All too often, people in South Sudan are unable to have their voices heard outside their communities; there’s often a significant disconnect between local communities and national and international level policymakers.
These case studies from two of our programming locations in Western Bahr el Ghazal and Warrap states help to give voice to community members who are affected by differing forms of insecurity in South Sudan.
Atoch, Chris, Matilda, Patrick and Chief Pasquele tell us about a number of the local security issues their communities are facing – including criminality, robbery, gang activity, lack of access to basic services and violence against women – and the work they’re undertaking in challenging circumstances to address these.
Atoch is the Chairlady of a women’s group in Warrap State and Deputy Chairperson of her local community security working group (CSWG) established by Saferworld and the Kuac Area Development Agency (KUADA) to help communities address their safety and security concerns. Atoch returned to her former home town in 2011 for the referendum and subsequent independence of South Sudan to find that few employment opportunities existed.
"My name is Atoch. I am 39 and I have four children. I am a member of the CSWG and I am in charge of women’s affairs, so if any issues are affecting women then they come to me and I take them to the CSWG. My main job as I am the Chairlady is looking at how women can take up positions of power and also the issue of domestic or gender-based violence. We came from Khartoum and starting a new life has not been easy. We came with a lot of things – we brought them with us from the north; our bed, chair, seat. Now we sell them one by one to survive as we are not working. My husband isn’t working, I’m not working; so we take the chair to the market, and if we sell it we can have food for the month. Even the bags we brought our things in we have had to sell. Before we had jobs, and I worked in a factory and [had] an income. Here security is also hard. There is only one police station, and it is under the tree. You can see the community here is very large, we need more policemen so in the case of misunderstandings or crime, people would be able to access the police. Physically the area is too big to police with the current capacity, it is made up of many blocks. As a CSWG, we discuss issues that are affecting the community, people come to me with issues and I go to the Secretary and the Chairman. The Chairman calls the meeting and we say what the issues are, from there we go and brainstorm how to tackle them to try to improve safety and security for the communities. We also talk about our expectations. We pass this information on to KUADA and also we try to talk to the Governor about the problems we are facing. A main safety concern is the lack of water. This really affects women as mainly it is us who gather the water. Here there is only one functioning borehole. An NGO built seven for us when we first moved to the area, but that was in 2011 and now they have broken down. Before when it was functioning, people are queuing, and you can see they are okay with that. I used to send my children, but now when we go, especially in the evening; I prefer to go myself as people are fighting because there isn’t enough water to go around. Sometimes neighbours challenge me when I am collecting water. A woman was abusing me and I said to her I am a member of the CSWG and then she walked away because she knows we are trying to work on this issue. Another time I tried to stop a fight over the borehole and I got hit, and lost a tooth. As a community we are trying to raise money to help and rebuild the borehole." Chris* is a 22-year-old community security working group (CSWG) member, student and assistant at a customary court in Western Bahr el Ghazal State, South Sudan. “My name is Chris, I’m 22 years old, and I am a student at the university studying agriculture and English language. I am a member of the community security working group (CSWG) and also a youth representative at the local customary court where my role is to coordinate the court sessions and support the Chief in his administrative work. We hold the court four times a month, every Friday. As a CSWG, we meet once a month at the meeting established by Unity Cultural and Development Centre (UCDC) and Saferworld but we also have additional meetings depending on the issue we are working on as a community. We report incidents to the Chief if we cannot solve them. He then reports them to the police. Before we started the CSWG and before the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) community policing programme started in Wau, the relationship between communities and the police was very strained, but now it has improved. As you can see just by us (points), there are police around and now it is easier to report cases to the police. We can call them and tell them there is a problem and [the police] need to get here, and the police will come. So I do see a more positive working relationship with the police and the police themselves seem responsive to us. But for community security to really be successful in future, the police need three things to be trained sufficiently. Firstly there must be an increase in the number of academies for the police to receive training in the law. At the moment most police have a limited grasp of what the constitution and South Sudanese laws are, most of them don’t understand that the police role is to arrest but not to judge; in some cases you’ll find the police acting as both. So in my opinion to improve community safety the police need to be trained, this is fundamental. The second aspect is legal experts need to be deployed to police academies who have been supported by the international community to be trained in how to be a lawyer for communities. The third aspect is we need an increase in community policing. Communities need to be empowered to take care of their safety and also be given some technical trainings and advice on how to work to reduce crimes in their communities. Before Saferworld and UCDC worked with us and we formed the CSWG, there were lots of killings, theft at night and alcoholism. These are still issues in the area but we have been able to work together on them and I think the magnitude has been reduced. The major problem we have at the moment is theft; people breaking into shops at night and issues around gangs still persist. The gangs are made up of young people. I think this happens for two reasons; one is economic hardship, which forces some guys to become gang members because their parents are unable to pay for school fees and the way of survival at their home is tough. They can’t find food so end up gravitating towards gangs. Then the second major reason is youth unemployment. Most of the gang members are actually university graduates but they cannot find jobs. As a CSWG, we want to work with the gangs and the youth; we want to do a campaign about small arms [and light weapons] and the impact of being in a gang.” *not his real name "My name is Matilda*. I am 37 years old and live in Warrap State. I have seven children. I am a member of the community security working group (CSWG) and the Deputy Chairperson. Originally, I was from here, but then we lived in Khartoum for some years. In 2011, after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (between Sudan and South Sudan), I returned home. When we first came back there were problems with people who already lived here, but now, three years on, we are part of the community and there are no problems. When we first came, this [area] was bush land; there were no food sources or water. It was not safe but we have worked to make it safe - we can even sleep outside. In most of the cases that the CSWG deals with, I represent the women. They come to me with issues, and also when there is something they need to know. For example, there was a government labour scheme that affected women so I was in charge of telling them the message. Women come to us with a lot of problems, there are domestic problems but also women don’t have the skills they need so they struggle to get employment. As a CSWG, we meet once a month. We started in 2012. At first we faced suspicion, people wanted to know what we are doing meeting and what are our motivations; but gradually over time we have built up the trust of the community – it is clear we are trying to do good for everyone. We work on different issues but one that is frequently coming up is around water. There are disputes at the borehole sites; in most cases we can handle it. We are working with people to find a solution, but sometimes when it is really bad, the government has to come in. There is competition at the boreholes, everyone needs water and people do not want to queue – they want to be the first. As there are few sites what you see is children queuing for water, then they fight and their mothers and families get involved and quickly it escalates. I listen to them and hear their stories then I take it to the CSWG to see if we can solve the problem as a group. There was a case of a man who was drinking and beating his wife. We took it to the CSWG but then we contacted the police and judge who went to him and set a mandate that he must stop or he would face imprisonment. Outside of this we have other issues in the community; there is a lot of theft, particularly in the market places, but now we have a relationship with the police I am less fearful. We are a committee, so honestly I could not say for the future what we will work on as we all must decide this together; this is how we can motivate people in the future by looking at things together. We are trying to build relationships with the police and communities, but we would like an office so we can keep our documents there. I am happy as I am contributing to the security of the area, and even though it is voluntary, I like the job." Matilda talks to community security working group members * Note that names and locations have been changed. Patrick* is Chairperson of a community security working group (CSWG) in Warrap State. He is 51 years old and lives with his three wives and 14 children. The area he lives in is made up of mainly returnees – South Sudanese people who returned from northern Sudan for the referendum and subsequent independence of South Sudan in 2011. “When we arrived here in 2011, the communities of the returnees gave my name to the government as someone who they wanted to be their representative. Those who are in the local town have cattle; returnees when we were first here we came with nothing. There are no factories that we can work in like there were in Khartoum so it was hard but we feel now this is our home. People come to me with problems which range from issues around adultery, girls being taken [for marriage], money issues and loans, cattle, domestic violence, stealing. I take these problems to the CSWG and if there is a problem that we cannot solve, we now have the connections and we can call the police. People had some misconceptions about our work when we first started in 2012, but now they understand the role we are playing in community safety. When we formed the CSWG, all the community members were called and I was selected by my community to act as the Chairman. It is a volunteer role but I enjoy it and I keep trying to encourage others to volunteer. The major problem we face as returnees here actually stems from the lack of employment opportunities. It affects every aspect of people’s lives and it means people turn to stealing. It also impacts our health as we can’t pay for medication, for example for malaria. But the other issues we can solve, we do try to. As a CSWG, we have had successes on three major issues. When people are fighting over resources, like access to boreholes and water, we calm them down. We get people to try to respect each other and work as a community to find a solution. If we cannot do that, then I contact the customary Chief on behalf of the CSWG who also supports us to try and find a solution deciding who was in the wrong. The second major issue is cattle theft because here in South Sudan people will not steal money but they will steal cattle. When we feel there are thieves, or when people have had things stolen, we go out and through the CSWG members, we warn the neighbourhood to be aware of crime and alert them. Then of course there is the issue of domestic violence and violence against women and girls. We work to try to stop this, we try to step in and work with the family to find a solution that works for everyone. The CSWG is a mechanism through which people can air disputes and it calms people down as we try to address them. But we are facing challenges. At the moment there are no detention centres so people who commit crimes are often tied up under a tree when apprehended. But the community outweighs the police, so when this happens it is hard to protect the accused from retaliation from communities. This happened with a man who was accused of raping a girl; the community attacked him because obviously they felt very angry. We need a protection centre or somewhere the police can take criminals. At the moment we have real issues with access to resources, roads, schools, hospitals, centres for the youth, water taps and tanks; it causes outbreaks of conflict. We would love to see this improve but in reality the government is focused on the conflict at the moment so there are no resources coming through to us. We are trying to promote justice, telling people that if you take things by force, this will cause problems. We are also building relationships with us and the police in the community, but we need to expand this work. I would like to see this initiative extended throughout the wider area, as while we have had an impact on crime in our area where the CSWG is working, other neighbouring areas are still committing crimes.” Patrick's grandchildren * Note that names and locations have been changed. Chief Pasquele Udo Maktap presides over the local customary court in Jebel Kheir in Wau, Western Bahr el Ghazal State, South Sudan. Now 82 years old in an independent South Sudan, he has lived in Wau since his birth there under British rule. Across South Sudan, customary courts operate alongside statutory courts, often dealing with what are classed as ‘social’ issues like marital disputes, elopement and domestic violence. In reality however, the remit of these traditional, customary courts and their relationship to the formal, statutory legal system is often very unclear. "The court meets once a week on Fridays, and I see roughly 10-15 cases, some of the cases may run over to Saturday or the next week if they are long. There are different levels of crime – here in my court we deal with what are seen as social issues. If the case has a high degree of crime I refer it to the high court, to the judge. Two police officers attend my court so they can take those who are sent through to the criminal process to prison. If the cases are lower levels of crime then I deal with them here. Most of the cases we deal with here relate to domestic issues – roughly 85-90% of them. There are a lot of issues at the family level, for example one man can marry one or two wives. If this happens the first wife may be left uncared, or perhaps the second is not a formal wife and so if the man decides he doesn’t want to be with her he sends her away and she is left destitute. People come to me with these sorts of cases to rule on what should happen. A lot of the issues we deal with are not punishable by imprisonment. But they come to us and so we deal with them. For example in this case of domestic violence which has come to me, the man has been beating his wife over a continued period, in this case I fined the man heavily, and warned him that if he does it again he will be referred to the criminal system and the police and put in jail. "There can be no peace without justice." The presence of the police in the court is very important. The community’s perception is that the police are the guarantors of the Chief and also protect him, because in a court you’re handing out judgements. Without police support the courts would struggle because defendants may become violent, people may decide to interrupt the court proceeding; so the police presence is a guarantee of security for the Chief and also for the communities themselves attending the court."
These case studies from two of our programming locations help to give voice to community members who are affected by differing forms of insecurity in South Sudan. Too often their voices are not heard outside of their communities; there’s often a significant disconnect between local communities in South Sudan and national and international level policymakers. These case studies illustrate a number of the security issues their communities are facing – including criminality, robbery, gang activity, lack of access to basic services and violence against women – and the work they’re undertaking in challenging circumstances to address these jointly, supported by Saferworld and our partner civil society organisations through our community security programme.
Find out more about our work in South Sudan.
Photograph: Marcus Perkins/Saferworld
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