Women & Churches Join to Open New Path to Peace in Sudan

An interview with a Christian woman from Sudan by the World Council of Churches (WCC) has revealed the reality of Sudanese women who are struggling against violence in the war-torn country. Joy Kwaje, coordinator of the Sudan Council of Churches’ (SCC) women’s programme spoke boldly for the right of her people and explained what Sudanese churches and women are doing to overcome violence and their work for peace.

During the interview, Joy Kwaje told WCC of the changing role of Sudanese women as the ongoing civil wars continue to kill thousands of lives and breaking up countless families. Very often, women become the family breadwinners without anyone else to rely on.

Kwaje, however, talked about the positive fact that women unite together to form communities so that they can help themselves in adversity. In Khartoum, for example, women brew beer to earn a bit of money even though it is illegal. Therefore, they organise skills training to find other income-generating opportunities. In addition, they find ways to inform themselves about the ongoing political process.

Kwaje, expressed her disappointment to the Sudanese churches for not fully addressing domestic violence as well as other issues such as violation of human rights and HIV/AIDS. Nevertheless, the women groups have been taking the initiative to open up the dialogue with the churches by inviting them to attend their conferences and workshops. They hope that they can join with the churches to solve the challenges faced by women in Sudan.

Kwaje reported the exciting news that churches are opening up nowadays, "Women in the churches come together, do Bible studies and pray together. When they are gathered together, they identify their concerns, and ask the Sudan Council of Churches to help them organise workshops on these topics."

"The Sudan Council of Churches takes care of those issues the women cannot deal with, like advocacy work for peace, or training on children’s rights or human rights," she added the church are now playing an increasingly important role in fighting against violence.

The ecumenical movement is very vital to bring together women from different tribes. "The ecumenical relationship has been very strong... If we organise conferences under the Sudan Council of Churches umbrella, we bring women from different churches together to participate. The churches in Sudan are made up of different tribes speaking different languages; the ecumenical spirit among the women is very strong, and crosses tribal boundaries," Kwaje described.

Kwaje appreciated very much how the worldwide ecumenical fellowship has contributed to improving women’s lives in Sudan throughout the last 30 years. "The WCC and the AACC supported Sudan’s churches during the difficult time of war, and accompanied them with their peace advocacy work," she said.

An ecumenical women’s delegation organised by the WCC and the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) visited churches, community centres and women’s groups in and around Khartoum from 29 June to 9 July 2004.

According to Kwaje, Sudan is now beginning to enter a period of peace, but she emphasised that the accompaniment of churches in peace making must continue, because a lot more remains to be done. "Our country has been at war for three generations, so democracy and good governance will have to be enhanced. We need the churches to accompany the people and the country on the way to sustainable peace by providing them with skills, educating them about governance, democracy and accountability," she said.

With an increasing participation of women in churches’ ministry, Kwaje is calling for a greater recognition for women leadership in the churches, "Women are not in the high leadership levels of the church. You will find very few women in the Sudan Council of Churches (SCC) executive committee - only two out of twenty members are women. At the moment, we are struggling with the ordination of women. Among the twelve SCC member churches, only two have accepted women’s ordination."

The WCC has launched a campaign "On the wings of a dove", which is a worldwide effort aimed to overcome violence against women and children on 25th November 2004 at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva.