Minister of Social Welfare: ‘Sudan holds perpetrators of sexual violence accountable, including members of the regular forces’

Sudan’s State Minister at the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Welfare, Dr Salima Ishaq, has acknowledged that cases of sexual violence and rape (gender-based violence / GBV) are increasing, and says that the perpetrators are being dealt with legally, including members of the regular forces.

In an interview with Radio Dabanga, Ishaq confirmed that in more than one incident, the perpetrators were removed from their immunity and brought to trials, such as what happened recently in Wad Madani and Al-Obeid, and the recent incident of Sennar, in which the state stands with the victim, and added that “in safe states, the law is naturally applied to the perpetrators of crimes.”

Ishaq explained that the recent increase in awareness among the Sudanese society, and the keenness of the competent authorities to implement the law in cases of sexual violence, helps victims to obtain their rights, strange types of crimes committed by citizens, especially domestic and sexual violence, but the mechanism of reporting crimes has improved and the community has become aware of crimes, and this has been helped by the continuous training of different groups in dealing with cases of sexual exploitation.

Ishaq pointed out that the capabilities in the Family and Child Protection Units are weak, and they need to expand and increase their number, and citizens face difficulty in reaching quickly to report crimes under the harsh economic conditions, they cannot go to a distant place to report, and she said, “We are working to improve the situation with a number of organisations, including UNICEF.”