In a makeshift courtroom inside a police station in South Sudan’s largest camp for displaced families, a young woman stares into her lap.
Her hands are clasped together; her fingers twitch nervously. A large open wound marks her right cheek.
We learn it was inflicted by her husband, who is standing on the other side, behind the defence lawyer. He bit her and threatened to blind her in a fit of rage.
Mary** (name changed), a mother of two, listens as the defence lawyer argues that Mary had failed to prepare food on time, suggesting that she had shirked her duties.
On the other side, Nyawel Liah Diu, 28, clears her throat to speak. She is a police investigator with the Special Protection Unit, which handles cases of sexual and gender-based violence.
Nyawel tells the court that Mary spent the day toiling in her tiny stall to earn an income for her family. She arrived home with a large fish to cook for her children and husband when the attack took place.
She says Mary’s husband does not work or support the children financially. That’s why Mary was compelled to seek employment, and she had informed her mother-in-law, who had approved of it.
Mary is one of the women who has been given the chance to be heard. The judge rules that her case has merit and sets a date for a later hearing, dismissing the defence lawyer’s request for it to be thrown out.
“The biggest challenge is the culture which perpetuates that women in South Sudan only belong in the kitchen and that domestic violence is not important,” says Nyawel. “It is my duty to change history, so that it is not repeated in the future by our children.”
Nyawel herself is no stranger to the devastating impact of violence having lost her four-year-old child during the conflict.
That loss, and the burden of history carried by women in South Sudan, impels her to seek justice for women and girls, she says.
Nyawel joined the South Sudan National Police Service in Unity in 2023. Two years later, she was part of the first cohort of police officers selected for the Special Protection Unit (SPU). Since then, she’s been on a mission to protect women.
The SPU is part of the national police response to gender-based violence, with the Rule of Law Section of the United Nations Mission in South Sudan supporting it to investigate cases and improve access to justice.
“Violence affects women on many levels, so the first thing I do, even as an investigator, is to counsel them – to tell them their life is not over – and that they must stay hopeful. After that it is to determine the facts, the truth, and then to go after the perpetrators,” says Nyawel.
Her investigations, she explains, help the public prosecutor build a strong case against the perpetrator.
“We cannot undo the rape but once the survivor sees that the perpetrator is convicted for his crime and is in prison there is a sense of satisfaction – there is a sense of peace.”
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
