Kate Holt photojournalist

So at long last it was published - after a year of work
interesting how everyone I spoke to when researching this story showed little interest, and now all are suddenly "horrified by the allegations"

The write up on how I got access to this story is on the Telegraphs web site and below -



Kate Holt's account of child abuse in Sudan

I first went to Juba in late 2005. It was fascinating to watch a city, in the aftermath of 23 years of civil war come alive, adopt a new government and welcome visitors for the first time. I have written extensively on allegations of abuse in Bosnia, Liberia and Congo.
But in southern Sudan, I hoped I would not have to. Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary-general, had announced a “zero tolerance policy” in the wake of allegations of sexual abuse of minors in Congo.
A new office had been established by the UN in New York to deal with such allegations, and new policies adopted across the organisation. I returned to Juba in January 2006 to work with women who had been raped during the civil war, and started to ask what support was available.
Many had been widowed during the war and were now the sole supporters of extensive families. Others had been abandoned when their husbands had gone off with other women. Married women have almost no rights and there is no system in place for legal redress or support.
Many suffered from extreme poverty. During the civil war many had prostituted themselves to Sudan Government soldiers to support their families. As these soldiers left the women looked to the newly arrived UN soldiers.
To them there was no difference - a soldier was a soldier; if they agreed to have sex with him, they may get a bit of money or food. It was by talking to these women that I started to hear allegations of abuse suffered by children.
Investigating the allegations was extremely difficult. It took months of research and three further visits to Juba to piece together the story of these children.
I spoke to hundreds of children – some abandoned, some not. Arriving in Juba’s two main market places, the first thing one notices is the number of children begging. Under-sized boys bang their shoe brushes together and chant: “Washing feet, washing feet”.
Others just stand with their hands out, asking repeatedly for “little money” or “a bit of food”. Living on the steps of disused buildings or sleeping in abandoned market stalls, they are southern Sudan’s “lost generation”, caught up in the civil war that split their country apart.
Few can remember the families they were torn from as violence came to their villages and forced them to run. Now they have washed up in Juba. Yet this run-down city offers little respite from their troubles.
Fear is ever present here. Fear of the repressive former northern government; fear of the new untried and unsettled regime; fear of people who have recently come to their town. Last year, Juba was a semi-deserted and ramshackle place.
There were hardly any cars on the roads and most of the markets were closed down. UN organisations have done huge amounts to rebuild a shattered region.
But now the city is full of people. Full of those searching for a new life in what has become east Africa’s newest boom town.
The pot-holed roads are choked with white United Nations vehicles, cars ferrying workers from non-government organisations and the vehicles of those who have come to capitalise on the huge and untapped oil reserves. Slowly the markets have reopened, and everywhere there are bars.
Bars run by people from Congo, from Kenya, from Uganda. Bars play music into the small hours, offering UN employees and NGO workers a chance to relax at the end of their long days.
But outside those bars, when the music begins to quieten and the drinking slows, is a darker, more furtive trade. Desperate children sell their bodies to anyone with money.