Women in South Sudan are subject to limited access to political, economic, social resources due to the country’s rigid patriarchal structure. Nevertheless, women have been negotiating their agency and influence for decades, playing a crucial role in state-building, peacebuilding, and development processes. Beyond their formal role as agents of peace, considering the informal dimensions through which South Sudanese women influence peace and conflict are vastly significant for aid actors to grasp conflict dynamics and the…
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CSRF Research Repository
The CSRF Research Repository aims to support greater contextual knowledge for policy makers, programme managers, and implementers by providing a searchable repository of research, analysis, and resources, and providing periodic updates on new research and analysis.
This report explores the practice of bride prices in South Sudan and its related social, economic, and political implications on gender relations and violent conflict. The report suggests that the bride price appears to contribute to gender-based violence and violent conflict in the country. The report also provides insights on how stakeholders can tackle these challenges linked to the practice of bridge price. Read more here
This report examines the extent to which sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) intersects with the ongoing cycles of violence in South Sudan and cultural norms. Using the case study of Wau town, the report finds a high prevalence of SGBV and identifies challenges that hamper efforts to address it, as well as provides recommendations on how to address the SGBV, including rape, through the legal, social and cultural measures. Read here
This report aims at shedding a light on needs and perspective of local women in South Sudan in Bor and Malakal, as well as offering recommendations for aid actors. The report argues that despite the existence of several laws protecting their safety, women still feel insecure. This is partly due to the lack of enforcement of said laws, the entrenched cultural norms, and the struggle of women to claim their rights. Read more here
Focusing on the governor of Western Bar El Ghazel state, Sarah Cleto, this Situation Update discusses successes and challenges of her administration. Despite her grassroots popularity, members of the opposition are calling for her removal. Attempts to replace Cleto, however, have been stalled by internal power struggles—highlighting the complexities of Western Bahr el Ghazal’s ethnic politics. Read here
Focusing on gender in South Sudan, this meta-analysis provides an overview of the literature available on gender dynamics with a special attention on women. It looks at their role in politics and peacebuilding, conflict related sexual violence (CRSV) and sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), and explores the changing roles of women in times of conflict. The analysis concludes with a brief assessment of gendered access to education and its evolution over time.
This review report discusses the prevalence of gender-based violence (GBV), including its forms and drivers in South Sudan.Key takeaways: Women and girls in South Sudan face multiple forms of violence across their life course and in multiple settings, with serious impacts on health and well-being. Women and girls in South Sudan experience high levels of violence. Groups who experience intersecting inequalities are at heightened risk of violence (e.g., adolescent girls, women and girls with disabilities,…
With governance increasingly regarded as co-governance, states’ capacity to steer, correct, and discipline a wide range of self-governing actors becomes crucial for states’ effectiveness, efficiency, and democracy. This article investigates that capacity and the relationship between formal institutions and customary self-governance in areas of limited statehood. In South Sudan, the field of land governance can be regarded as an area of limited statehood. As land relations are closely connected to clan structures and intra-familial relationships,…
This article explores the everyday politics of protecting women from war and atrocities, based on ethnographic work within the United Nations Protection of Civilians sites, South Sudan. It examines the heterogenous ways that peacekeepers and displaced people conceptualised and enacted women’s rights and protection inside the sites. Protection and gender were variously interpreted, resisted, and transformed. But sexual and gender-based violence remained rife in these makeshift ‘safe havens’. These experiences demonstrate that international peacebuilders cannot…
Examples from Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, the DRC, Nigeria, South Sudan and Sudan Key findings • Food-related livelihood activities such as tending fields, foraging for food or fetching water make women and girls vulnerable to conflict-related sexual violence attacks in conflicts where conflict parties use such violence. • The scarcity of food during conflict forces women and girls to travel further from their villages in search of food or water, increasing the likelihood of their…
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