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Women’s Commission Applauds U.S. Declaration of Genocide in Darfur; World Must Do More to Protect

New York, NY

The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children welcomes the United States’ decision to declare genocide in Darfur and urges that the world provide adequate funding to help the 1.2 million Darfurians displaced from their homes, as well as the nearly 200,000 refugees in eastern Chad. Funding must include care and treatment for survivors of the widespread and systematic rape of women and girls by the Arab militia, the Janjaweed, as well as education for children and young people.

“The case is clear; the world can waste time no longer in helping those displaced from their homes and living in dangerous and often life-threatening conditions,” says Women’s Commission Executive Director, Carolyn Makinson. “The United States, for its part, must provide more funding to address the atrocities in Darfur and to protect those in dire need of assistance. That funding must include reproductive health care for the thousands of rape survivors and life-saving medical attention for women suffering from complications of pregnancy and child birth in Darfur as well as for those who have escaped to eastern Chad.”

A Women’s Commission mission to eastern Chad earlier this year found that reproductive health care for the refugees who managed to escape the violence was nearly non-existent, despite the recognition of pervasive rape in Darfur. Adequate funding is crucial to ensure this lifesaving care is available in the crisis.

Displaced and refugee women and children are most at risk of abuse, abduction and rape, forced marriage, exploitation and violence because of the insecurity of their living conditions and the loss of communal or familial ties. Adolescent girls are the most vulnerable and often the most ignored during a crisis.

Education is key to helping protect all children and adolescents amid a conflict and must also be given priority, even in the most dire circumstances.

“The importance of education and reproductive health care in protecting the displaced in situations like Darfur cannot be emphasized enough,” says Sandra Krause, director of the Women’s Commission’s reproductive health project, who visited the region in April. “But without adequate funding, lifesaving programs can’t be enacted. The recognition of genocide is not enough; the United States must match its words with action and do all it can to protect the lives of the most vulnerable in Darfur.”