THE SUDANESE HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLY - Sudan Tribune

international law and treaty obligations and fostering a just world economicand political order.”The Organization asked the government to maintain normal relationswith the United Nations agencies and the other regional and nationalagencies in the service of the national needs of Darfur and the other areasin the country, to allow all Sudanese civil society groups, as well as internationaland/or regional relief agencies to resume humanitarian supportactivities to the needy populations without interruption, or confiscation ofequipments, or censor.Civil and Political RightsThe political arena suffered the repressive nature of the regime and thehysterical show of the presidency and the ruling party, following the issuanceof a warrant of arrest against president Omer al-Bashir by the InternationalCriminal Court (ICC) and his contemptuous rejection of the warrant.Related to the president’s impulsive reaction, the nationalintelligence tightened up surveillance over the press, banning and removingthe slightest reference supporting the ICC or even commenting positivelyon the warrant.The government has not yet become party to CEDAW. The authoritiesdid not address the women’s concerns in both urban and rural sides of thecountry with respect to necessary amendments in the personal law, developmentof the productive family projects, gender studies in school curriculum,and many other significant demands to advance the social life andthe Sudanese society.The status of the Darfur women and children did not improve with respectto the urgent needs to return these families to their dispossessedhomes in Darfur.The UN Secretary General’s Third Report on Children and ArmedConflict in Sudan noted that children were continuously recruited andused by all parties to the conflict, that rape and sexual violence were systematicand widespread, and that children and women in and around refugeecamps and in internally displaced person’s settlements were especiallyvulnerable.40THE SUDANESE HUMAN RIGHTS QUARTERLYAn ad hoc publication issued by the Sudan Human Rights Organization - Cairo