AU celebrates African Women's Day; Darfur gives a different version (By Mohamed Osman Adam)
Port Sudan, Sudan (PANA) - Africa is celebrating Women's Day, but the occasion couldn’t be more tragic for Sudanese women.
They are living the impacts of a war that has been raging for over two years with a stigmatization that would last for life. However, the African Union insists there is still a ray of hope ahead.
The daily scenes in Sudan show millions of Sudanese women soaked in tragedy after tragedy at a time. Ironically, Africa is celebrating the ‘‘Pan African Women's Day and the 63rd Anniversary of the Pan African Women's Organization’.’
Furthermore, the shocking images of women and withered, haggard-looking children riding donkey-pulled carts, the pictures of women living in make-shift grass-made huts, or just sitting under a stretched piece of plastic sheet, or a women dressed in ragged clothes, hand-crossed, gazing at the void horizon, or even worse, that of group of women in the Zamzam internally displaced persons camp, holding in their lap emaciated children, just waiting for the time the soul, tired of living in a heap of bones, is ready to join its creator, hunger and anger boiling inside them.
Furthermore, one would venture to say that images are nothing compared to the living reality of Sudanese women committing suicide because they were gang-raped and became pregnant and could not face their families and their community saddled with a stigmatization
Last month, it was reported that in one case in central Sudan “at least 45 women were raped in one area controlled by the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), of whom 19 were found to be pregnant when the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) took over the area in Khartoum”. But neither the families nor the victims could reveal and bring to the attention of the public, these cases because of social and community stigmatization. A network of independent doctors also revealed last month that 135 women, victims of rape have committed suicide, out of 679 cases of well-documented rape and gang rape.
The RSF and SAF have been at war since April 2023 and many efforts of the international community, including regional and sub-regional organisations, have succeeded in silencing the guns. The UN and US have said both sides have been committed atrocities in the war.
A member of the network of the Sudanese Doctors Union Provisional Committee, Dr Adeeba Ibrahim Al Sayed, was quoted by Tagpress.net, an independent news outlet focused on women and human rights issues, as revealing that 48 victims opted to perform abortion when the pregnancy was still at the early ages, while others gave birth and abandoned the babies for charity to adopt.
In its most recent report, the UN population Fund (UNFPA) asserted that more than 12 million people — primarily women and girls — are at risk of gender-based violence (GBV), while over 251,000 pregnant women are displaced, many without access to safe delivery services.
‘’UNFPA assessments and GBV audits reveal widespread service disruptions, critical supply shortages, and growing risks linked to sexual exploitation and inadequate shelter and sanitation.’’
On Pan-African Women's Day and the 63rd Anniversary of the Pan-African Women's Organisation, Mahmoud Ali Youssouf Chairperson of the African Union Commission, asserted that the African Union's theme for 2025, "Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations," finds perfect alignment with this year's Pan- African Women's Day theme, "Advancing Social and Economic Justice for African Women through Reparations."
He pointed out in a speech posted by the AU on Thursday that 63 years ago, visionary women gathered in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to establish what would become the Pan-African Women's Organisation (PAWO),
The choice of 31 July as ‘’Pan-African Women's Day anchors our annual reflection in the concrete historical moment when African women declared their collective agency and refused to accept marginalization in the struggle for freedom, he said.
‘’This date reminds us that women's efforts predate and inform our work, challenging us to recognise women not as beneficiaries of liberation but as its primary architects,’’ Mr. Youssouf said.
The 2025 AU theme, "Justice for Africans and People of African Descent Through Reparations," provides the overarching framework for understanding why advancing social and economic justice for African women through reparations is both historically necessary and strategically essential.
The AU has called on all stakeholders to come together in advancing reparative justice for African women, recognising this not only as a moral duty but as a strategic necessity for the realisation of Africa’s development agenda and the vision of an integrated, prosperous, and peaceful continent.
In recent report in May 2025, the medical and humanitarian charity, Doctors Without Borders, or MSF, cautioned that what is being reported is only the head of the mountain beneath the ocean, and that the real suffering would only come out after access is made possible or when the war ends.
It cited the case of women and girls in the Darfur region, Western Sudan, who it said are ‘’at near-constant risk of sexual violence’’. MSF also warned that violence against civilians continues to define the war in Sudan.
In its report the organisation stressed that many survivors who speak with MSF teams in Darfur and across the border in Chad share horrifying stories of brutal violence and rape. Most are women and girls, but men and boys are also at risk.
‘’The true scale of this crisis remains difficult to quantify because services for survivors are limited, and the extent of the suffering is beyond comprehension,’’ MSF said
However, the AU commissioner, Youssouf, has expressed optimism, stressing ,‘’The struggle continues, and together, we shall overcome.’’
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