Sexual and Gender-Based Violence

Thousands of women and girls who have been abducted by armed groups, enslaved and repeatedly raped during conflicts across Africa are left without support when the war ends, experts say.

After the bullets have stopped flying, peacekeepers and governments focus on disarming fighters – who are usually men and boys - and helping them to return home and reintegrate into their communities.

Nagaland State Women Commission Chairperson Sano Vamuzo has said that the impact of conflict on women has become a huge topic particularly in the conflict-ridden regions of the world, and the northeast has in recent years become a focal point for research and study from various angles.

Nadifa, a widowed mother of four, left her hut near Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, to search for food. When she returned home hours later, she found a man raping her 11-year-old daughter. Nadifa tried to defend her daughter but was torn away by armed men as she screamed. The neighborhood watched helplessly as the men abducted Nadifa. She was pistol-whipped, kicked, punched, and scorched with burning plastic.

The United States is working for reform of nationality laws that hurt women, says Maria Otero, the State Department's under secretary for democracy and global affairs.

Nationality laws discriminate against women in at least 30 countries, Otero said at a Refugees International event October 25 at the U.S. Institute of Peace. These laws, she said, limit women's ability to acquire, retain and transmit citizenship to their children.

Hundreds of Yemeni women on Wednesday set fire to traditional female veils to protest the government's brutal crackdown against the country's popular uprising, as overnight clashes in the capital and another city killed 25 people, officials said.

Violence against women is an abuse of fundamental human rights, says Australia's Head of Mission, Judith Robinson. She said there was evidence to suggest that violence against women negates every area of development activity.

"It impacts on women's health and it also impacts on the ability of women to actively participate in the economic, political and social activities within their community," she said.

A report published in conjunction with a human rights conference to be held in Gambia from 24 October to 7 November paints a bleak picture of the plight of women in North Sudan, reserving caveated optimism for South Sudan.

"My experience reporting military sexual assault was worse than the actual assault," says Jessica (a pseudonym for her protection), a former marine officer and Iraq veteran who left the military because of her command's poor handling of her assault charges. "The command has so much power over a victim of sexual assault. They are your judge, jury, executioner and mayor: they own the law.

When Linda*, 16, entered into an agreement with her well respected 40-year-old teacher to exchange sex for good grades, she had no understanding of the inherently exploitive nature of the relationship.

As a result of the repeated sexual abuse, she became pregnant and gave birth to a baby girl last year.

Whenever Marie*, just 16, looks at her lively toddler, Honoré*, she has the most intimate reminder of the 25-year reign of terror inflicted by the rebel Lord's Resistance Army on innocent villagers in Uganda and neighbouring countries.