SIHA: Sudanese women at the centre of ‘economic war and systemic exclusion’

Report by Jared Wedge-Thomas

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Women in Sudan and across the Greater Horn of Africa face entrenched barriers to land, healthcare, financial systems, and social protection, experts warned at a regional webinar organised by the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA).

The event, part of SIHA’s #ItsNotYourFault campaign, explored how exclusion from resources fuels inequality and deepens women’s vulnerability to conflict and poverty.

“Sudan is facing not just a military crisis, it’s an economic war and women are at its centre,” said Sudanese researcher Mariam Moussa of Shared Planet.

Presenting her study with 58 women across five cities, she explained: “88 per cent of surveyed women experienced looting directly or indirectly. One in three women surveyed [was] displaced more than once, cutting them off from economic opportunities.”

She described how displacement strips women of their livelihoods and status. “It takes their businesses, their land, their roles as community figures,” she said. “The impact of war on income and livelihoods is not abstract, it’s deeply personal.”

Moussa underlined that women are keeping families alive through “survival economies of collective saving and labour, but these are largely unsupported and invisible.” She added: “Resilience cannot replace justice, investment or political inclusion. Women want justice in economic, social and political forms. Women must be at every negotiation table.”

Laws versus reality

Lyn Ossome, Associate Professor at Makerere University, criticised the gulf between progressive policies and the lived experiences of women. “Despite such extensive laws… do we see such glaring disparities… in equality outcomes for women and girls,” she asked.

She noted that “women’s bodies [are] some of the most legislated in the world” yet rights are “undermined by the exploitative structures of the world of work.” “More women than ever are entering the world of work, under much worse conditions,” she said. “The spirit of the law does not match the reality.”

According to the United Nations Development Programme, “women make up 69 per cent of internally displaced persons,” with “43 per cent of women in urban households and over 50 per cent among internally displaced people” active in women’s associations.

Grassroots resilience

Testimonies from SIHA’s regional hubs revealed the daily struggles of women navigating war and economic collapse. In Kassala, participants reported: “We faced a lot of challenges in relation to women and girls’ activities, specifically regarding economic and health challenges.” They added: “Women have opened their own markets and bazaars to rise to these challenges but lack sufficient spaces.”

In South Sudan, SIHA’s country coordinator Jackline Bage stressed that “discriminatory laws prevent women from inheriting properties, disenfranchising them and hindering them from protecting themselves.” She also emphasised safety concerns: “Sometimes even when a school is available, the road there is not safe enough to travel.”

Ugandan activist Moureen Wagubi urged governments to take responsibility. “The government sees informal sectors where women actually are collaborating in various social safety nets and cooperatives,” she said. “Let us stop patching holes in broken systems and start building foundations that last.”

The webinar closed with a call for structural change. Moussa stressed: “A feminist economic system has emerged as women work together to find solutions in the absence of the state. But resilience cannot replace justice.”