Women rights advocate is advising South Sudanese men to be romantic to their wives and learn to seduce them for healthy sex.
In South Sudan, marital rape and force marriage has
continued facing vulnerabilities women and girls every day as most victims'
voices go unheard under the pressure of social stigma.
Marital rape is not criminalized under statutory or
customary laws the country despite the efforts to address conflict-related
sexual violence, the recognition and criminalization of marital rape.
Hellen Pita Taban, the deputy general manager for South
Sudan Pensions Fund, said that cases of marital rape in marriages result from
unaffectionate men.
“The South Sudanese men don't know how to prepare a woman
for sex. They just want to co-operate here. Sometimes you find a woman, why are
you kneeling, every time here. Is this how sex is supposed to be?” Pita
explained.
Pita made the remarks during the closing of a charter on
women’s demands in the permanent constitution making process on Friday in Juba.
“Yes, men should learn how to prepare a woman for sex. Even
chicken also prepare a woman for sex.”
While it’s a taboo in some communities, Pita cited that it
would be informative for men to help with domestic work in the family.
“If you find that a woman is tired, imagine you are coming
from the office. You are expected to go and do work. Then we should do, at
least we should be sharing some of the domestic work, if all of us are
official, to help each other,” she stated.
“The white men help their wives, that's why they love
themselves.”
For her part, Regina Ossa Lallo, the director general for
the Ministry of Gender, Child, and Social Welfare, pointed out that excess
alcohol use is one of the factors affecting the sexual health of women.
“When we say rape is happening is when you just delivered
and the husband is very, very drunk and wanted to sleep with you. Is that not
rape? If you are sick, you have been operated on and your husband comes very
drunk and wanted to sleep with you, is that not rape?” Ossa explained.
“So those are some of the things which we want to specify
very clearly. Of course he is your husband, he can have you anytime, but he
should have been in his right mind, not in a drunkard manner.”
According to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights
in South Sudan, it reported that women often bearing
children resulting from rapes, and notes that in many cases survivors have
contracted sexually transmitted infections including HIV.
It also revealed that women have been abandoned by husbands
and families and left destitute as those raped while pregnant suffered
miscarriages.
The Commission called on the authorities in South Sudan to
take the necessary steps to stop sexual violence against women and girls, by
addressing impunity and the drivers of conflict and insecurity.