Sex for Food The Guardian

The Guardian: Women struggling to survive in the war-torn Sudanese city of Omdurman say they are being forced to have sex with soldiers in exchange for food.

In Omdurman, more than two dozen women who were unable to flee the fighting claim that having sex with soldiers from the Sudanese Army is the only way they can obtain food or goods that they can sell to raise money to feed their families.

The women stated that most of the attacks took place in the city’s “Factories area,” where most of the city’s food is available.

One woman shared that she had no choice but to have sex with soldiers to get food for her elderly sickly parents and 18-year-old daughter.

“Both of my parents are too old and sickly and I never allow my daughter to leave the house to look for food,” she said. “I went to the soldiers seeking food and that was the only way to get it – they were everywhere in the factories area.”

In May of last year –not long after Sudan’s devastating civil war broke out between the regular Army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces– the woman was forced to have sexual intercourse with soldiers at a meat-processing factory, then again at a warehouse storing fava beans in January of this year.

Before the war broke out, the 37-year-old, who appeared pale and thin in interviews, shared that she had worked as a maid for families living in affluent parts of Omdurman but was too poor to have been able to flee the city and take her family to a safer part of the country when the conflict began.

According to the United Nations, the conflict in Sudan has caused the death of tens of thousands and displaced more than (10) million people. A recent UN-backed report stated that nearly (26) million people, or slightly more than half of the Sudanese population, were facing high levels of “Acute Food insecurity”.

Some of the women who spoke to the Guardian said that soldiers are also demanding sex in exchange for access to abandoned houses where it is still possible to loot items to sell in local markets.

One woman shared that after having sex with the soldiers she was permitted to take food, kitchen appliances and perfumes from empty houses. She spoke of her shame regarding the sexual assault she was forced to endure and being reduced to stealing property in order to survive.

“I am not a thief,” she went on to explain, “What I went through is indescribable, I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy … I only did it because I needed to feed my children.”

Aid organisations have struggled to supply food to people in desperate need around the country and, although the UN’s World Food Programme recent statements about being able to make deliveries to the Khartoum area, the women the “Guardian” spoke to said they hadn’t seen any international aid coming into their neighborhoods.

A third woman the “Guardian” spoke to said she had been tortured by soldiers because she stopped having sex with them. The 21-year-old said that she had previously had sex with soldiers in exchange for being allowed to loot houses in west Omdurman, but she stopped after her brothers told her they were opposed to looting.

The woman added that when she told the soldiers she would no longer be coming to see them two of them held her down and burned her legs. “I was told by the soldiers that I was full of myself for refusing to go with them,” said the woman, as she showed the burn marks on her legs.

Soldiers and residents of the city of Omdurman corroborated reports of women being forced to have sexual relations with soldiers. As one soldier said that though he had never personally taken advantage of the women, he had seen his colleagues doing it.

He described one incident where a woman had sex with soldiers who in turn allowed her sisters to loot houses. “It’s horrendous,” the soldier stated. “The number of sins committed this city can never be forgiven.”

A resident of a neighborhood in west Omdurman stated that he had seen soldiers bringing women to houses belonging to people who had fled. “A lot of women come and queue outside our neighborhood,” he added, “The soldiers let them enter and choose those they like the look of, allowing them to enter houses. I sometimes hear screaming but what can you do? Nothing.”

A Sudanese Armed Forces spokesman rejected these allegations, describing them in a statement to the Guardian as “False and misleading information.”

The statement read: “Everything mentioned in the report is no more than fabrications and lies against the Sudanese Armed Forces, whose members have maintained their professionalism throughout their nearly 100-year history, and have been acknowledged as a source of security for Sudanese citizens at all times.)

This article was temporarily deleted on the 23rd of July 2024, pending an update and was republished on the 29th of July 2024, to include additional information, including directions to the Sudanese government.