European Union. And I'm joined here to tell us more about what this project has so far achieved. By three of my guests, Ann Michael is a consultant working with the United Nations Mission and South Sudan Women Protection Advisory Unit, and also the RDAA. Good evening, and welcome to Redeemeran. Good evening. Yes, and also I have Albert Zingorani, who is the Deputy Director of Rural Development Action Aid. Welcome to Redeemeran once again. Albert. Thank you. You are here sometimes back. Yes. And also I have Sheila. Sheila is the Senior Women Protection Advisor working for the United Nations Mission and South Sudan. Sheila, you are most welcome. Good evening. Good evening. I'd like to place this program in the context of celebrations for the International Women's Day which was celebrated on the 8th March, and we are still celebrating. Yes, I am told that this is a women's month, right? The whole of March. Yes, for us men we are feeling jealous about it anyway. Okay, let's begin right away. Sheila, let's first briefly tell us more about the background, or could you explain the background of this project? Yes, I can talk a little bit about the background of this project. Really, it's really to work with the survivors of conflict-related sexual violence. It falls within our empowerment of survivors' work, within our work stream, at the Women's Protection Advisory Unit. The aim of this work stream is to rehabilitate and reintegrate survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, and how to achieve this through the provision of comprehensive services, including medical support, counseling, livelihood support, acquiring skills to set up their own small businesses, and preparing them for advocacy regarding why CRSB should stop. There should be accountability for perpetrators, and there should be no impunity. Now, just to complete on this, in the 2020, the European Union sponsored a smaller version of the project we just finished implementing, and it was through the advocacy. That first project was providing 40 CRSB survivors with support, and we'll hear more about that, and it was through the advocacy of the survivors themselves that this second project came about, and this time, you've mentioned the title of the project, from victimhood to empowered citizens, survivors of conflict-related sexual violence, as change agents in their communities in Western Equatoria reached 155, so in total, the two projects have reached 195 survivors of CRSB. In Western, in selected PIMs and counties of Western Equatoria. Yes, our listeners listening to you from other parts of the country will be asking, why only Western Equatoria said, oh, should they also be waiting for their time? It's a very important question. This is a very specific group. After the 2016 conflict, many of them were abducted and taken to bases as sexual slaves, and it was after they were released, that they came back to their villages, and this is when the need to support them, because of their vulnerabilities, and the very difficult situation they had lived through, came across to us, and we started there. We do have, hopefully, as this has been a successful project, we hope we will be able to get the funding to replicate it elsewhere. Okay, we'll be coming back to you later, Angela, Albert, 195 beneficiaries from this project. How will you rate this project in Western Equatoria State? Is it a success? Has it achieved its goals? Yes, thank you very much, Sony. This project, we rate it as a successful project, because the beneficiaries or survivors themselves, they are able to tell testimonies, and the community leaders are able to speak to us and others take hold us on the success this project has achieved. So far, the survivors have been taken through different sessions, others were taken through livelihood skills trainings, which we will be explaining later. Then the first session that was done was a psychosocial support, where we did a group on individual counselling, some of them were taken through medical referrals, and community awareness was also done for general acceptability of these survivors by the communities, because when they came back, there was high rate of stigmatization from the local communities, even the children they came with from the bush were not accepted by the family members. But right now, after the project, we have seen that the family members are welcoming the children, they are also welcoming the survivors, and through the empowerment of the livelihood skills activities they have been taken through, the communities are able to interact with them. So what are these livelihood skills? Maybe you can share with our listeners. Yes, they have been taken through tailoring skills trainings, they have also been taken through restaurant and bakery businesses, others are selling second-hand closes, others are selling food items, and this has increased their integration into the communities, because people are able to buy from them, they are able to interact freely with the people, then others have also been taken through sundial making, the local sundial making, if you go today to Iso, or other parts of Yambio and even Tumbra counties, you will see the products of these ladies, and the results are really amazing. Okay, yes, and what was your role in this project in terms of aid implementation? Thank you. My role was to provide an overall support to the project. I acted as the link between the implementing partner, that's the Rural Development Action Aid, RDAA, unmiss women protection advisor unit, the subject matter lead on the complete related sexual violence and UNDP the fund manager, I was the link. It was an advantage for me as I come from the same region. I speak the language, which made communication a lot easier with the survivors and stakeholders in the local community. My knowledge of the local culture, the norms, was an added asset in this context. Okay, and if you have just done us right now, you are listening to, in this one way, my name is Annie Martin, we are coming to life from a Jubham, and I have a three guest here with me in the studio, we are discussing more about the just concluded project in Western Ecuador State, or in some selected counties and payams in Western Ecuador State to survive us of conflict related sexual violence as a change again in the communities in Western Ecuador State. Albert, how long was this project? How many months? The first phase of this project was for six months, that was in 2020, and the second phase was for 12 months, in 2022, up to 2023, and we secured an extension to finish other components that was for six months, which we just concluded last month. Yes, Sheila, what was the role, or what is the enemy's assessment of the current threat of conflict related sexual violence in the country? It's a sad situation to say that we haven't seen a drop in conflict related sexual violence in 2023, on this we documented 221 survivors of CRSV, which included rape, attempted rape, gang rape, sexual slavery, forced marriage, forced abductions, forced nudity, affecting women, men, girls and boys. I would like to make a little pause here and explain when we talk about conflict related sexual violence, even though the impact is higher on women and girls, men and boys are also affected, though women, they are the brunt of it. And also last year we were able to verify and confirm some incidents which were perpetrated against 104 girls and women, which were verified last year, as I was saying, these occurred between 2020 and 2022, and just to say that perpetrators included non-state actors, also armed groups and community-based militia, as well as the organized forces and the attacks occurred across the states with the highest number recorded in central equatoria, Zhongli, Appenail, and note that because of the under-reporting of conflict related sexual violence, this figures may not be the real, may not represent the real figures of this particular scourge in the country. Yes. Still, I want to draw your attention to also, this is not just as a reference, the government sometimes have to come up to deny some of this report and termed it to be biased and fabricated and all this kind of thing. An example is just the recent report on the Human Rights Commission that was released last week, and the Minister of Justice was in Geneva, he denied it vehemently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also had a press conference in Cuba, sometimes these reports or these allegations are denied by the host country, who among the officials did you share this report, why are you working in collaboration with the state government, in Western authoritarian counter-authorities, maybe here also in Cuba? And just let me say that some of these reports, we work directly with some of the partners we are working with. I would want to have talked a little bit more about, for example, what we do in terms of working with armed forces on the implementation of the action plan for the armed forces to address conflict related sexual violence, we have a way of channeling this kind of information, we also work with the SSMPS Steering Committee on their implementation of their own action plan on CRSV, we have good relations and we channel this kind of information through them. So these are just a few ways of ensuring that this information is shared. I do not wish to comment on the other aspects of this and this is really the kind of work we do with, for example, those with whom we have close relations on conflict related sexual violence issues working with them. Okay, yes Albert, from your conversation with the local authorities in Western Qatar State and also this report here, just tell us from your work in the field with the survivors and you brought some of them to you by I am told, can you share some of the examples where survivors have emerged as a role model or comment to lead us as you have finished this final phase of your project in Western Qatar State? Well after the project initiation, some of the sessions we went through was like legal aid, leadership skills training to them. After all these sessions, what we have seen is that some of the women, for example, in charge choir, they have been put in leadership roles. So you have the local government levels at the community level, the chiefs, some of them are being given to women. We have also seen in Ezo or in Undery Payam where some of the chiefs deciding on other customary or local issues in the court, local courts, some of these women have been selected to lead there. So this is where we see that some of them have become role models in their own ways. Again, some of them are single mothers, they are able to lead their families with the support from this project and they are doing it very well and other women are coming up now to learn from them saying it's not enough, I just sit down, I have to be able to do something just like how Lady X is doing something for her family. We have also seen that others are already taking up their small businesses that helped to start seriously. They have testimonies of others in Nandi, with all their names, they are already trading in millions of pounds and when we hear these stories and others here, it makes others to stand strong such that they can move forward even the local women, they now struggle to also learn how these other ones have done it to succeed. So that's the result we are seeing. Any of you can answer this question here. One of the major challenges we have had from the police in this country is women fear so much to come forward and they report anything to do with sexual, gender based violence or any kind of violence perpetrated against women. Was it very easy for the women to come forward and approach you and begin narrating the or deals they went through? Let me answer. It was not easy for the sum of these women to come forward because as a community, some of these things, people feared to say it even when they came out of the bush, they were seen as wives of people who killed people who looted the properties for the community members. They were not accepted but now after the trainings, the counseling and they started now speaking of their stories. So they became more empowered to speak for their rights and others are willing. One day, if you talk about the CTRH, others are willing to come forward and speak for their rights and advocate for the human rights abuses that they went through. Okay, let's find out more from Anne Michael. First of all, Anne, tell us what were or what are some of the centered approach of these survivors? Yeah, to start with, we look at the basis of the UN resolution 2467, which was adopted in April 2019. It speaks of the straightens justice and accountability and calls for a survivor centered approach in the prevention and response to complete related sexual violence. This approach puts the survivor at the center of all the services being provided, be it prevention or response services. It seeks to empower the survivor by prioritizing their rights, the needs and wishes, which includes ensuring that survivors have access to appropriate, accessible and quality services. A survivor centered approach aims to put the rights of each survivor at the forefront of all actions and ensure that each survivor is treated with dignity and respect. It gives the survivor control over the decision-making process. Okay, if you have just done this right now, our lines are open. You can call and ask your question to three of my guest here, Anne Michael, she's a consultant working with the United Nations Mission South Sudan Women's Protection Advisory Unit and also working also with RDA and I have with me here also Albert Zingorani, who is the deputy director for Rural Development Action Aid and Sheila. She's a senior women's protection advisory working with the United Nations Mission South Sudan. We are looking at the just concluded project that was funded by the European Union on a former victimhood to empowered citizens, survivors of conflict related sexual violence as a change again in their communities. And they have been empowered economically, like I've just heard from Albert that some of them have to go through the life-lode skills, 195 survivors have been enriched and they hope maybe this project can be rolled out, some parts of the country also where some women also went through the same ordeal. You can call us on 091206079 or 09120602950, those are all our lines or you can send us your comment or SMS number 0912177141, hello Redmira, hello? Hello, your name and where are you calling from? Malia you're the name, Malia, your go ahead. Thank you for the program, it's really a very interesting program and my question in the three points is that how can these organizations bring the local authorities and the youth who are there together to make sure that they are working on what can keep these people not to get into the violence, for example, the GBP, which indeed become more dangerous right now in the country, it's not taking place every day, every night, every hour, so how can we stop this? So how will they make sure that the local authorities are brought together and sit down and find a solution? Because you can hear right now a news of ambush of some of the organization's cars, that check the assistant to the certain communities, they get ambush of the meetings and there is no accountability. So rural communities are set apart and the national government is here differently. Okay. How will they work together to make sure they combine these people together and make sure that this violence stops? Thank you so much, we do have another question here coming about our SMS number from Tap Mark Dio in Ben Thio, unity state, and he's asking who are your partners supporting this project? And in case you get fun, will you be able to come to unity state? For example, Madam, you are worried about the level of violence that has taken place in unity state, more women away also, more women went through the same scenario like those of Western Ecuador state. I think this question is being directed to Sheila, and Maria is asking from Juba here in Hayamarati, asking whether there's a mechanism from the rural development action aid which you have put in place to ensure that at least they are preventing measures such things should not happen again in the local communities because prevention is better than Cuba. Let's begin with Sheila. Thank you very much. I would like to point out that one of the ways of going about this project which was in a very specific area was first of all the survivors who were there, but we worked together with the implementing partner to ensure that all stakeholders were informed about the project and also consulted. That's the first and foremost point I wanted to make. Albert can talk a bit more about that, how stakeholders were made part of the project. The other thing now I would want to go is that if we do, on this particular one, we worked with RDA, Rural Development Action Aid, and if we were to go to another area like Benci, for example, we would again work with our own miss there to help us secure the support of those who are on the ground and know the situation. We are aware also that Benci has been, that area has been hit also by conflict-related sexual violence and I make this very, very specific point. We're talking today about conflict-related sexual violence which has a link direct or indirect with the conflict, right? So, I'm not talking about the broad GBV issues, just making this section. Tap is asking you also aware that the United States have suffered twice, 2010 and 2016, and many women also have witnessed a lot of this conflict-related sexual violence. That's why he's asking if there's a variability of funding or are you going to keep knocking at the doors of the world we should, as well as you can also extend the same service to the United States, for example. Thank you. I was going to come to that by saying that because of the limited funds for this project, it stops here and if we were to be able to extend through getting more funding, it would be something I would really look forward to and we would go through similar processes in terms of how to select where to go and how to work with those who are on the ground and have connections with CRSV survivors. Okay. Yes, Albert, there was discussion of you working together with the local authorities to ensure that at least any conflict that arise, women are protected because that's very, very important. Yes. There was a component of community. Yes. And local authorities. Yes. Community engagement, why are the local authorities were brought on board for meetings, workshops and these local authorities and the community members involved included men in uniform. We had also the youth, we had the chiefs, the local chiefs and the counter authorities at some point during the introduction of this project, we also involved the state leadership of Western Equatorial about the project, they are well aware, they are well informed about the project, the need of this project and the effect of CRSV, everything has been explained properly to them and during this community awareness where we had the soldiers from all the categories, you have the national security of the police or the wildlife and the prison all these people were selected in the project location. By the way, this project was implemented in NANDI, UNDRI, ASO and part of Tambra in the first phase. Some of the topics that they were taken through were the effect of CRSV, what is CRSV itself, how can it be prevented, if there is any conflict, why women should not be the target. This was explained to the young people because this is associated with the armed men in uniform and other non-state actors, if there is any conflict, why women and girls should be protected. The component of sticky monetization was also explained which is the effect of CRSV on the survivors, stereotyping all these were done to the local authorities on ground and also mainly in uniform and other community leaders. They had trained on how to manage their own affairs, one of these things they were taken through was also low-being and advocacy skills, how they can identify an issue in the community and how they can speak to the local authorities themselves, not involving RDA or any other donor and we have seen this working, they are able to identify issues like some men with two wives who are already having violence, they call them, they put them down, they talk to them and accept each other and the results are working. And I don't know who can answer this, after all this livelihood scale is being given to them, why there are some packages given to them in terms of cash to start some kind of businesses, something like that. The livelihoods skills training that they went through, this was again done using the survivor-centered approach, they were taken through session one by one, where you sit with the survivor, ask her to give you three choices, that if she is to go into business, what will she do? She will tell you I need to learn, I need to rest around, I need team-making and all that. I was used to analyze the market and see what is working within the three that the survivor selected, thereafter all these things were listed down and they were given start-up kits. Yeah, has a component of this project, not cash, they were materials given to them and they were trained on how to use these things and generate money, that's why majority of them are already moving on very well with the business. Okay, all right. You can call us on 091 to 620, 79 is the number for you to call and ask your question to my question, I will ask you to write it here, hello, hello. Yes. Hello. Hello. Yes, your name, good evening. Your name? Okay, my question is going like this, a short question right away. I don't know, what benefits do the survivor with it from the trainee? Okay. Apart from prevention, is it getting something like money or something like hell of themselves? That's my question. Okay. Yes, these are two questions. The question of the locations of the survivors, I think that's what Oliver was asking from Meridie. Yes, Albert, maybe since you are in charge of the deputy, RDAA, and also the benefit, you have just explained, maybe Peter never understood the well. Okay. Thank you very much, Simon Martin. This selection of the areas was so much focused on the prevalence of conflict related sexual violence. And at some point, for us to arrive at this, there were certain cases that were documented in western Equatorial state, and majority of these women came from the western counties of Greater Thumbra and Yambio. So when this support came, the first consideration was done in the first phase, which considered 40. We had others in Thumbra, under Nandi and Eso, only 40. When they advocated for others, saying we were meaning in the bush, we can even identify ourselves. Meri or Joanna is even my neighbor, she keeps asking me, we were together with you, why is it that you were considered and I was not left out. So in this case, we got another opportunity from the EU, the way it was explained earlier on. Some of these other women were considered. I want to link it a little bit with the lesson learned conference we just had here. They are still advocating that more of these women were not covered by this project. As you know for a project, there must be the limit for resources, the scope of the target and all these kind of things. The advocacy from these women themselves is that more of their colleagues, if I put it that way, are still left out or not covered by this project. This is why other colleagues here were saying, in case of other resources, some of these women will still be considered in the future. That was the same thing that we had in 2020 and we hope we got this opportunity in 2022. To answer our friend who is asking for Malaka, Peter, what benefits are these survivors going to get? Is it only money or what? There are so many benefits that this women are going to get. The first thing that every human being wants is acceptance, by your community, by your parents. Because when these women return from their abduction, most of them are not right or are not accepted. They are being called names, wives of Madras, wives of Mujremain, people who killed our own relatives here. This project, through the community awareness, the group counseling, and in the family counseling even we used to have with some of them, it has come to our notice that now they, the survivors themselves, they are accepted by the communities. When we talk about the business, the community members are able to come and buy from them. It means there is that acceptance. There is no stigmatization. And right now there is also that peace between them. And they themselves, the survivors, they are also going to benefit from the trauma which they went through, from the individual counseling and the group counseling. They have been healed from the trauma they went through. Another thing, again, those who came with serious sicknesses, PIDs, some STIs, some of them came with, they are able to go under medical referrals. And you see that they are treated, others are now having children, getting married and getting fully integrated into the society. Okay. Yes. Sheila, what is Anna's doing to address these conflict related sexual violence? Thank you. I just wanted to add something in regards to what Albert just mentioned. When we have, we spoke with the ladies and their advocacy that they are doing, one of the things they brought to our attention very strongly is with regards to men and boys who were also survivors of conflict related sexual violence, who were together with them, who were abducted with them and who have not been selected or were not chosen to be part of the project. This is a very important advocacy point from the ladies. And I think it is something we will need to give some attention to also because we need to break this myth that CRSV happens only to women and girls. This is the ladies' former abductees saying we need to address that. Now what does Unmiss do? There are many things that we do and looking at the time, I will probably not have time to, you know, to go through all. So I'll focus on the key ones. We do monitoring, documenting and reporting of CRSV committed against men, women, girls and boys, and the aim is to address prevention and response to CRSV in South Sudan. We also engage, I told you we worked, for example, with the implementation committee of the action plan, the steering committee of the action plan, the forces and the police. So we engage with parties involved in conflicts to obtain commitments for them to address CRSV through development of, you know, specific action plans. I've talked about that also. And to address impunity and accountability as well as assisting them to implement the commitments they've taken. At Unmiss we also promote the development and implementation of comprehensive strategies to prevent and address public related sexual violence with other mission components. For example, with the rule of law we work closely to address accountability or with the Human Rights Division we also work together to address accountability of CRSV. Also we provide advice on the CRSV mandate at the mission, conduct advocacy and trainings to enhance the awareness about the capacity to deal with CRSV, advocacy, there's plenty of things we do. And this is part of what we do, addressing working with survivors and ensuring that the survivor-centered approach is applied in the empowerment stream of the work we do. And maybe briefly for the sake of our time, we understand also there was a conference here in Juba where the survivors were lifted from various locations to Juba and they had to discuss some of the issue. Could we share with us some of the key highlights of this conference? What were some of the recommendations from these survivors? What kind of lessons the survivors learned? Maybe I'll let you start and then I'll continue with that. Yes. Yes. Yes, key highlights. Yes, key highlights. Last month we were able to bring 30 survivors. Out of the 195? Yes. Out of the 195? 10 from each network, meaning 10 from Ezo, 10 from Andre, 10 from Nandi. You don't have people from Yambi right? No. This project did not consider people from Yambi. But do you still believe there are many survivors outside there who are not rich? Yes. Even in Yambi itself, Zara and Mary did like the other colleagues, all over the cold. We believe in those other counties they are still survivors. So what are the key highlights? One of the key highlights that came actually to speak, to advocate for others, to be considered if there is any other opportunity. They also came to say their success story, what they are able to achieve after this project. Again, they were also able to speak about what the Odis, that they went through in the abduction. And these are most of the stories which they spoke here, the three key highlights, the recommendation. Yes, you know, it is very easy to forgive, but very difficult to forget. So what were some of the recommendations? How do you ensure that these women at least tried to forget about what happened today? If I may. Yes, yes. I really don't think there is a question of forgetting. Because if you forget, there is no lessons learned, right? So we were talking about lessons learned. So it was to look at the matter very strongly and come up with the recommendations which some of which Albert has talked about. They expressed themselves freely and eloquently. And I think that's first and foremost, one of the key highlights of the programme, the successes. And they talked about strategies to be provided to assess them with sustainability in their small businesses. They also talked about the need to support children which they brought back from the bush. They also talked about support to be provided for, as I mentioned earlier, to the men and boys who were part who were together with them. These are all things we learned. So there is too much burden on these women because some of them I assume even the fathers of these kids may not come forward to claim their responsibility. No, we've discussed that and they are the ones taking care of those children. Many of them asked for something which I thought was really great in the sense that many of them were young girls enrolled in schools when they were abducted. They have asked for accelerated learning, adult literacy. They want to learn further. They want to go back to school. Well, I don't know if you want to call it go back to school. They are now in a different stage, but they asked for an accelerated learning program which I thought was, they could link which shows something very important. They were children when this happened to them. And then they were able to transcend that and say now we are back to a place where we can learn further. So that's something I thought which was admirable. All right. Yes, let's begin with you as we conclude our time is already up. What is your final remark as we conclude? We move around the table. Yes, Sheila. It's been a long and difficult journey, but absolutely rewarding at the end. I'm personally humbled and honoured to have been part of this journey with the survivors who have become like sisters. We talk, you know, we are on first name basis, they talk to me and I talk to them. We sit and talk openly. We've been able to build trust, which is very important in such work. I respect each and every step of their journey to empowerment. I wish them well. I know deep inside they will persevere because of their resilience. Okay. Thank you so much. Yes, and finally, and just at the seconds you are concluding remarks. I would like to first of all express my sincere gratitude to the donors and all the partners who supported this great initiative. From what I personally experienced during the field trip to the sites, there is a very clear indication of the impact that this project has made in the lives of these survivors and in their communities as a whole. I therefore extend my appeal to all the stakeholders in the locality of those survivors, such as the local government authorities, community leaders, the youth, women, and many others. Okay. They dedicate their support to the sustainability objectives of this project. Thank you so much. And yes, but finally in 22nd because we are running out of time, we have to go for a news. Yes. As somebody representing the management of RDA, we have been so grateful that we are able to be given this opportunity to serve our local community. We give thanks to EU for available in this fund, the UNMIS, the UNDP, and also the survivors for being available for this, we look forward to still passing by to see them how they are joining. All right. Yes, Albert, Anne, and Sheila, thank you so much for coming.