Opportunities

Even though the challenges faced by these women in Khartoum are evident and should not be rested importance, as pointed out by most of these women, living in the capital city of RoS also offers a series of opportunities, mainly related to education, employment and their situation as women in a Muslim society.

22 Understood as when “someone is treated less favourably on grounds of group membership signified by skin colour, ‘race’, national or ethnic origin and so they find their access to scarce resources or opportunities restricted or denied.” (Bolaffi et al., 2003: 260)

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PUBLIC SERVICES AND FACILITIES

It can be said that public services, especially hospitals and schools are of significant concern when it comes to take the decision of going to RoSS or staying in Khartoum. In spite of the challenges experienced by southern Sudanese living in Khartoum, the education and health system in this city seems to be far better than in RoSS according to most interviewees, where there is not only an important lack of infrastructure but also of qualified staff.

When it comes to education, all students, regardless of their nationality, are allowed access higher education and enrol Universities in RoS, which seems to be a decisive factor in the decision-making process on when to go to RoSS. Indeed, higher education seems to be one of the strongest motives for most women to stay or even purposely move to Khartoum, as it is the case of Susan. Interestingly, however, most of the interviewees had brothers or male relatives also studying at Universities, but none of them did it in RoS.

Some of them, such as Emmanuela, related this fact to security issues:

“I have my brothers at Neelen University and me at Ahfad University. When we went to the South my father told me to come but he refused that my brothers came too, because of the situation here: I’m a girl, and I will stay home, I will go to University and then I will come back. But they told us that boys here… they want boys, they collect all the southern boys to go to the militia”.

When it comes to health issues, despite the fact that primary health care and emergency services are only free for citizens and thus, southern Sudanese have to pay higher fees, both the infrastructure and the qualified staff in Khartoum’s hospitals seem to play an important role for some of the interviewed women, especially when comparing it to the situation in RoSS, where poor infrastructure and the lack of qualified staff are an important concern. Moreover, for some of the interviewed women, the fact of having contacts in Khartoum results in their being treated as nationals when it comes to receiving treatment and services, as stated by Gloria:

“Sudan is a very unique country. When you know people before, and they know that you’ve separated, and they know that you’ve been doing this service here before you became a foreigner, they still can render that service to you. They will just charge me the way it used to be.”

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WOMEN AS WEAK AND APOLITICAL SUBJECTS

Indeed, while the difficulties experienced in RoS, such as verbal discriminatory comments in the streets or the lack of religious and cultural freedoms resulting from the Sharia’ Law and the Public Order Law, seem to amount to enough reasons for some of them to leave, for some others, it is precisely the Islamic culture, which labels women as weak and vulnerable, that gives them better protection and more freedom to chose to stay and live in RoS as compared to their male counterparts: “It’s easier in that the Northerners in their religion […]

women are almost holy, so we don’t get harassed, but boys actually do” (Kuei).

On the one hand, most of them indicated that being a woman in Khartoum was much easier, because they were not considered fifth columnists or a security threat, as it happened to men, and thereby they did not face the problem of being harassed or ‘caught’

by the police or militias: “For boys it’s more difficult. After the independence, you had to keep them inside, because if they saw them, they would take them” (Winny). Women, as expressed by some, are treated with sympathy as apolitical subjects, because “in the Islamic perspective, women are the weaker” (Gloria). Through these statements, the assumed and internalized gender-role division in the nation-building process discussed in Chapter 2 is exemplified.

On the other hand, many of these women seemed to have an undervalued picture of females in general, describing women as helpless and in constant need of support: “It’s difficult for both. For the girls now, there are no families, all of them went, and if you face some problem there is no one to help you” (Rita). Their male counterparts, however, were seen as the main important pillars in the building of RoSS: “If the country has boys that means the country will survive. The boys are helping the country. If they take the boys that means you can’t re-do it” (Winny), or “It’s difficult for boys, more than girls, because you know, boys will be the Governors of the future, so most of my friends, the police took them” (Delight). The

‘naturalness’ with which this gendered construction of a nation is taken for granted, exemplify Toivanen’s argument that: “leadership and citizenship are defined as distinctively masculine” (1994: 69).

Given these differences in women’s conception of the nation, there is an obvious ‘gender

gap’ between men and women on political and nation-building issues. Indeed, the

respondent’s answers lead to confirm Nagel’s argumentation that the link between

masculinity and nationalism shapes people’s feelings and thoughts, whereby women

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experience citizenship and nationhood differently from men, in that they are not expected to defend, run, or represent their country, unless it is by playing supporting roles, such as in building up the labour market (1998: 261).

For example, in situations of military occupation or political transition, as it was the case in Sudan, male nationalists seen on the street alone or in groups are often targets of arbitrary arrest or detention. Women, on the other hand, are seen as apolitical beings, and therefore less likely to be seen as dangerous or suspicious.

“You know, women normally, in the Islamic perspective, women are the weaker […] people, and normally they sympathize with them. […] With men no, there is no sympathy. […] they can come and take them just like that. Ask them what are they doing here. Because they are considered criminals”(Gloria).

INFORMAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES

It can be said, that the separation exacerbated the unemployment among southern Sudanese in RoS, which has led some people to work in the informal and the illegal market, which, interestingly, is much easier for women than for men, since they are much more likely to engage in activities such as: selling tea, food and drinks, doing domestic work or brewing alcohol. Indeed, some of the interviewed women, such as Suzanne or Christine, made a living in Khartoum by offering their services in an informal way to NGOs, schools, or even hospitals. Curiously, the fact of being subject to exploitation by engaging in the informal market, especially in the case of women, was not seen as a problem by most of them. Only a few of the interviewed women saw this situation (namely, women having easier access to the informal market and becoming the main bread-winners) as a clear disadvantage, in that they can be over-exploited while lacking all sort of rights:

“It’s harder for women, because they are the breadwinners, and when they become unemployed then they start working in the illegal market, doing whatever they can for their children. Then, they are exploited and mistreated” (Naba).

In general, however, as stated by Suzanne or Elisabeth, amongst others, being able to work

as housemaids or even alcohol brewers, in order to get an income and send children to

school, had a strong enough weight in their final decision to stay in Khartoum. As it can be

grasped from the interviews, being a woman in Khartoum opens to the door to a wider

informal employment market as compared to men:

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“It has been easier for the women, really, because in the informal sector there is more space for women than for young chaps, because the young chaps they don’t have skills, but women they have different alternatives, all these things related to domestic activities, so they have better opportunities as compared to the young men”(El-Nager, Interview on 11/08/12).

Indeed, many IDPs and migrants in Khartoum State were and still are women, and their role always proved to be central in maintaining livelihoods. Some of them actually succeeded to secure a job and benefit from governmental opportunities for owning lands for permanent settlement (El-Nager, Interview on 11/08/12, 2011: 2), as it is the case of some of the interviewees:

“My parents came to Khartoum as refugees in 1987 because of the war and they lived at a refugee camp in Haj Youssef until in 1990 the Government gave them the place and they built a house there. My mother found a job as a teacher in Khartoum”(Josephina).