What Now for the Women of Darfur?

The Darfur peace talks or Qatar Process between the Sudanese government and the main rebel groups are disintegrating.  These talks that took place in Doha, Qatar were flawed from the beginning with key elements, and participants, for a true peace process not in place. Moreover, there is no clear and legitimate ownership of the peace process.  The success of these talks should be of paramount importance to the international community to prevent any further killings, displacement and rape of the women of Darfur. The International Criminal Court has issued an indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity.  This arrest warrant has lead to Bashir’s decision to forcibly remove a number of vital humanitarian agencies from Darfur.  According to the UN, this will leave over a million people vulnerable to starvation with no access medical care or sufficient water supplies.   I dread to think where this will leave the already insecure women in the IDP refugee camps that depend on these agencies for security.  They don’t just depend on them for food security either, their presence provided a small deterrent for the Janjaweed and other Khartoum backed militias who threaten these women on a daily basis.  What will happen now when they have to leave the camp to collect firewood or food or whatever they need in order to survive?  The sheer scale of the rapes is incomprehensible, the non-profit group Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), has released new data on the rape of Darfuri refugees.  After interviewing nearly 90 women at the Farchana Refugee Camp in eastern Chad, PHR found that 19 percent of respondents had been raped in Darfur, 17 percent had been raped in Chad, and that most rapes occurred outside of the refugee camp when they left to collect firewood  . Experts on the panel noted that the current humanitarian aid crisis will likely lead to an increase in sexual crimes against women. And the situation will get worse now as resources become increasingly scarce and there is also the threat of back-lash from the Khartoum government over the Bashir so called Western influence.Was what is there to help the women of Darfur?  Sexual violence against the women of Darfur has been used as a tool of war throughout this conflict which has left 300,000 and over 2.7 million displaced over six years.