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| Africa: Horn |
| Sudan's 'lost girls' fear repatriation |
| 2005-02-19 |
| Thousands of young Sudanese girls are reluctant to return home to southern Sudan from refugee camps around Africa after last month's landmark north-south peace deal for fear they will be sold into marriage, a senior UN official said Friday. Adolescent girls in at least two camps have told interviewers from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (Unhcr) they will not return unless they are given legal protection against being married off, the official said. "Everybody talks about the lost boys of Sudan, what about the lost girls?" said Wendy Chamberlin, the UN's deputy high commissioner for refugees, after visiting the Rhino camp in Uganda and the Kakuma camp in Kenya. The well-known phrase "lost boys" refers to the thousands of young Sudanese men who fled the country to avoid forced conscription into rebel and militia forces, many of died in the bush before reaching refugee camps. Chamberlin, a former U.S. ambassador to Pakistan and Laos, said she had been surprised by the intensity of fear displayed by the girls in her conversations with them during her visits earlier in the week. "Something that struck me ... was the number of times young girls raised the issue of (whether) they would be protected if they went home," she told reporters here. "They want assurances before they go back that there will be some legal protections so they will not be married off early against their will," Chamberlin said. "It is a major obstacle for these young girls." |
| Posted by:Fred |