UN police help to raise awareness on Sexual and Gender Based Violence

26 Jan 2018

UN police help to raise awareness on Sexual and Gender Based Violence

Liatile Putsoa

“She was only nine years old.”

“Raped! Raped by a 30-something year old man. This man is HIV positive.”

Jacqueline Bullen Gaga, a police officer from the South Sudan National Police (SSNP) in Juba, recounts details of an investigation she is leading.

“We see cases like this all time,” she says.

South Sudan has been suffering ongoing conflict since civil war erupted in December 2013, only two years after it gained independence.

Rape and other forms of sexual violence have been deployed systematically and strategically as a weapon of war, with women and children suffering the most.  

The UN Mission in South Sudan, in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), organised a five-day sensitization workshop on Community Policing, Sexual and Gender Based Violence and Human Rights for members of the SSNP.  

“Gender related issues and gender violence are a priority,” said Nina Maria Sarianne Pelkonen from the UNMISS Gender, Children Vulnerable Persons Protection Unit. “We know that the position of women in South Sudan needs to be improved and a lot of awareness-raising is needed.”

Valantino Olumpio Jada, a South Sudanese police officer, said that “there is a real connection between what we have learnt in the workshop and our job as police officers”.

“I will take what I learnt about investigating sexual and gender based violence and protecting victims when working on my cases,” he said.

Ms. Pelkonen said that one of the focuses of the workshop was to help stop women and children who have suffered from sexual and gender based violence from being stigmatized.

 

“We have to leave behind the bad habits of society and start breaking the chains of stigma,” she said.

 

Ms Pelkonen said that the participation of female police officers is particularly important as they are more accessible to the women and children who are commonly victims of sexual and gender based violence in South Sudan.