City in Focus: Juba, Sudan
Few nations in the world have shared the instability of Sudan, a nation still dragging, crushed by the weight of a 40-year war. Though relative peace has been in effect since 2006, most experts in the region are bracing for another conflict to flare. While poverty and disease rack Sudan, the true price of war is paid by women and children who are sold into sex slavery.
The war has always emphasized the ideological differences between the Islamic government based in Khartoum, and the Christian-dominated south. Recently, a near-unanimous referendum to secede and form a separate country, Southern Sudan, was passed by the citizens naming Juba its capital city. That makes Juba a fixed beacon of “freedom” for women who want to escape the abuse of an oppressive muslim culture in the north and pursue a trade that they perceive to be their only escape from poverty: prostitution.
Prostitution is part of the survival lifestyle of thousands of women and children who are suffering from extreme poverty in war-torn Sudan or one of the surrounding impoverished nations such as Chad, Kenya, and Uganda. As always, where there is prostitution, there is the illegal sex trade. Already border towns are reporting a growing number of missing young girls, all rumored to have been ushered to Juba by businessmen promising a better life. NGO’s in Juba have estimated that more than half of prostituted girls in that city have come from Gulu or Lira, cities in nearby Uganda. Girls in Uganda, similarly vulnerable due to war and poverty, are convinced by slave traders that their bodies will fetch as much as three times more money in Juba than Gulu. And they have seemingly no trouble getting across the border. This trend is a carryover from atrocious abuses girls faced in the Ugandan IDP (internally displaced people) camps during Uganda’s civil war. Stories of girls, conceived when their mothers were raped by soldiers as a refugee, then thrown out on the street by disgraced relatives and forced to live a life of prostitution, are not uncommon. Aid organizations in Sudan have been under a watchful eye of the government since they are suspected of trafficking and some of the same abuses they hope to combat in the lives of young women.
Juba has a rare opportunity on the horizon. On July 9, Southern Sudan will begin its journey as a nation. From the outset, will it remain a “haven” for those who have no better place to sell their bodies? Or will it champion the cause of women and children?
Prayer Points:
1. Pray that God would raise up a prayer and worship movement in Juba.
2. Ask God to make Juba a light to the nation of Sudan and the surrounding nations.
3. Pray that God would send revival to Juba.
