Virtually throughout Africa, life places an extra burden on the backs—or heads—of its women.
In few parts of the continent is that burden heavier than in Darfur, where a punishing war, tough, unyielding land, and a lack of development combine to make survival itself a daily challenge.
Much as elsewhere in rural Africa, it is the women who are seen far from the nearest settlement, with children strapped to their backs and carefully balanced loads on their heads, carrying home firewood, water and other essentials needed to get through the day. In Darfur, however, this age-old rhythm carries unsettling challenges.
In the dry season, water can be miles away, while the sparse vegetation scattered across the sandy, windswept scrubland often requires long journeys and strong legs to gather enough wood for the family’s needs. But the real challenge for Darfur’s women on such errands is their own safety. In the current lawlessness, women are vulnerable to attack as they venture steadily further from home in search of firewood, often in isolated areas where they become easy prey.
Last year, the problem became so bad that African Union peacekeepers established so-called “firewood patrols”, offering armed escorts for women, but these were later halted after a dispute broke out over whether such patrols were within the AU’s mandate for Darfur. As the region’s crippling violence sputters forward into its fifth year, one of its trademarks is an increase in sexual attacks.
At an international gathering of prominent women last month in The Hague, United Nations Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour addressed the issue, noting that women make the perilous daily journey because they feel they have no choice.
“They believe, they tell us, that if the men went out they would be killed, and that’s why it’s the women who expose themselves and they get raped,” Arbour said, according to an account of the meeting published by the Associated Press. ”Humanitarian actors on the ground continue to document the absolute rampant use of sexual violence by all groups.”
Although the death toll of the war in Darfur—variously estimated to be between tens of thousands to as many as 400,000—is believed to include more men than women, the loss of a male elder often leaves younger women with added responsibilities. It is a tribute to these women’s emotional strength that, somehow, they manage to shoulder the additional load.
A 32-year-old midwife, whose name is not used to assure her protection and who works at an International Medical Corps clinic on the outskirts of Nyala, is one example. Painfully shy and speaking in a soft voice, she related in an interview how she fled to Nyala in the summer of 2004 with her father and seven brothers and sisters in order to escape fighting in her home town about 100 miles to the south.
After renting a house here for his four other families, the woman said her father returned home to keep an eye on the family property, but he was quickly swept up in the fight. When news of his death reached Nyala, responsibility for the family fell to her, the eldest child. Educated as a midwife and respected by her peers as the brightest in her graduating class, she considers herself lucky to have a job, but it’s still not easy looking after six siblings and two young children of her own.
“When my Dad was alive, he took responsibility for everything,” she said. “Now it’s all on my shoulders. This is the hardest thing.”
While her younger brother now has a job and things are beginning to get a bit easier, the midwife says she knows that in war-torn Darfur, she needs to stay strong if her family is to survive. She realizes that it’s the same for many women in Darfur.
“In the camps, women gather roots, and in the rainy season they cultivate,” she said. “Even if a child gets sick, the only one who can help is the mother because the man is either dead or working somewhere else. It’s all on the women’s shoulders.”