APPENDIX B: Annotated Bibliography for “Continuing Mass Rape of Girls in Darfur: The most heinous crime generates no international outrage,” January 14, 2016 | http://sudanreeves.org/2016/01/14/7098/
[1] Amnesty International, “Sudan, Darfur: Rape as a Weapon of War” [July 19, 2004] | http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AFR54/076/2004]
One of the very earliest human rights accounts of what had already reached epidemic proportions. This lengthy report by Amnesty is authoritative, based on very substantial field research, and compelling in its analysis and framing of issues in terms of international humanitarian and human rights law. It has never been the case that the international community was unaware of the scale of sexual violence and rape in Darfur; such awareness simply did not translate into meaningful responses.
[2] Attaelmanan, Anwar Yousif, Jiang Hengkun, and Elsadig Musa Ahmed, “Socio-Psychological Impact of the Darfur War on Women and Children,” Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research 19 (5): 697-701, 2014 ISSN 1990-9233 © IDOSI Publications, 2014
This article discusses the psychological and social impact of the war in Darfur on women, children, and family as well as the heavy foreign presence and establishment of an aid economy. It also proposes processes required to address the crisis in Darfur.
[3] Baca, Maya, “A Biocultural Approach to Rape Committed During Armed Conflicts in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Unpublished manuscript, University of Massachusetts Boston, May 2014 | http://sudanreeves.org/2016/01/09/a-biocultural-approach-to-rape-committed-during-armed-conflicts-in-sub-saharan-africa-by-maya-baca/
This essay briefly illustrates the complexity of addressing rape in conflict-affected areas, by discussing the identities of perpetrators and the social and epidemiological impact of sexual violence.
[4] Bashir, Halima, Tears of the Desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur (Random House, 2009)
Bashir, a Zaghawa woman trained as a doctor, was herself savagely raped and tortured because of her courageous medical response to the mass rape of schoolgirls in North Darfur. This searing account takes the reader to the very heart of darkness in Darfur.
[5] Doctors Without Borders/Médecins San Frontières (MSF)/Holland in March 2005 (“The Crushing Burden of Rape: Sexual Violence in Darfur,” MSF-Holland, March 2005 | http://www.nsvrc.org/publications/reports/crushing-burden-rape-sexual-violence-darfur).
In the wake of the report’s release, Khartoum arrested and eventually expelled the two most senior MSF-Holland officials working in Sudan. The MSF report, with an extraordinary body of first-hand evidence, documents more than 500 cases of rape; this report figured in Khartoum’s decision to expel the organization, along with twelve others, in March 2009.
[6] “Genocidal Rape and Assault in Darfur” (Dirksen Senate Office Building & Rayburn House Office Building, July 21, 2005)
Sponsored by members of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus & the Congressional Caucus on Women’s Issues. Testimony of Eric Reeves, Smith College: “Responding to Sexual Violence in Darfur.
[7] Gingerich, Tara, JD, MA and Jennifer Leaning, MD, SMH, “The Use of Rape as a Weapon of War in the conflict in Darfur, Sudan” (October 2004).
Prepared for the US Agency for International Development/OTI under the auspices of the Harvard School of Public Health and the Francois-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights. A powerful study of sexual violence in Darfur published in fall 2004, it deserves the closest attention.
[8] Human Rights Watch, “Five Years On: No Justice for Victims of Sexual Violence in Darfur,” (April 2008) [from the Introduction]
Five years into the armed conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, women and girls living in displaced persons camps, towns, and rural areas remain extremely vulnerable to sexual violence. Sexual violence continues to occur throughout the region, both in the context of continuing attacks on civilians, and during periods of relative calm. Those responsible are usually men from the Sudanese security forces, militias, rebel groups, and former rebel groups, who target women and girls predominantly (but not exclusively) from Fur, Zaghawa, Masalit, Berti, Tunjur, and other non-Arab ethnicities.
[9] Human Rights Watch, “Sexual violence and its consequences among displaced persons in Darfur and Chad,” (April 2005) [from the Introduction]
Since early 2003, Sudanese government forces and government-backed ethnic militias known as “Janjaweed” have committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and ‘ethnic cleansing’ in the Darfur region of Sudan. They have targeted for abuse civilians belonging to the same ethnic groups as members of two rebel movements, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the Justice and Equality Movement (JEM).
Rape and sexual violence against women and girls has been a prominent feature of the “ethnic cleansing” campaign carried out by government forces and militias, both during and following displacement in Darfur. Once displaced into camps in Darfur, or into refugee camps in Chad, women and girls continue to suffer sexual and gender-based violence. As discussed below, rape and sexual violence have numerous social, economic and medical consequences, including increasing the risk of contracting HIV/AIDS as a result of the violence.
[10] Johnson, Kirsten, MD, MPH, Jennifer Scott, MD, Bigy Rughita, MSc, Michael Kisielewski, MA, Jana Asher, MSc, Ricardo Ong, MD, and Lynn Lawry, MD, MSPH, MSc, “Association of Sexual Violence and Human Rights Violations With Physical and Mental Health in Territories of the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo” [August 4, 2010]
Examining specific territories in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, this study found that adult survivors and perpetrators of prevalent sexual violence and other human rights abuses were both male and female. In addition to challenging the international community to better address female perpetrators and male survivors in policy regarding rehabilitation and justice, this study disputes the findings of institution-based studies that sexual violence perpetrated by civilians is on the rise.
[11] Physicians for Human Rights, “Nowhere to Turn: Failure to Protect, Support and Assure Justice for Darfuri Women.” May 2009.
The psychological, physical, and social destructiveness of rape as a weapon of war can scarcely be overstated. As deployed in Darfur, it is meant to destroy family structures within the non-Arab or African populations that have, overwhelmingly, been the target of campaigns of rape. The best account of the physical and mental devastation occasioned by rape in Darfur is a May 2009 study by Physicians for Human Rights, “Nowhere to Turn: Failure to Protect, Support and Assure Justice for Darfuri Women” (http://darfuriwomen.phrblog.org/nowhere-to-turn/). The effects of eight years of displacement by genocidal counter-insurgency warfare have left civilians suffering from a wide range of severe mental disorders, particularly girls and women who have been victims of rape. In its meticulously researched study, PHR chronicled in soul-destroying detail some of the devastation among Darfuri refugee girls and women in eastern Chad:
Researchers asked women to rate their physical and mental health status in Darfur and now in Chad on a 1-5 scale with 1 being “very good” and 5 being “poor.” Women reported a marked deterioration in their physical health status since leaving Darfur, with an average ranking of 3.99 for health in Chad versus 2.06 for Darfur.
Even more alarmingly, the PHR study found:
The study indicated a marked deterioration in self-reported mental health, where the average score was 4.90. “I am sad every day (since leaving Darfur). I feel not well in my skin,” explained one respondent. Women who experienced rape (confirmed or highly probable) were three times more likely to report suicidal thoughts than were women who did not report sexual violence.
[12] Medical evidence of widespread torture in Darfur released by PHR in PLoS Medicine, from Physicians for Human Rights (April 4, 2012). Lead author Dr. Mohammed Ahmed Eisa is the former director of the Amel Centre for the Treatment of Darfur, Nyala South Darfur and winner of the Robert F. Kennedy award for Human Rights.
90 percent of patients at Darfuri center for torture victims were attacked by Government/Janjaweed
Today’s issue of PLoS Medicine features a peer-reviewed study led by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) that provides rare forensic medical evidence of widespread, sustained torture and other human rights violations by the Government of Sudan (GoS) and allied Janjaweed forces against non-Arabic-speaking civilians in South Darfur.
In the study, PHR’s forensic medical experts reviewed the medical records of 325 patients seen in 2004-2006 at a clinic in Nyala, South Darfur for torture victims. The documentation from this review of medical records provides important validation of extensive testimonies gathered by many organizations and UN agencies over the years
“The killing, rape, torture, and other human rights violations documented in our study appear to have been committed as part of widespread, systematic and coordinated attacks directed against non-Arab speaking civilian populations in Darfur,” said Vincent Iacopino, Senior Medical Advisor at PHR and senior author of the study. “These apparent crimes against humanity demand investigation, accountability and justice. Inaction in the face of such inhumanity would be complicity by default.”
Key findings of the study include:
90% of patients from 12 different non-Arabic-speaking tribes alleged that they had been attacked by GoS and/or Janjaweed forces in 23 rural areas across Darfur;
Approximately one-half (49%) of all women disclosed that they had been sexually assaulted, and one-half of sexual assaults were described as having occurred in close proximity to a camp for internally displaced persons
“This study underscores the necessity of peace and reconciliation for the people of Darfur,” said Dr. Mohammed Ahmed Eisa, Sudan Fellow at PHR and co-author of the study. “Hundreds of thousands of civilians who have been attacked and tortured during the past decade are living in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps and desperately need security and protection. Once they are safe, these survivors deserve compensation and restitution for what they have endured…”
The other study authors are Alexander Tsai, Sondra Crosby, Susannah Sirkin, Michele Heisler, and Jennifer Leaning.
[13] Public Summary of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor’s Application under Article 58, seeking an arrest warrant for Omar al-Bashir, charging three counts of the crime of genocide, five counts of crimes against humanity, two counts of war crimes: No.: ICC-02/05 Date: 14 July 2008 | http://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/doc/doc529671.pdf
See especially paragraphs 14 – 28 (“Pattern of Attacks”) for details of the evidence assembled by the ICC Prosecutor, including substantial evidence of systematic, ethnically-targeted rape. See also March 4, 2009 arrest warrant for al-Bashir issued by Pre-Trial Chamber 1 of the ICC (http://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/doc/doc639078.pdf), and the July 2010 arrest warrant issued by Pre-Trial Chamber 1, confirming the charge of genocide (http://www.icc-cpi.int/iccdocs/doc/doc907142.pdf).
[14] Reeves, Eric, RAPE AS A CONTINUING WEAPON OF WAR IN DARFUR: Reports, bibliography of studies, a compendium of incidents
Eric Reeves, 4 March 2012
Sexual violence and rape in Darfur have ceased to command the attention they once had—not because this brutal epidemic has ended but because of the absence of human rights reporting, news reporting, and the intimidation of humanitarian organizations ensures that we hear very little about one of the most brutal features of the Darfur genocide.
This brief provides [1] a select bibliography of reports and studies examining the realities of rape and sexual violence in Darfur (in progress); [2] an overview of what was already evident of these realities from mid-2005; [3] a lengthy compendium of reports of specific incidents of sexual violence and rape. This compendium is also a work in progress, extending back into report archives, and grimly forward as rape continues to be reported on a nearly daily basis by Radio Dabanga, despite various assertions that Darfur is settling into a more “peaceful” state.
[15] Schabas, William, “The Physical Element or Actus Reus of Genocide,” Genocide in International Law: The Crime of Crimes. (Cambridge UP, 2009)
This chapter explains the physical element (actus reus) and mental element (mens rea) that define the crime of genocide in the UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
[16] Scott, Jennifer, Shada Rouhani, Ashley Greiner, Katherine Albutt, Philipp Kuwert, Michele R Hacker, Michael VanRooyen, and Susan Bartels, “Respondent-driven sampling to assess mental health outcomes, stigma and acceptance among women raising children born from sexual violence-related pregnancies in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo” (BMJ Open 2015;5:e007057 doi:10.1136/bmjopen-2014-007057 | April 2015)
This study found high rates of depression, PTSD, anxiety and suicidality among women raising children from sexual violence-related pregnancies (SVRPs) in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. These findings and the data related to stigma toward the mother and child suggest that decreasing community stigma and increasing support to families following sexual violence may improve mental health in this population.