Soldiers in South Sudan Are ‘Allowed to Rape Women as Payment’

Pro-government militias in South Sudan are allowing soldiers to rape women as payment, the UN rights office has claimed.

In a new report, the rights office described the country as ‘one of the most horrendous human rights situations in the world’, and extensively outlined how women were routinely raped by soldiers as payment for their services.

‘The assessment team received information that the armed militias… who carry out attacks together with the SPLA (South Sudanese army) commit violations under an agreement of ‘do what you can and take what you can’, the report said.

‘Most of the youth therefore also raided cattle, stole personal property, raped and abducted women and girls as a form of payment.’

The report contained detailed testimonies from rape victims in the country, who bravely recalled their harrowing ordeals.

The report said: ‘One woman explained how, eight months pregnant, she was severely beaten to the point that she began to hemorrhage and had a miscarriage. She added that she was then forced to immediately carry heavy goods.

‘Other women described being beaten with sticks and gun butts. One woman explained that her beating lasted more than one hour, “the men told me to lie down and when I refused they beat me and all three forced themselves on me.”‘

The report also described how some women were even physically sick as they recalled their horrific ordeals.

‘On one occasion an older woman became physically ill as she recalled events that had taken place; the interview was immediately stopped’, the report claimed.

‘Some survivors and witnesses gave testimonies of women being raped in front of their family members, or in front of their neighbors and friends, resulting not only in physical harm to the victim but also additional psychological trauma.’

UN human rights chief Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein has since warned that brutal rapes were being used as a systematic ‘instrument of terror and weapon of war.’

The latest revelation about human rights abuses in South Sudan comes in the same week that Amnesty International accused South Sudan government forces of deliberately suffocating more than 60 men and boys in a shipping container.

The organisation claims that 23 witnesses in the villages of Luale and Leer saw the men and boys being forced into the container with their hands tied, or saw their bodies being later dragged away and dumped.

The report said: ‘Witnesses described hearing the detainees crying and screaming in distress and banging on the walls of the shipping container, which they said had no windows or other form of ventilation.’

The newly formed country gained independence from Sudan in 2011 – but descended into civil war in December 2013, setting off widespread violence that has dogged the country ever since.