GEDAREF – Nearly 93% of reported incidents involving children under 10 in a community protection monitoring system in Gedaref were linked to sexual violence, with age emerging as the strongest predictor of risk, according to a new report by the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa.
The SIHA Network report, Safer Communities: Enhancing SGBV Prevention and Response in Sudan, analysed 301 submissions collected through its Early Warning and Early Response System between September 2025 and April 2026, alongside interviews with eight Community Resilience Facilitators.
Among the 216 submissions for which survivors’ ages were available, 122 — or 56.5% — involved children and adolescents under 18.
The sharpest risk appeared among the youngest children. Of 29 reported cases involving children under 10, 92.9% were classified as involving sexual violence.
SIHA’s statistical analysis found that children under 10 had around 11 times higher odds of experiencing sexual violence than the reference age group, even after accounting for displacement status, location, familiarity with the perpetrator and reporting method.
The sexual violence rate declined to 45.7% among children aged 10-14, 31.9% among those aged 15-17 and 39.6% among people aged 18-24.
The report identified child marriage as an important early warning sign, saying facilitators frequently encountered girls married between the ages of 13 and 15 who later required intervention because of violence, pregnancy, divorce or trauma.
Child Marriage, FGM Among Most Reported Incidents
Of the 301 submissions, the report said 215 contained a classified primary incident, while 86 were early-warning reports without a specific incident classification.
Child marriage was the most frequently recorded primary incident, accounting for 51 cases, or 23.7%, followed by 40 cases classified as “other,” 35 cases of female genital mutilation and 32 physical assaults.
The dataset also recorded 16 attempted rapes, 14 rapes, 13 cases of sexual harassment, 10 cases of sexual exploitation and four forced marriages.
Overall, SIHA said 40.9% of the 215 classified incidents were related to sexual violence.
The “other” category included reports of psychological and emotional abuse, economic abuse, verbal abuse, threats, neglect, coercive control and other forms of non-physical violence, according to the report.
Displacement Significantly Raises Risk
Displacement was another major predictor.
Sexual violence was identified in 53.2% of incidents involving displaced survivors, compared with 36.1% among non-displaced survivors — a difference of about 17 percentage points.
After controlling for other factors, displaced survivors remained about 2.5 times more likely to experience sexual violence, the report found.
SIHA linked the heightened vulnerability to overcrowding, insecurity, economic dependency, weakened protection systems and exposure to exploitation in camps and during displacement journeys.
The report found particularly high proportions of sexual violence among incidents occurring in camps and on roads.
About 83.3% of incidents reported in camps and 81% of those reported on roads were classified as involving sexual violence, compared with 35.5% of incidents occurring in homes.
However, homes accounted for the largest absolute number of documented sexual violence incidents — 50 of the 88 cases — because domestic settings were the most frequently reported incident location overall.
The findings suggest that risks extend from homes into displacement camps, roads and transit points rather than being concentrated in a single setting.
Survivors Rarely Report Directly
The report identified major barriers to disclosure, particularly for children.
Cases reported through third parties showed a 54.3% sexual violence rate, compared with 30.4% among self-reported cases and 28% among incidents identified through observation or reported symptoms.
SIHA said stigma, concerns over family “honour” and fear of retaliation were among the main reasons survivors did not speak directly about abuse.
Children were particularly unlikely to self-report, increasing reliance on relatives, community members and other trusted intermediaries to identify cases.
The organisation recommended anonymous hotlines, trusted community reporting mechanisms and safe spaces where survivors could disclose abuse confidentially.
Nearly Nine in 10 Need Psychosocial Support
One of the largest gaps identified by the study concerned survivor care.
The report said 88.7% of survivors with recorded support-needs information required psychosocial support.
Yet only about 9.5% of cases received referrals, highlighting what SIHA described as a major gap between identified need and available response.
When monitors actively offered follow-up, the odds of a survivor receiving a referral increased around 13-fold, but such follow-up was offered in only 28.7% of cases.
SIHA called for follow-up offers to become a standard, non-discretionary step in every reported case and for greater investment in confidential psychosocial and referral services.
Violence Becoming Recurrent and Normalised
The report also found evidence that violence was increasingly chronic rather than isolated.
SIHA said 87.1% of cases occurred in communities where similar incidents had previously been reported, describing the pattern as evidence of recurrence and growing normalisation.
Community facilitators interviewed for the study described fear, stigma and declining social consequences for perpetrators as factors allowing repeated abuse to continue.
Qualitative interviews also identified emerging forms of violence not always captured by existing reporting categories.
These included digital abuse targeting women, sexual exploitation linked to access to humanitarian assistance in displacement settings, recruitment of women and girls by armed actors, harassment in schools, and pregnancies resulting from exploitation.
Respondents also described cases of women being killed, including incidents involving stabbing and dismemberment, though the report did not provide quantitative totals for these accounts.
The study said the impact extended beyond individual survivors, disrupting education, generating fear within families and communities and creating psychological strain for frontline protection workers.
SIHA recommended prioritising child protection, strengthening protection mechanisms in displacement settings, expanding confidential reporting, improving psychosocial services and referrals, and addressing what it described as impunity and the normalisation of violence.
The organisation also called for stronger safety measures and psychological support for frontline community workers.
The findings should not be interpreted as prevalence rates for Sudan as a whole. About 99.3% of the submissions analysed were recorded in Gedaref State, including 70.1% in Al Gedaref locality, meaning the dataset primarily reflects protection patterns documented through SIHA’s monitoring system in eastern Sudan.
