WOMEN, PEACE AND SECURITY: SUDAN

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UNIFEM WOMEN, WAR AND PEACE WEB PORTAL: SUDAN

"We have all rights to sensitise and mobilise South Sudanese women and organize them to take charge of their own rehabulitation, empowerment and developmental aspirations. I decided to champion the idea to form a national organisation. This led to the formation of Sudanese Women in Solidarity (SWIS). The objective of SWIS was to contribute and bring about a wholistic peace and permanent solution to the diversified problem of Sudan."

Magdalena Beato, February 2002

"There was a need for us to see how we could develop ourselves. Our main objective was to work for unity among southern Sudanese women in this country [Kenya]. We founded the Sudanese Women's Association in Nairobi (SWAN) in 1993. When we were strong enough and our membership numbers increased, we founded the Sudanese Women's Voice for Peace in 1994 to deal specifically with peace issues.

We were very disturbed when the south was fighting itself when the SPLA split in 1991. It was painful for us as mothers: why should our children kill one another? We tried to work closely with the SPLA factions, split along Nuer-Dinka ethnic lines, to see how this could end, how they could address it peacefully.

In 1997, the New Sudan Council of Churches intervened. They recommended that there be a bigger conference [called the Wunlit conference, which eventually led to the Wunlit Peace Agreement] to address these issues. I went in to mobilise the women and the community for that conference. I was also the liaison between NSCC and the community in Sudan. That conference was held from February 27 to March 8, 1999 and brought together 800 delegates from the two communities. Women, youth, elders, traditional leaders, chiefs, spiritual leaders, and the church were all represented. The agreement was signed on March 8."

AWUT DENG, peace mobiliser for the Nairobi-based New Sudan Council of Churches (NSCC), 20 January 2003