PRESS CONFERENCE on children in sudan

 

Children and youth in the Sudan continued to endure some of the most inhumane treatment found anywhere in the world, and needed urgent protection, correspondents were told at a Headquarters press conference this morning.

Sudan’s Children at a Crossroads –- an Urgent Need for Protection was launched parallel events at United Nations Headquarters in New York and in Nairobi, Kenya, by Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict –- a global network of non-governmental organizations, which is striving to end violations against children caught in armed conflicts. 

Presenting the report at an event that was sponsored by the Permanent Mission of Canada in New York, were Kathleen Hunt, Chairperson of Watchlist’s Steering Committee; Jenny Robinson of the Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children; and Francis Deng, Director of the Center for Displacement Studies, School of Advanced International studies, Johns Hopkins University.

Ms. Hunt outlined the main findings of this comprehensive document, which documents continued and pervasive violations of children’s rights by all armed forces and groups operating in the Sudan, and urges immediate action to protect children.  She said that children across the country faced extensive threats and abuses, including killing, maiming, rape and other forms of sexual violence, abduction, denial of humanitarian assistance, forced labour, trafficking, and recruitment by armed forces and groups.  Those violations fell under all the egregious categories identified by the Security Council in its resolution on children and armed conflict, and then some.

Despite the end of the war in the south, and increasing signs of hope for a strengthened peacekeeping force in Darfur, many Sudanese children were not faring any better than they had been four years ago, when the Watchlist released its first comprehensive report on the Sudan, she said.  In the south, peace had finally returned, and many people were coming home for the first time in years.  However, many of the communities to which they were returning were unable to properly receive them, as an increase in population strained an already limited pool of services and resources.  For instance, there was just one health centre for every 79,000 people there.  Additional financial and technical support for the new Government in Southern Sudan was needed to restore and improve social services and repair the public infrastructure decimated by decades of war.

The children of Darfur were also facing challenges, with only 40 to 50 per cent of the population having access to health services, and less than one third of children enrolled in school.  Civilians continued to come under attack and little or no opportunities existed for youth.  Thousands of displaced youth sat idle in internally displaced camps.  With a growing sense of frustration and little hope for the future, they could become a source of violence and insecurity themselves, exploited and recruited by gangs and armed groups.  Recent weeks had provided glimmers of hope for the improvement of security in Darfur, but the Government must do more to protect children and youth.

The report provided numerous recommendations to all the parties affiliated with the Sudan, from Government authorities down to local communities, she continued.  One important step would be to increase socially-oriented spending in Darfur, and utilize oil revenue to support education and social services for youth.  The Government must provide humanitarian agencies with unrestricted access to all parts of the country.  Member States of the United Nations must continue to work with the two Governments in the Sudan to ensure that both upheld their commitments and obligations outlined in the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, security resolutions and international statutes.

Focusing on education, Ms. Robinson said that education could not wait until the fighting was over.  The international community needed to support and adequately invest in formal and informal education at the outset of conflict and displacement.

The vast majority of children in the Sudan had been denied their right to education, and were unable to learn practical steps that could prepare them for the future.  Access to education remained a challenge, despite the fact that education was a priority for communities both in the north and the south.  Many teachers in Southern Sudan and Darfur continued to teach without receiving any pay.  Some children walked two hours each way to school, without breakfast or lunch.  The situation was significantly worse for the girls, especially in Southern Sudan, where only 500 girls finished primary school each year.  In fact, there was a shocking statistic from UNICEF in 2004 that a girl in Southern Sudan was more likely to die in childbirth than go to school.

In Darfur, girls’ enrolment was among the lowest in the Sudan.  Ironically, however, the enrolment had actually risen somewhat as a result of the current conflict, in part because girls in internally displaced camps had access to critical services for the first time, particularly education.  Throughout the country, girls’ low enrolment and retention at schools stemmed from extreme poverty, early marriage, their traditional roles in the family, and parents’ concern about safety.

In Southern Sudan, a whole generation had missed out on education due to conflict and displacement, she continued.  As a result, young men and women were unable to fully participate in the rebuilding of their communities.  One young man had said: “For the past 10 years, we were taught how to fire a gun –- never how to read and write.”  Only 6 per cent of communities in Southern Sudan were within walking distance to a secondary school.  In Darfur camps, there were no secondary schools.  Without access to secondary schools or vocational training, thousands of displaced young people were idle, without any constructive activities to fill their time.  Another challenge was a shortage of trained and qualified teachers.  In Southern Sudan, it was not unusual to meet teachers with a fourth-grade education.

The report detailed some of the most critical actions that were required in regard to education, she said.  The Government of National Unity and the Government of Southern Sudan, in partnership with the United Nations, donors and non-governmental organizations, must support programmes to get girls into school and keep them there.  There was also a recommendation to establish more creative alternative education programmes for young people, which should be linked to vocational training.  Major investments were needed in teacher training.  Teachers should be paid regular, fair salaries.

Mr. Deng praised the scope and depth of the report.  Children should be one of the unifying factors concerning the crisis in the Sudan, as nobody could quarrel with the need to protect and educate children.  However, some people became defensive, as the report outlined human rights violations.  “If we agree that children bring us together, then the moral challenge should be to accept what is documented, and look at the ways how you can actually correct the problems,” he said.  It was important to agree on what needed to be done.

He also touched upon the principle of sovereignty, saying that it should not be viewed as a barrier to international cooperation.  Instead, it should be seen as a positive concept of the State taking care of its people.  If the Government did not have the means, it should call on the international community for assistance.  However, in this day and age of concern for human rights and humanitarian issues, people were not going “to sit and watch and do nothing”.  The concept he had presented in one of his early books –- sovereignty as responsibility –- had become mainstream.  The Canadian-sponsored commission had come up with the responsibility to protect principle, and the 2005 World Summit had adopted it.  That principle also implied governments’ accountability.

Asked who was responsible for the recruitment of children, Ms. Hunt said that most armed groups continued to recruit and use child soldiers, particularly the Janjaweed, the Justice and Equality Movement, the South Sudan Unity Movement, the Sudan Liberation Army and the Sudan People’s Liberation Army.  In the south, the leadership of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army had made commitments to release children associated with their armed forces, but some lower-ranking commanders continued to recruit them.  Sudanese refugees in Chad were also vulnerable to recruitment.

The correspondent asked if the report had been presented to the Sudanese Government.  Ms. Hunt replied that, indeed, on Monday, Watchlist had shared the document with the Government authorities at the Permanent Mission in New York and the Embassy of Southern Sudan in Washington D.C.  There had been no response, yet, and representatives of Watchlist would be willing to meet and discuss the report, should they be contacted, to follow up.

Regarding the main priorities outlined in the report, she said that many of the abuses documented in the report had been recorded for a number of years and, now, both sides in the Sudan needed to uphold their commitments to protect civilians and stop attacks and violence against children in any form.  Humanitarian access to vulnerable populations was also urgently needed, as well as access to information and services for victims of violence.

Responding to a question about sexual abuse by the personnel of the United Nations Mission in the Sudan, she said that the report, which was current as of 5 January, had pursued follow-up on that matter, but had not come up with any additional information.  The Watchlist staff was monitoring the situation on an ongoing basis.  The Security Council, to its credit, had crafted a number of extremely important resolutions and created a special body to monitor and follow up on such reports.

Asked what the Security Council should do to improve the situation of children, with or without consent from the Government, Mr. Deng said that he did not think that anybody would want to go into Darfur without the Government’s consent.  Should that happen, violence could escalate.  What was being debated was what kind of support could be given to the African Union to effectively enhance its capacity “to be able to do a credible job”.

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For information media • not an official record