Hot Updates and Education Portal: Women And Daughters Was Kidnapped

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Another was kidnapped with her 15-year-old sister and raped every 
night for five nights. A third was taken to a forest with her 12-year 
old daughter where both were raped.The woman who was abducted by soldiers and took to a military camp, tied up and raped repeatedly for two months.But the plight of perhaps thousands of South Sudanese women and girls
 from just a single state, abducted and subjected to repeated, brutal 
rape and slave-like working conditions has remained hidden until now.<br />
The abduction of women and girls for use as sex slaves -– some of 
them held indefinitely, tied up with hundreds of others in secret rape 
camps — is a disturbing new aspect of South Sudan’s 21-month conflict, 
already characterised by well-documented war crimes and human rights 
abuses.<br />

Nigeria’s ‘Chibok girls’, abducted by Boko Haram in April 2014, and 
Iraq’s Yazidi women taken as sex slaves by Islamic State are well-known.Dozens of interviews conducted by AFP in the northern Unity State 
reveal a systematic pattern of abduction and rape perpetrated by 
government soldiers and their allied militia during a recent offensive.The investigation focused on attacks by government forces but both 
sides have perpetrated ethnic massacres, recruited and killed children 
and carried out widespread rape, torture and forced displacement of 
populations to “cleanse” areas of their opponents.– Systematic abduction and rape –Nyabena’s experience is typical.The 30-year old mother was seized when soldiers attacked her village 
in Rubkona County in April. Men and boys were shot. Homes were looted 
and burned to the ground. Women and girls were rounded up. She was among
 40 taken from two neighbouring settlements and wells up with tears when
 she talks about being torn away from her five children.They were marched to Mayom County. Nyabena was held in Kotong, a 
stronghold of Major-General Matthew Puljang, commander of a tribal Bul 
Nuer militia aligned with South Sudan’s army, the SPLA, which has been 
battling rebels since December 2013.From April to July this year the SPLA and Puljang’s militia carried 
out an offensive that United Nations investigators described as a 
“scorched earth policy” in an August report.Fighting and flooding limits access to large parts of South Sudan, 
leading aid workers to refer to southern Unity State as “an information 
black-hole”A human rights investigator said: “Nobody knows what’s happening in 
Mayom County,” where many of the women were taken. One military expert 
estimated that “thousands of women” were abducted during the offensive.“In all the southern Unity counties it’s been the same: those women 
who escape are lucky. Those who don’t are raped and abducted or killed,”
 said the rights investigator. “The abduction of women seems to be 
systematic. It might be for a day, or longer, or forever.”Those who escaped recount their stories with numb, quiet voices. 
Nightmares plague some who wake up terrorised, thinking they are still 
captive.After her abduction Nyabena was put to work during the day, carrying 
looted goods and food, collecting water and hoeing farms. She was 
guarded constantly during the day and tied up at night with other women.“When one of the soldiers wanted to have sex he would come, untie us 
and take us away. When they were finished they would bring you back and 
tie you to the post again,” she said, stretching her elbows behind her 
back to show how she was bound. She said being raped by four men a night
 was common.<br />

Women who refused to work or fought against their rape would 
disappear. “In the morning we discover they are missing,” she said. Of 
the 40 she arrived with in April, 10 disappeared this way.<br />

– Victims as young as 12 –Nyamai, a 38-year old mother of five, was taken from her village in 
Koch County. She was guarded constantly and tied up frequently. As many 
as 10 soldiers would queue up at night for their turn raping her.“Please, let one guy deal with me, don’t come all of you,” she pleaded, and was beaten with a stick in response.In another case, three of Nyatuach’s unmarried, teenaged daughters 
were abducted in May during an attack on their village in Rubkona 
County. Two are still missing, but her 17-year old daughter escaped with
 three of her nieces.They returned “very sick, very thin”.“Their bodies were weak and they were leaking fluids from so many men
 having intercourse with them,” Nyatuach said, a common symptom of 
fistula, an incontinence-causing tear in the wall between the vagina and
 bladder or rectum, that can be caused by particularly violent rape.<br />

Others were raped repeatedly until, bleeding and unable to take any more, they were set free, or killed.“When they took me, those people used me,” the girl told her mother. 
Rebecca boiled some water and washed her daughter with hot cloths.“We can do nothing,” she told her. “It’s like that.”“When the girls were broken they would dispose of them,” said Nyatuach.Rebecca found her 12-year old daughter again the day after their village in Koch County was attacked.<br />

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