1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background and Context
South Sudan, as the youngest nation in the world, has known conflict for most of its independent existence, though the conflict started long before independence and was heightened with the discovery of oil in 1979. This prolonged conflict and hard-won independence has led to pervasive human rights abuses, political stability, corruption, food insecurity, poor infrastructure, and weak or failing justice, education, and healthcare institutions.
The education system in South Sudan is characterized by low investment, and one of the highest rates globally of school-aged children who stop their education early.
Cases of COVID-19 were first reported in South Sudan on April 2, 2020, and by June 2020, the number of cases had risen to more than 2,000. As of July 2022, there have been 17,733 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in South Sudan, 138 of which resulted in death.1 However, these figures do not reflect the reality on the ground because testing is still very expensive with the lowest-price options available being approximately $40 for non-citizens and $25 for locals. Only during contact tracing will local community members who were exposed get free COVID-19 testing.
Before the first incidence was reported, the government of South Sudan formed the High Level COVID-19 Task Force, which issued a curfew from 7pm each night to 6am the next morning. Many firms, businesses, and markets
1 WHO Coronavirus (COVID-19) Dashboard. Accessed 20 July 2022. https://covid19.who.int/region/afro/ country/ss
were forced closed, and only essential services and shops selling foods were allowed to remain open. The task force also closed the borders and suspended international and domestic flights.2
During the first few weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic food prices skyrocketed in Wau. For example, a kilogram of sugar, which was 300 SSP before the pandemic, rose to 800 SSP, and a bar of soap that cost 350 SSP before COVID-19 rose to 600 SSP in 2021.
Even as the immediate medical dangers of the pandemic have seemed to subside, by July 2022 the price of sugar and soap remained high with a kilogram of sugar going for approximately 600 SSP and a bar of soap for approximately 700 SSP.
According to the World Bank, the pandemic plunged the South Sudanese economy into a particularly dire state of decline, which coincided with several climate shocks (floods and locusts), subnational violence, and a decline in the global demand for oil (which accounts for approximately 90 percent of the central government’s revenue and about one third of national GDP), alongside the fact that the country never fully recovered from the food insecurity brought on by the conflict in 2013.3
2 SUDD Institute. (2021). The Economic Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic in South Sudan: An Update.
3 https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/pressrelease/2021/07/02/south-sudan-economic-updateeconomic-decline-covid-19-and-conflict-havenegative-impact-on-food-insecurity-and-livelihoo
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Due to these economic shocks and the movement restrictions many lost their jobs at a time when acute food insecurity was already high.4
Across the globe women and girls have been negatively impacted by the pandemic. In particular, there has been a notable rise in the use of violence against women and girls and an increase in the demand for women and girls to perform unpaid care-work, particularly with the increased care needs of the sick and elderly combined with the long periods of school closures.5 These findings hold true for women and girls in Wau as there
5 UNICEF. (2020). Policy Brief: The Impact of COVID-19 on Women.
has been an increased number of reports of violence against women and girls received by the SIHA One-stop Center in Wau.
While the center received 286 VAWG survivors in 2019, this number rose to 620 survivors in 2020, 578 of which were girls, and 604 survivors in 2021, 585 of which were girls.6 As noted in a UNICEF Policy Brief on the Impact of COVID-19, “all of these impacts are further amplified in contexts of fragility, conflict, and emergencies where social cohesion is already undermined, and institutional capacity and services are limited.”7
6 OSC – SIHA Report Summary Statistics for years 20192021.
7 UNICEF. (2020). Policy Brief: The Impact of COVID-19 on Women.
1.2 Purpose and Scope of the Study
This study was undertaken within the scope of SIHA Network’s project: Challenging Patterns and Drivers of Sexual Violence against Women and Girls in Wau, South Sudan, funded by the UN Trust Fund, to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on school-age girls in Wau, South Sudan. The project sought to inspire community-level change in norms and attitudes towards violence against women and girls and promote gender equality.
The findings of this study shall inform and guide SIHA Network’s interventions on behalf of girls in South Sudan and in Wau post COVID-19 and may be used to guide engagement by other actors who seek to improve the situation of school-age girls in Wau in the wake of the pandemic.
4 WFP South Sudan. (2020). COVID-19: Potential impact on South Sudan.
5 UNICEF. (2020). Policy Brief: The Impact of COVID-19 on Women.
The research was conducted in Wau municipality, covering the five blocks and Eastern Bank in Jur River County. The desk review, inception report development, data collection and data cleaning for this research were conducted between February 2021 and May 2021.
The numerous setbacks and hurdles brought on by the pandemic have delayed the process of publishing this paper, and at the time of publishing schools in South Sudan have reopened, and unfortunately the concerns raised in this paper about girls’ decreased opportunities to return to school have been validated by early findings that approximately 27% of school-age children
6 OSC – SIHA Report Summary Statistics for years 20192021.
7 UNICEF. (2020). Policy Brief: The Impact of COVID-19 on Women.
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who were attending school before the pandemic did not return.8
These findings of this paper are salient now more than ever as it provides unique insight based on primary research into the needs of school-age girls in Wau, South Sudan and the limiting factors that must be addressed to mitigate the negative impact the pandemic has had on their safety, well-being, and access to education.
The research set out to meet the following specific objectives:
a) To develop an in-depth understanding of how the COVID-19 pandemic and the related restrictions have impacted school-age girls in Wau, South Sudan.
b) To explore the intersectional relationship between the impact of
COVID-19 on school-age girls and demographic identity factors such as economic or ethnic background.
c) To identify the key issues that should be addressed to prevent significant setbacks for progress toward gender equality, VAWG prevention, and women and girls’ empowerment in Wau during and after the pandemic.
d) To provide qualitative data to inform the campaigns of civil society and women’s rights organizations for girls’ educational rights and SGBV prevention.
e) To better inform the response of the South Sudanese government and international and local civil society interventions on behalf of girls’ rights to education and freedom from genderbased discrimination.
8 Save the Children. (June 2021). COVID-19: Kids in world’s poorest countries lost 66% more of lifetime at school than richer peers. https://www.savethechildren.net/news/covid-19-kids-world%E2%80%99s-poorest-countries-lost66-more-lifetime-school-richer-peers-save-children
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3.1 Impacts of the Pandemic on School-age Girls in Wau, South Sudan
Through analysis of the primary data collected during this research, five key impacts on school-age girls were identified: 1) increased violence in the home, 2) increased pressure on school-age girls to generate income, 3) sexual harassment, rape, and early pregnancy, 4) early and forced marriage, and
9 Initially we planned to hold 21 key informant interviews, however turnover within government positions delayed or prevented access to some of
5) girls’ decreased prospects for continuing education when schools reopen. All five of these impacts compromise girls’ essential human rights, and as such, recommendations for addressing these detrimental trends have been included after the analysis portion of this paper.
the intended key informants, resulting in the reduced number of interviews.
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Participants shared mixed views on the relationship between tribal differences and the severity of the impact of the pandemic on school-age girls. Some believed there were no differences between the tribes, while others felt that the prevalence of customs like early and forced marriage in exchange for bride price were more frequently practiced in certain tribes and therefore girls in those tribes were likely to be more severely impacted by the pandemic, which exacerbated these gender-discriminatory practices.
In reviewing the wide array of opinions on this matter, it is difficult to conclude whether or not girls in particular tribes are more impacted by the following negative trends that have accompanied the pandemic. However, many of the trends are driven by lack of income/economic resources, thus class difference may be a more salient cleavage than tribe for the lived realities of school-age girls.
3.1.1 Increased Violence in the Home
The pandemic-related restrictions imposed in Wau meant that many parents lost their jobs and were stuck at home together. Many interviewees and focus group participants noted that the tensions resulting from lost household income, movement restrictions, and other stresses brought on by the pandemic, led to an increase in arguments and violence in the home.
During the focus group discussion with schoolage boys, one participant noted that “the number of street children [has] increased, why? Because children are running away from violence at home and at this time, to them, the streets seem safer which is not the
case though.”10 One of the women from the mothers of school-age girls focus group noted that the level of domestic violence had even resulted in death in some cases.11
Participants also noted that excessive consumption of alcohol and drugs by men and boys in the community had increased as a result of job-loss due to the pandemic restriction measures. Many women have now resorted to the local chiefs or councils to report the cases of abuse by their husbands, although sometimes these cases are not handled well, in a few instances the advice of the chief has been helpful.12
Two of the local chiefs interviewed reported that they had been dealing with increased numbers of requests for assistance in resolving family and partner disputes,13 and all four local chiefs mentioned that they were aware physical violence was occurring in many households.14
During one of the focus groups with schoolage girls, a participant shared her frustrations about the common disregard for girls’ needs and interests: “in our communities, girls’ right[s] or gender equality is not respected. We have no say about anything that happens to us. Even if we say, no one listens. When our mothers listen and speak for us, they are ignored or beaten for supporting ‘bad practice’ (defying the husband/father’s decision). So basically, there was no gender equality and now it is even worse because women are beaten in their houses and the chief doesn’t help.”15
10 FGD 11, School-age Boys, April 2021.
11 FGD 12, Mothers of School-age Girls, April 2021.
12 FGD 12, Mothers of School-age Girls, April 2021.
13 KII 1, Local Chief, April 2021; KII 4, Local Chief, April 2021.
14 KII 1, Local Chief, April 2021; KII 2, Local Chief, April 2021; KII 3, Local Chief, April 2021; KII 4, Local Chief, April 2021.
15 FGD 4, Luo School-age Girls, April 2021.
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Some of the focus group participants described an emotional state of helplessness and frustration that they saw in their fathers, husbands, or other adult male relatives as a result of their inability to leave the home and earn an income. These frustrations could reach a breaking point in arguments over small mistakes or when the family ran out of basic necessities like soap or salt.
Generally, interviewees and focus group participants felt that women and girls were the primary targets of the violence that was often sparked by these frustrations. As women and girls are still doing the majority of household work, they are the ones who receive the blame when cooking and cleaning resources run out, despite their best efforts to ration these household goods.
A Ministry official reported the observation that many school-age girls had been abused by their parents during the pandemic, indirectly citing the increased stress brought on by the pandemic’s negative impact on the economy, and that parents may vent these frustrations on their children, especially girls.16
This dynamic is likely to contribute to the pressure girls feel to find a way to secure income for their families. Another gendered element within this pattern of increased violence in the home during the pandemic, was explained in an interview with a teacher from Wau, who noted that girls are sometimes beaten when their parents find out that they have been raped, as it is very common for the community to blame girls for being raped.17
3.1.2 Increased Pressure on School-age Girls to Generate Income
Many of the girls who participated in the focus groups shared that with the severe lack of income and the food insecurity their families had been facing, they felt mounting pressure to find some way to bring income or resources into their households. During the focus group discussions and interviews, there were three primary reasons that came up again and again to explain why school-age girls in particular felt so much pressure to help their families secure income.
1) Many girls know that if there is not enough money for school fees, they will be left out, as the little money the family has will be used to send their male siblings to school.18 2) They also know that their family is more likely to marry them off sooner if income is scarce as the bride price would generate income. 3)
As mentioned earlier, girls are often expected to take on household cleaning and cooking tasks, so they are more often the targets of violence when basic necessities run low, and their male relatives are looking for an outlet for their anger and frustration at not being able to secure the income to provide for the family’s needs.
This immense pressure, combined with the scarcity of jobs, particularly for school-age girls with little or no work experience, left school-age girls during the pandemic in a particularly vulnerable position for being exploited. Men and boys were aware of
16 KII 10, Ministry Official, April 2021.
17 KII 5, Teacher, April 2021.
18 FGD 7, Balanda School-age Girls, April 2021; FGD 6, Fertit School-age Girls, April 2021; FGD 8, School-age Girls living in IDP/POC sites, April 2021; FGD 13, Fathers of School-age Girls, April 2021; FGD 10, Girls (12-15 years old), April 2021; FGD 5, Dinka School-age Girls, April 2021; FGD 12, Mothers of School-age Girls, April 2021; FGD 11, School-age Boys, April 2021; FGD 9, Girls (16-22 years old), April 2021.
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this vulnerability, and some would use this to exploit school-age girls. For example, one teacher explained that boys would promise to pay the school fees for a girl if she would have sex with them.19
In many of the focus groups, girls commented that they were aware of other girls engaging in sex work for money, as this was one of the very few means for girls to generate income after the shops, restaurants, and other small businesses were closed due to COVID-19 restriction measures.20 Yet, even when girls felt they had found a job opportunity outside the field of sex work, they could still face exploitative propositions from bosses or colleagues.
One teacher mentioned that “many pupils were cheated or trafficked [when they went] to Juba seeking for jobs and most of them ended up doing sex work,” this came up just after the teacher mentioned that some of her students – one as young as five or six years old (primary one) – had become pregnant.21 The teacher also shared the story of a primary eight student (12 or 13 years old) who found a job in construction, but the man hiring her said he would only give her the job in exchange for sex.
The dire situation of most families during the pandemic, meant that many more girls were being placed in this kind of position, and felt they had no other option but to accept these dangerous and unjust terms. One mother explained, that while she does not know if her daughter has suffered in the same way, she worries about this: “my daughter was in senior one and decided to leave to Juba to look for money so that she can contribute in supporting the family.
19 KII 6, Teacher, April 2021.
20 FGD 1, School-age Girls, March 2021; FGD 4, Luo School-age Girls, April 2021.
21 KII 5, Teacher, April 2021.
Since she had lost her father, he should have taken care of us, and I do not know what will happen to her there.”22
A local chief pointed out that the “collapse” of many small businesses during the pandemic hurt women and girls more, as this was one of the few, relatively safe means for them to generate income. So now, without these opportunities, “women and girls are more vulnerable to the extent that they cannot help and support themselves.
We shall see issues of more sexual exploitation of girls as families see them only as a source of income through marriage, […] if they don’t want to get married, they will have to find another way.”23 Yet even when movement restrictions were relaxed and the opportunity for girls to work in markets or as street vendors returned, girls still faced high risks of being sexually harassed or attacked by male customers or passersby.
Moreover, focus group participants also shared that they worried about their children’s safety even if they stayed at home. They noted that, with schools closed, children, but especially girls might be sexually abused by men living in their household or nearby.
One mother confided that some parents broke the COVID-19 restriction measures out of desperation, but since the children cannot be in school they were at risk being left home alone: “for me I do not stay at home [during the day] and during school time I was happy because the teachers take care of my children, but now I do not know what my children are always doing or what is happening to them when I am away for the work.”24
22 FGD 12, Mothers of School-age Girls, April 2021.
23 KII 2, Local Chief, April 2021.
24 FGD 12, Mothers of School-age Girls, April 2021.
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One local chief explained that even before the pandemic many families were struggling to make ends meet, as most government employee salaries were paused indefinitely.25
Then when the pandemic came, the food assistance that had been helping many families stopped, and many forms of generating income were also stopped by the pandemic restriction measures. The situation became even more dire for the many families who suffered the loss of one or both parents. All of this, he explained, put “the lives of schoolgirls at high risk of finding their ways to survive by all means sometimes at the expense of their wellbeing, hence they are sexually exploited.”26
3.1.3 Sexual Harassment, Rape, and Early Pregnancy
Increased rates of pregnancy among schoolage girls seemed to be the impact that jumped to mind quickest and most often across the different interview and focus group participants in this study. Pregnancy is a particularly detrimental situation for schoolage girls in Wau because they are typically stigmatized and blamed, rather than receiving much needed assistance, and they will likely be married off as soon as the family finds out they are pregnant, regardless of whether or not the pregnancy resulted from rape.
As one local chief put it, “mostly when a girl gets pregnant, she will be given for marriage after paying a fine as agreed by the parents, mostly cattle and goats.”27 Here the interviewee called the payment a ‘fine’ because he was referring to cases of rape, in which the fine along with marriage to
25 KII 2, Local Chief, April 2021.
26 KII 2, Local Chief, April 2021.
27 KII 1, Local Chief, April 2021.
the survivor are seen as a ‘resolution’ to the crime. However, when the pregnancy does not result from rape (or is not acknowledged as such), payment is still made in the form of bride price or ‘dowry.’
Despite the fact that many participants in this research recognized that women and girls faced an increased risk of attack and rape while leaving the home to collect firewood or water,28 many of the adults and chiefs interviewed in this study, generally seemed to hold the girls responsible for getting pregnant.
Several of the traditional chiefs blamed the girls for getting pregnant – assuming that they had gone to ‘DJ parties’ or ‘birthday parties,’ and that if they went to these parties it means they sought out the sex (without considering the possibility that girls were raped at the parties or on the way to or from the parties, particularly as the pandemic movement restrictions made movement outside the home more dangerous in general according to many participants.
Another chief, who did acknowledge that the pregnancies could be from rape, explained that he still did not believe the girls should get help or support after being raped: “No, survivors [of rape] get no help, and we do not encourage that [assistance for survivors of rape] because when girls realize they will be supported if they get pregnant, then that will be a business for them,” making the assumption that girls will intentionally become pregnant for the support.29
The informant emphasized this by reiterating the sentiment that, “girls should not be supported when they get pregnant to make
28 FGD 12, Mothers of School-age Girls, April 2021; FGD 4, Luo School-age Girls, April 2021; FGD 5, Dinka School-age Girls, April 2021.
29 KII 1, Local Chief, April 2021.
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it not attractive for them.”30 This view was prevalent amongst participants, however there were also participants who spoke to the importance of assisting survivors.31
“Most of them [the school-age girls who became pregnant] are now isolated because of pregnancy, they are suffering from shame, at least those who are [married] can take pride in the marriage but knowing their education is now ruined. For those pregnant and not married, it is double tragedy”32 –the perspective expressed by this chief that being married and pregnant is better for a school-age girl than being unmarried and pregnant, demonstrates the widespread lack of acknowledgement by the communities in Wau that girls who are forced to marry their rapists are then condemned to a life of repeated rape, as marital rape is rarely recognized or addressed in Wau.
This comes alongside the fact that the husband-rapist will often not allow his childbride to return to school and will feel entitled to control her life in the way a parent controls a child – in many South Sudanese marriages ‘disobedience’ from the wife is quashed with violence.33 A chief from another tribe mentioned that in his opinion, a pregnant but unmarried girl is more likely to be able to return to school than a pregnant girl who has been ‘married off,’ because the husband is unlikely to allow her to go back to school.34 A head teacher reiterated the view that husbands of school-age girls are unlikely to allow their wives to return to school after their pregnancy.35
30 KII 1, Local Chief, April 2021.
31 KII 5, Teacher, April 2021; KII 6, Teacher, April 2021.
32 KII 2, Local Chief, April 2021.
33 FGD 4, Luo School-age Girls, April 2021; FGD 5, Dinka School-age Girls, April 2021; FGD 12, Mothers of Schoolage Girls, April 2021; KII 4, Local Chief, April 2021.
34 KII 3, Local Chief, April 2021.
35 KII 6, Teacher, April 2021.
Despite the willful ignorance or disregard from chiefs and adults in their community, some of the girls who participated in this research seemed keen on pointing out that the girls should not be blamed for what has happened to them. One focus group participant turned the question back on those who point the finger of blame at the girls by saying, “as you can see girls are pregnant even among us; ask yourself what happened.”36
A participant from another school-age girls focus group said that she knew of girls as young as 10 years old who had become pregnant as a result of rape.37 One teacher said that he knew that at least 22 of the students at his school had been impregnated during the pandemic.38 A SIHA Network staff noted that since the pandemic began, there has been an increase in the number of school-age girls who have come to the Wau One-stop Center seeking survivor support services.39
3.1.4 Early and Forced Marriage
Across all focus groups and interviews, the increase in early and forced marriage was one of the most prominent negative ramifications that girls have been facing at an increased rate due to the conditions created by the COVID-19 pandemic. A SIHA Network staff reported that children as young as 12 have been married off for bride price during the economic desperation generated by the pandemic.40
With many families in desperate need of income, selling their daughters into marriage for the bride price, became much more common, for several reasons. One, because
36 FGD 4, Luo School-age Girls, April 2021.
37 FGD 6, Fertit School-age Girls, April 2021.
38 KII 6, Teacher, April 2021.
39 KII 7, SIHA Staff, April 2021.
40 KII 7, SIHA Staff, April 2021.
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families had few other means to generate income. Two, because (during the period of school closure due to the pandemic) girls could not go to school, and according to many of the interviewees and focus group participants, the perspective of many families is that girls are wasting time if they were neither in school to learn, nor bringing money to the family by getting married.
Moreover, the economic incentive for marrying daughters off is twofold, as it brings in bride price and eliminates the costs of feeding and caring for the now-married daughter. Another reason early and forced marriages increased, is interrelated with another of the primary negative consequences of the pandemic on school-age girls: unplanned pregnancy.
One chief viewed this dynamic as ‘girls becoming economic hostages,’ because without the means to provide income to support themselves, they will be forced into marriage – often to much older men, who are more likely to have more money – in exchange for the bride price income and no longer having to support the girls.41
To further cement the pervasiveness of the perspective that a girl’s value comes from her marriageability and the subsequent bride price, a participant from the focus group with female teachers, who self-identified as Dinka, explained that from the perspective of the Dinka community, people “look at girls as resources, and each family calculates that one girl is 100 cows,42 so if the girls begin practicing sex early, they lose value.”43
41 KII 3, Local Chief, April 2021.
42 This is a reference to Dinka bride price expectations, other tribes in Wau do not typically request such high numbers of cows, and a bride price of much fewer cows is often complimented by other forms of bride price.
43 FGD 14, Female Teachers, April 2021.
During another focus group, one of the girls recounted her story of nearly being forced into marriage. She recalled her initial excitement at the chance to visit her extended family in their village in Rumbek, but that upon arrival her grandfather informed her that since she was a now ‘grown-up’ (despite her being under 18 years old at the time), the family had arranged for a wealthy man from the village to marry her.
She says she remembers him telling her: “since we are not even sure when schools will open, we have made arrangements to marry you off to a rich man who will take care of you in our village here, you might even end up going abroad,” as if this were a great opportunity for her. She, however, was horrified by the idea that her education and dreams for a self-determined future would be cut short by a life-long union to a complete stranger.
She pleaded with her grandfather and her father, but both refused to change the decision. She explained that she also tried to appeal to her mother, but that her mother’s opinion was disregarded by the male family members who did not believe she had the right to speak on such matters.
Luckily, one of her cousins came from Juba and offered to pay her grandfather off the value of her bride price so that she would be allowed to complete school. She said that this was only a partial escape, because her grandfather accepted the money from her cousin, but only temporarily, saying that he will need real cows for her bride price before long.44 In another focus group, a boy told a similar story however, as he did not have the financial resources to match the bride price offered for his sister, he did not manage to prevent the marriage.45
44 FGD 2, School-age Girls, March 2021.
45 FGD 11, School-age Boys, April 2021.
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Many interviewees and focus group participants, often in the same breath as early/forced marriage, noted that unwanted pregnancies were one of the most common and most problematic impacts of the pandemic for school-age girls. The unplanned pregnancies, the participants and interviewees shared, were often interconnected with early/forced marriage because many people in Wau view pregnancy out of wedlock as shameful and the knowledge that a girl has had a previous pregnancy will often make it more difficult for her to find a willing husband later on, and that husband is likely to pay a lower bride price as a result of the knowledge of the previous pregnancy.
Additionally, in cases of rape families often ‘resolve’ the issue by demanding a fine from the rapist and that he marry the girl or woman that he has raped. For these reasons, families typically choose to marry the young girl off to the unborn child’s father. Another participant explained, that there are also cases in which a girl wants to marry the father of the child, but still the girl is not allowed to choose her husband, because it is possible that her “parents don’t appreciate the man, maybe because he is poor or he is from another tribe, [so] she would be given to an old man in her community [instead]. It is sad seeing a young girl become a wife of a man fit to be her father or grandfather, as long as the man can pay.”46
3.1.5 Girls’ Decreased Prospects for Continuing
