Last week I was invited to the Dutch embassy to celebrate the launching of the Nobel Women’s Initiative’s report on sexual violence against women in Sudan. The report is titled “Survivors Speak Out: Sexual Violence in Sudan,” and it is meant to address the situation of “mass rape” and other forms of sexual violence against Sudanese women of all religious, ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

Via The International Campaign to Stop Rape and Gender Violence in Conflict.
As a Masters student interested in issues of gender and gendered violence, I was quite excited to be one of three students chosen to represent my university. I, a Mexican of indigenous background and a convert to Islam, was chosen alongside one Christian Lebanese PhD student and a second-year Masters student of Iraqi and Muslim background. Upon arrival to the embassy, the first thing we noticed was the demographic. We were three of the five minorities in a group of more than 50 people. There were only about four men, including the ambassador and a representative from Amnesty international. Whereas demographics may be irrelevant in some contexts, I think the demographics of this event set the tone for what would be an afternoon of drawing dichotomies, praising the big bucks coming from abroad, and presenting few recommendations to solve the issues. As three of the five minorities we were photographed constantly… My Iraqi friend, who is also a hijabi, attracted numerous people who kept asking to take a picture with her. It was like being in the zoo. Nonetheless, perhaps one of the most shocking (but not really) facts was that in an event celebrating the launching of a report about Sudanese women, there were no Sudanese people.
The speakers made a point in saying that the Sudanese government was against the work done by the organization; yet, no other Sudanese representatives from universities or NGOs were invited. There were no black people either… the report was surrounded by the whiteness that put it together and the money that funded it.
This report was presented in front of representatives of the Canadian senate, Canadian Foreign Affairs, the media and various NGOs yet it was more a mingling cocktail party than anything else. Among the three different speeches, the representative of Amnesty International had the most effect on me (and I don’t mean in a good way). He first recalled various issues of gender violence in Canada to try to appeal to the Canadian crowd and make the link to sexual violence in the Third World. However, the situation of the Stolen Sisters in Canada and sexual violence against indigenous women was not among the events mentioned. According to him, gender violence is non-existent in Canada or the Netherlands, which sharply contrasts with Amnesty’s own campaigns supporting the rights of indigenous women in Canada.