Women as peacemakers in Sudan – challenges and opportunities

From TransConflict - www.transconflict.com

With Sudan and South Sudan on the verge of all-out war, many local peacebuilding organizations are utilising the potential of women to act as peacemakers between communities in an attempt to thwart further violence.

By Louise Hogan

Less than a year after declaring independence, South Sudan is engaged in low-level violence with its northern neighbour, the Republic of Sudan. Aerial bombings and military raids by both sides are a daily occurrence. South Sudan’s ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM)completely shut down oil production, in an attempt to deny Khartoum revenue, which has deprived the emerging nation of 71% of its GDP and prevented it from developing its basic infrastructure. Once again, all out war in Sudan seems depressingly inevitable.

In South Kordofan, a mineral rich border province which remains under Khartoum’s control but whose inhabitants’ identity politically and culturally with South Sudan, violent conflict is a daily occurrence. With a population of approximately two million people and vast oil and mineral reserves, South Kordofan is a valuable asset. For this reason, Khartoum refused to relinquish it during the peace negotiations which led to the signing in 2005 of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and the eventual independence of South Sudan, despite its inhabitants waging a two decade guerrilla insurgency for independence.

Years of conflict and insecurity have, unsurprisingly, taken a heavy toll on a community whose culture and identity is rooted in tradition and the local environment. With an estimated fifty different ethnic groups resident in South Kordofan, ethnic tensions were also exacerbated by the wider conflict, and often erupted into violence. Ethnic groups who had respected each other’s customs when living side-by-side, found themselves thrust upon each other in haphazard, over-crowded refugee camps, and cultural tensions often graduated into violent outbreaks.

Women as peacemakers

This situation led a group of Sudanese women from South Kordofan to form an organisation called Ru’ya (Arabic for ‘Vision’). Recognising the important role women could play as peacemakers both within and between communities, Ru’yainitiated a simple project they christened Women Solidarity Groups. Based on the premise that a lack of cultural understanding and an archaic patriarchal system which placed undue precedence on pride were causing much of the conflict, the basic idea was simple but effective. By regularly meeting to share coffee, food and experiences, women from various backgrounds could learn about each other’s traditions, beliefs and practices and form bonds across cultural divides. These groups organically graduated into something more than simple support groups – some started their own micro-financing programmes; others served as peacemakers between previously warring communities. When a ceasefire was called and communities began to return home, the project spread from the refugee camps to newly-resettled villages and communities. Having established a method of gaining influence in a notoriously male-dominated society, women were reluctant to give it up.

A local micro-financing scheme established by one Solidarity Group

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