Attachments
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) has been a distressing hallmark of Sudan’s history. State military, security, and intelligence actors have long employed various forms of sexual violence as a means of suppression, intimidation, punishment, and discrimination – perpetrated particularly against human rights defenders, pro-democracy demonstrators, ethnic groups and religious minorities, and individuals from other marginalised communities. Sudan has also experienced recurring armed conflict characterised by the entrenchment of military actors in positions of power, the concentration of wealth and political influence in Khartoum, and the marginalisation of the peripheries, as well as a prevailing logic of recourse to violence as the principal means of doing politics. These conflicts have each been marked by conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), including the systematic use of often racially motivated violence to consolidate territory and exert control over, humiliate, and forcibly displace communities. The ongoing armed conflict between the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) has been no exception. The conflict, which began on 15 April 2023 and is ongoing at the time of writing, has exacerbated an already alarming situation. The warring parties have launched renewed campaigns of violence against the civilian population, including arbitrary arrests, unlawful detention, torture, and sexual violence – targeting individuals on the basis of age, gender, ethnicity, or affiliation with pro-democracy, human rights, and ‘anti-war’ activism. Survivors of CRSV in Sudan struggle to access justice and obtain reparation, as documented by the Global Survivors Fund (GSF), Rights for Peace, and national NGOs in the Sudan Study on the Status of and Opportunities for Reparations for Survivors of Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (Study on Reparations for CRSV Survivors in Sudan). Perpetrators have very rarely been held to account, owing to the near total impunity for State-sanctioned violence enshrined in Sudan’s power structures and legal and constitutional arrangements. Within this context, the case of S.I. represents a significant milestone in challenging the prevailing cycle of impunity for sexual violence in Sudan. In August 2023,1 the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) issued a groundbreaking decision in which it found Sudan responsible for failing to investigate, prosecute, and punish those responsible for the torture, including sexual violence, of S.I., a student involved in pro-democracy rallies in Khartoum in 2011. This is the first time that the ACHPR recognised that sexual violence automatically implies gendered discrimination. The ACHPR also stressed that rape necessarily meets the level of severity to amount to torture under international law. The decision not only impacts S.I. as a survivor but also provides an opportunity to address ongoing human rights violations and enhance prevention, as the ACHPR ordered Sudan to implement a number of measures to tackle CRSV and SGBV (see next section).