As Sudan’s conflict enters its fourth year, a painful truth has become impossible to ignore. Sexual violence is no longer a hidden consequence of war. It has become one of its most brutal and defining features.
Findings from UN Women reveal a staggering escalation in gender based violence. The number of women and girls in need of support after experiencing such abuse has nearly doubled in the past two years and increased fourfold since the conflict began. Behind these numbers are lives interrupted, dignity violated, and futures rewritten in silence.
This reality emerges from the voices of 85 women led organizations working across Sudan, particularly in heavily affected regions such as Darfur and Kordofan.
Their accounts are not distant reports but lived experiences from the front lines. Nearly two thirds reported a sharp rise in incidents of sexual violence during 2025, while half observed a further escalation in 2026.
Women and girls are no longer safe in the ordinary spaces of life. They are attacked in their homes, on their journeys, and even in moments of survival while seeking food, water, and healthcare. What should sustain life has, for many, become a source of danger.
As one humanitarian voice from UN Women describes it:
“Sexual violence is being used as a tactic of war, leaving deep physical, psychological, and generational scars on women and girls.”
The broader humanitarian crisis continues to deepen. More than 4.3 million women and girls have been displaced within Sudan. In 2026 alone, an estimated 17.1 million people require humanitarian assistance. For many, especially those trapped in active conflict zones, access to essential services such as food, shelter, and medical care is severely limited or entirely out of reach.
And yet, even in the midst of this devastation, women are still holding communities together.
Women led organizations remain at the heart of humanitarian response, reaching close to 20 million people across the country. Their work goes beyond immediate relief. They provide food, deliver medical and psychosocial care, support survivors through trauma, facilitate local conflict resolution, and negotiate humanitarian access in areas where formal systems have collapsed.
They are doing the work of survival, often without the safety to survive themselves.
An overwhelming 99 percent of these organizations report severe operational challenges. Insufficient funding, administrative barriers, and persistent security threats continue to limit their efforts. In 2025, around 85 percent experienced funding reductions or cuts, further weakening their capacity to respond. The risks are deeply personal. One in five women working in these roles has received direct threats.
Despite all this, they continue.
Another critical concern is the exclusion of women from formal peace processes. Over the past three years, Sudanese women have had little to no meaningful representation in official negotiations, despite being among those most affected and most active in sustaining their communities.
Any path toward peace must confront this reality. Ending the conflict cannot be separated from ending the impunity that allows such violence to persist. As long as sexual violence remains a calculated tactic of war, peace will remain fragile and incomplete.
UN Women continues to deliver essential services on the ground, including protection, psychosocial support, and emergency assistance for women and girls. However, the scale of the crisis demands more. It requires urgent global attention, stronger protection systems, accountability for perpetrators, and sustained investment in women led initiatives.
Because in Sudan today, survival is not only about enduring war. It is about resisting a reality where a woman’s body has become part of the battlefield. And still, even there, women endure.
By UMM E HABIBA | Punjab, Pakistan
