Courage through adversity

“I could hear the little girl crying and screaming. They were raping her. Every time they raped her this girl would come back covered in blood. She’s still just a young child.” 

– Omnia*

Sudan is in the clutches of a brutal conflict. Millions of families have been driven from their homes since fighting erupted in April 2023. Thousands have been killed in a conflict that has sent hunger soaring and left diseases running rampant. But even when this devastating humanitarian emergency forces its way into the headlines, another crisis goes largely overlooked: the widespread perpetration of sexual violence against children.

In ‘Sudan’s child rape and sexual violence crisis’ UNICEF shares the voices of resilient women and children whose experiences were documented in December 2024 and January 2025. 

Sadly, these stories represent just a fraction of a horror that is widespread in conflict settings, including Sudan, where sexual violence has been used as a weapon of war. In less than two years of conflict, the United Nations estimates the number of people at risk of gender-based violence in Sudan has more than tripled to an estimated 12.1 million people – around a quarter of the population.

Attacks reported to UNICEF and local service providers include armed men storming homes and demanding at gunpoint that families surrender their girls, often while violently attacking the family members or raping the girls in front of their loved ones. There are accounts of armed men threatening and violating children fleeing the conflict. Some girls have been raped repeatedly. 

Many survivors are left with impossible choices in the wake of sexual violence, including whether to disclose it to family or community members, report it to authorities or raise the child conceived as a result despite the social stigma and the risk of being rejected by a community.

Following the attack, Hala fled Khartoum, Sudan’s capital.

“I tried to seek refuge in a shelter, but they turned me away because I was pregnant and refused to accept me,” she says.

Hala and her young son are currently staying with a woman Hala met when she was in a hospital. Her son, sitting on her lap wrapped in a blanket, has fallen asleep. She says he’s usually very quiet, but that he enjoys playing games and loves animals.

Such violence – and even simply the fear of falling victim to it – is pushing many people to flee their homes. They often end up living in informal displacement sites or hosted by communities with scarce resources, leaving them increasingly vulnerable. Crowded living conditions in sites for internally displaced people can leave children with long walks – sometimes in the dark – to access essential services such as water points or toilets. 

Adan*, a young mother says a neighbour sexually assaulted her daughter after they were displaced by the fighting. 

Reports to UNICEF suggest that communities in areas with active conflict are increasingly practicing child marriage and female genital mutilation (FGM) – a procedure involving partial or total removal of the female external genitalia or other injury to the female genital organs for non-medical reasons – because they believe these practices protect girls from sexual violence and rape. 

Aziza* was subjected to FGM at just 6 years old. For years, she lived with the resulting complications until deciding to report her situation to a UNICEF partner working in Sudan. The organization provided medical and psychosocial support for Aziza, who says she has been inspired to advocate for women and girls against harmful practices such as FGM.

In patriarchal societies such as Sudan’s, survivors, not perpetrators, often carry the cultural blame of sexual violence, resulting in tremendous stigma, shame and ostracization from society.

Survivors who spoke with UNICEF described being disowned by their husbands or fathers, and unmarried women and adolescent girls talked of the fear of never being able to marry or return to their family homes because of social stigma. 

“They forced me into a big car. They took me to a place next to a railway, and three people raped me,” says Tamara*, 16.

Male survivors of sexual violence aren’t immune from stigma and shame, which discourages survivors from reporting the crime or seeking crucial medical or legal support.

Eleven-year-old Musa is among the many children suffering from the impact of sexual violence after being displaced. After finally telling his mother that he was raped, the family reported to police, but the case is still in court. He’s more withdrawn now than he used to be, preferring to spend time alone and indoors.

Musa says he loves football and is a goalkeeper for his team. One day he wants to become an engineer.

Even after enduring the horrors of sexual or gender-based violence, the challenges don’t end for many survivors in Sudan. Getting support for gender-based violence remains difficult for myriad reasons – limited availability and capacity of services, service infrastructure that has been decimated by almost two years of conflict, social stigma, fear of confidentiality breaches and fear of retribution.

All the while, perpetrators often go unpunished, instilling a fear throughout communities that confines women and girls to their homes and robs them of education, employment and so much more. Gender-based violence is often inflicted to deprive survivors not only of their health and dignity, but also of their autonomy.

Despite these incredibly challenging circumstances, Sudanese women are demonstrating immense solidarity, resilience and innovation to protect and provide for themselves, their families, and their communities. Sudanese women-led organizations have undertaken a heroic effort in not only supporting survivors with supplies and services but also championing – and achieving – important reforms since the onset of the conflict that have helped encourage women to report crimes and access services.

“We continue to focus on awareness and provide workshops,” says Rayan*, a frontline worker on the response to sexual violence in Sudan. 

Conflict, natural disasters and other humanitarian crises can significantly weaken a society’s ability to protect women and girls. Rates of intimate partner violence rise in these settings. Many armed groups use sexual violence as a weapon of war to advance military or political aims. And girls and women may be forced to trade sex for food, money and other resources they need to survive.

UNICEF is working with partners to establish safe spaces that provide gender-based violence services for survivors, as well as integrating these into health services at health centers and mobile clinics and providing relevant medical supplies. UNICEF is also building the capacity of frontline workers, deploying them to locations across Sudan to provide community-based services.

For Samiya*, executive director of a Sudanese women-led organization that provides services to survivors of gender-based violence, a crucial step in addressing the horror of gender-based violence is shining a light on an issue that too often lurks in the shadows of conflict.

*Name changed to protect their identity.