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African Union Official: South Sudan Must Do More to Protect Women From
Violence

Onen Solomon

   JUBA - An African Union special envoy is urging South Sudan's leaders
   to enact and enforce laws to end the pervasive problem of sexual
   violence in the country. AU special envoy on youth, Aya Chebbi, said
   authoritiesmust involve men if South Sudan is going to end gender-based
   violence.

   "Men should be doing all these initiatives to end gender-based
   violence. Why? Because these women are their mothers, their sisters,
   their daughters, they are not some women out there who are suffering
   and I don't care about; these are their communities," Chebbi told South
   Sudan in Focus.

   During a five-day visit to South Sudan, she said the AU's plan for
   ending gender-based violence focuses on eliminating all forms of
   violence, including genital mutilation and child marriage. "So I call
   on civil society to advocate for legal frameworks that protect women.
   For the communities, there is also resilience and community policing
   which means the community must protect itself," Chebbi told VOA.

   Simon Marot Tonloung, a member of the African Union's Youth Advisory
   Council, says preventing sexual violence begins at home.

   "How will you feel if your sister, if your daughter, or your mother
   undergoes such kinds of troubling experiences? It's sad. So it will
   start from families. It will not come from outside," Tonloung told
   South Sudan in Focus.