United Nations: 76% of Sudanese women feel insecure amid escalating violence and lack of funding

This was confirmed by Fabrizia Falcione, representative of the United Nations Population Fund in Sudan, while speaking to reporters in New York, today, Friday – via video from the capital, Khartoum – where she highlighted the deteriorating conditions of women and girls in the country, noting that women “feel unsafe wherever they live.”

This assessment is based on a study conducted by the United Nations Population Fund with the participation of about a thousand women and girls in 16 out of 18 states. The results showed that 76 percent of women between 25 and 49 years old felt unsafe, whether inside or outside displacement sites, including markets, water points, firewood collection areas, and roads, especially at night.

Some statistics included in the study

🔹76% of women (25-49 years) feel insecure,

Hundreds of cases of sexual violence go unreported due to stigma and fear.

🔹88 safe spaces run by the United Nations for women and girls,

🔹Only 14% funding the protection sector,

🔹Only 11% funding the health sector,

🔹Economic empowerment is a priority for the majority of women.

“The path to safety is not safe”

Falcioni explained that the majority of the women she met during her field visits in several states, including Khartoum, White Nile, Blue Nile and the northern states, “lived under the weight of bombing and armed conflict for many months,” noting that many of them were displaced several times, some of them up to four times during three years of war.

She added that women have been exposed to or witnessed “massive violence” that affected their family members and communities, stressing that “the path to safety is not safe at all,” as they face harassment and sexual and physical violence, in addition to lack of food and water, and their feeling of insecurity continues even after they arrive at displacement sites.

In describing the conditions inside the camps, she said: “I visited camps throughout Sudan, and it was clear that the vast majority of their residents are women, girls and children. They – including pregnant women – are forced to walk at night inside the camps in complete darkness, trying to reach the toilets in the complete absence of any lighting.”

The UN official confirmed that insecurity also affects daily life, noting that the “feeling of insecurity” doubles in light of the power outages and the darkness of cities at night. She reported that reporting of cases of gender-based violence remains limited, due to stigma, fear of retaliation, financial constraints, and the remoteness of service centres.

Economic empowerment is a top priority

When asking women about their priorities, Falcione said: “Three quarters of them indicated that economic empowerment and livelihood provision are a top priority,” Confirming that women want to return to their homes, including the capital, Khartoum. She added that women demanded three main things:

🔹Basic services, access to health care,

🔹 Access to schools – especially for their children,

🔹 Opportunities to earn a living.

She stressed that women “do not only want to be provided with ready-made food, but they also want opportunities that enable them to support their families themselves.”

She explained that the United Nations Population Fund runs 88 safe spaces for women and girls in Sudan, providing them with a place to seek support and services, despite the difficulty of sustaining them due to lack of funding.

One of the girls was quoted as saying: “Here, I feel safe, and I can spend time with my friends again, just like before the war broke out.”

Funding does not keep pace with the nature of the crisis or the needs

Regarding the humanitarian response, Falcione expressed her concern about funding gaps, explaining that funding for the protection sector does not exceed 14 percent, while funding for the health sector is only 11 percent.

She said: “Although we repeatedly hear that this crisis is essentially a protection crisis that particularly affects women and girls, and that it is also a health crisis, the available funding does not keep pace with the nature of the crisis nor the needs on the ground.”

Falcione concluded her speech by stressing the need to increase international support, saying that this is “a very important message that the whole world must hear,” calling for the Sudanese people not to be abandoned in light of the current crisis.