Analytical Overview of Sudanese Women Initiatives to End War
Analytical Overview of Sudanese Women Initiatives to End War
Date: Wednesday May 29th, 2024
Time: 11am
Speakers: Samia Nihar (University of Khartoum)
Abstract:
The war in Sudan on 15 April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), has led to widespread violence and displacement. It has resulted in infrastructure destruction, looting, and ransacking of homes and businesses. It also resulted in massive incidents of sexual violence, particularly rape, primarily committed by the RSF. This war revived women coalitions and alliances, leading to the formation of many initiatives led by women leaders. Among these initiatives is the Peace for Sudan Platform, a network of over 49 women-led peace initiatives and humanitarian organizations, Women Think Tank Initiative, and Women for peace and security initiative. These three initiatives share the principles of peace, gender equality, and women’s rights, and their response to the 15th of April war was strong.
This paper analyzes these three initiatives, focusing on their advocacy plans, strategies, and future vision. The paper aims to understand how these initiatives work considering the challenge of the current war, and what are their work methodologies and analyze the finding to help women groups feel the way forward to achieve peaceful changes. Accordingly, three initiatives, Sudanese Women Experts Think Tank Initiatives (SWETI), Women against War Group, and Women for Peace alliance, were targeted based on their geographical, membership, intellectual, and age diversity. It is a qualitative review using secondary data from existing initiatives documents and primary data from semi-structured interviews.
Two of the initiatives under study emerged immediately after the 15th of April war and expanded quickly, demonstrating their readiness to reinstate peace, security, and democratic transition. The third initiative is relatively old and operates mainly in the states before the war.
Main results are that the current priority of the three initiatives is to stop the war. They aspire to democratic, civilian rule in the country after the war. The initiatives have tackled issues such as reconciliation, other countries’ experiences in peace, and documentation of violence against women cases. However, there are minor disparities among the three initiatives, with slightly different styles of activism among them. Social media platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook have been used by these initiatives to communicate and coordinate their work.
The paper concluded that the approach to peacebuilding in Sudan must prioritize the experiences and perspectives of women, who have been disproportionately affected by the war. Sudanese women are leading discussions and organizing medical and social services. Political parties, military, international community, and women’s rights organizations must work with Sudanese women to ensure their inclusion in a comprehensive peace process that promotes human rights and gender equality.
Biographies of the Speaker:
Samia Nihar is a Sudanese academic and experienced trainer who currently heads the Gender and Development Unit at University of Khartoum, Development Studies and Research Institute (DSRI) as Program Manager. Samia Nihar has been responsible for managing and executing DSRI gender programs and projects with variety of partners eg (EU, Friedrich Ebert, UN Women, DIFID/British Council and Embassies). She has facilitated many gender-focused workshops for DSRI and served as a trainer and facilitator for other DSRI national and international partners’ activities. Mrs. Samia Nihar brings more expertise and experience on Women, Peace, and Security in Sudan. She was the focal point for Sudanese women coalition supported by Institute of Inclusive Security at Washington DC for the period 2007 – 2011. She is one of the UN Women consultants working on the development of Sudan National Action Plan (NAP) on UNSCR 1325 and served a member in the National Technical Committee on the development of Sudan NAP on UNSCRV 1325 in March 2020. Mrs. Nihar is fully proficient in Arabic and English. Already holding MSc degrees from the University of Khartoum in Development, Planning and Gender as well as in Rural Development, she is currently a PhD candidate in Development.
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
luisaarango2020 (18 mai 2024). Analytical Overview of Sudanese Women Initiatives to End War. Researching Sudan - A perspective on contemporary Sudans. Consulté le 6 février 2025 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/11op0