South Sudan’s future depends on treatment of women: Pope
Francis calls for women and girls to be respected, protected and honoured during a meeting with some of the two million people who have been forced by fighting and flooding to flee their homes
Pope Francis warned on Saturday that South Sudan’s future depends on how it treats its women, as he highlighted their horrific plight in a country where sexual violence is rampant, child brides are common and the maternal mortality rate is the highest in the world.
On his second and penultimate day in Africa, Francis called for women and girls to be respected, protected and honoured during a meeting in the South Sudanese capital Juba with some of the 2 million people who have been forced by fighting and flooding to flee their homes.
The encounter was one of the highlights of Francis’ three-day visit to the world’s youngest country and one of its poorest.
Joined by Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and the Presbyterian head of the Church of Scotland, Francis is on a historic ecumenical pilgrimage to draw global atention to the country’s plight and encourage its stalled peace process.
Greeted by song and high-pitched ululation, Francis urged the hundreds of people gathered at Freedom Hall to be “seeds of hope,” that will soon bear fruit for the country of 12 million.
“You will be the trees that absorb the pollution of years of violence and restore the oxygen of fraternity,” he said.
The aim of the ecumenical visit is to encourage South Sudan’s political leaders to implement a 2018 peace accord ending a civil war that erupted ater the overwhelmingly Christian country gained independence from Sudan in 2011.
The head of the UN mission in South Sudan, Sara Beysolow Nyanti, told Francis that women and girls were “extremely vulnerable” to sexual and gender-based violence. She said they were at risk for rape when they were just out doing their daily routines and chores.
“If the women of South Sudan are given an opportunity to develop, to have space to be productive, South Sudan will be transformed,” she told Francis.
The pope picked up her theme in his remarks, saying women are the key to South
Sudan’s peaceful development, but need the right opportunities. “Please, protect, respect, appreciate and honour every woman, every girl, young woman, mother and grandmother,” he said. “Otherwise, there will be no future.”
According to Unicef, roughly 75% of girls in South Sudan don’t go to school because their parents prefer to keep them at home and set them up for a marriage that will bring a dowry for the family.
Half of South Sudan’s women are married before age 18, and they then face the world’s highest maternal mortality rate.
The United Nations Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan said in a report last year that overall, women and girls here live a “hellish existence.”
“South Sudanese women are physically assaulted while being raped at gunpoint, typically held down by men while being abused by others.
“They are told not to resist in the slightest way, and not to report what happened, or they will be killed,” the report said.
“It’s hard to convey the level of trauma of South Sudanese women whose bodies are literally the war zone,” commission chair Yasmin Sooka said late last year.
Francis began his day meeting the priests and nuns who minister to South Sudan’s people, urging them to accompany their flocks by joining in their suffering.
At the St. Theresa Cathedral, he heard of the sacrifice nuns have made over the years, including the 2021 ambush killings of Sisters Mary Daniel Abut and Regina Roba Luate of the Congregation of the Sacred Heart Sisters.
Sister Regina Achan, from the same congregation, said Francis’ visit would encourage other sisters to keep serving the people of South Sudan. “We stand with them because we are their voices, we don’t run away at difficult times,” said Achan.
Francis’ visit, she added, would awaken “serenity and peace in our hearts that we may work for peace and justice in this country.”