Human Rights Watch reported on Monday that sexual violence in Darfur continues to be a constant threat for women and girls. According to HRW, the vast majority of crimes against women are left unpunished.

The report documents violence against girls as young as 11 being committed by government soldiers and militias allied with them. The BBC reports that more than 200,000 people have died in Darfur since 2003 as a result of war and genocidal policies and some 2.5 million people have been displaced.

HRW is calling on the government of Sudan and the United Nations (UN)-African Union peacekeeping force (UNAMID) to address the issue of widespread sexual violence by condemning these crimes and enforcing the condemnation with the end of impunity for perpetrators of sexual violence.

This Sunday, April 13, on the National Mall in Washington, DC, the Save Darfur Coalition, Amnesty International USA and numerous other human-rights groups will stage a Global Day for Darfur. The core of the action will be Amnesty's interactive exhibition, Displaced, which will be set up in five tents on the Mall. In addition to personal narratives and photographs, items of everyday life from regional refugee camps will be on display and displaced residents of Darfur will offer first-hand testimony of the harrowing reality of the region. Visitors will be encouraged to consider how displaced civilians cope with safety, medical issues, food, education for children and other everyday concerns.

Activists will also be calling on President Bush to fulfill his pledge to help end the violence by influencing the speedy progress (and equipping) of the UNAMID peacekeeping force. "President Bush has promised over and over again to protect the people of Darfur," said Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA. "He is running out of time and the people of Darfur, especially children who have known nothing but conflict, need the full peacekeeping force to protect them now."

Watch this short video for a sense of why the world needs to act.

Then, click here for info on how you can participate in the Global Day for Darfur and check out the Save Darfur coalition's suggestions for how you can help end the suffering.

Comments (8)

1. "Activists will also be calling on President Bush to fulfill his pledge to help end the violence by influencing the speedy progress (and equipping) of the UNAMID peacekeeping force."

   OK, equipping UNAMID with what?

   Posted by ACook at 04/09/2008 @ 5:44pm

2. Posted by HAPPY2 04/09/2008 @ 6:11pm

   HAPPY, this is one issue that really irks me. The liberal groups want our troops out of Iraq immediately and yet Amnesty International have no qualms about involving our troops in a very protracted civil war because the peace negotiations have soured. This is the same crap they used regarding Bosnia in which we supplied the "bulk" of the peace-keeping troops. Mind you, Clinton circumvented the US Congress by going through NATO and used active duty troops because the Europeans cried they couldn't handle it by themselves.

   This gives me great pause because my oldest son is a Marine.

   Posted by ACook at 04/09/2008 @ 7:37pm

3. Posted by HAPPY2 04/09/2008 @ 8:08pm

   Thank you HAPPY. While Darfur has my deepest and most sincere sympathy and my heart goes out to them, the only way the violence gets tamp down is if China gets in there and tells Sudan (as their biggest trading partner) to end the civil war, or all trade will discontinue until a lasting peacing is in place.

   Posted by ACook at 04/09/2008 @ 8:18pm

4. I have no doubt the USMC will get his head on straight one way or the other ACook.

   BTW you're spot on, their largest and most influential trading partner needs to tell them to knock it off. But China needs Sudanese raw materials like it needs them from all over the world, and they are better capitlists than us, and much more ruthless. Plus it's hard to argue a point of ending repression when you're so involved in it in your own country.

   Posted by yutsano at 04/09/2008 @ 9:00pm

5. No more foreign "adventures"...none for the Right and none for the Left.

   How do you sell the American public on "peacekeeping missions" to places like Darfur, where the opponents now know that all they need to do is mount an insurgent war for a year or two and public support for the mission will end?

   How do you answer the questions once thrown out...."Did Sudan attack us on 9/11?"...."Do they have WMDs?"...."Omar al-Bashir may be a 'bad guy' but does that mean we go to war with him?"...."What's the exit strategy?"

   The Right couldn't answer them about Iraq (still can't)...how does the Left answer them for a Darfur intervention?

   Posted by Mask at 04/10/2008 @ 09:20am

6. Darfur, microcredit loan-sharks and Woody Allen's creepy son [tinyurl.com]

   Posted by lnp3 at 04/10/2008 @ 1:56pm

7. My link didn't work. Just go to:

   http://louisproyect.wordpress.com

   and look for "Darfur, microcredit loan-sharks and Woody Allen's creepy son"

   Posted by lnp3 at 04/10/2008 @ 1:58pm

8. "Stop the Violence"...words are cheap indeed. The only real-world way of stopping something like this is brute kinetic force and lots of it - something the UN can't do. But this is not something I want to get involved in. It's not worth putting up with the constant whining from the left for something that has almost no upside for the people who have to do the dirty work.

   Posted by pyeatte at 04/14/2008 @ 11:50pm