UNICEF’s “Sudan’s child rape and sexual violence crisis” campaign had a clear objective: Elevate the urgent – yet frequently overlooked – crisis of sexual violence against children in Sudan.
The brutal conflict that began in 2023 has generated headlines about famine, the displacement of millions of people within Sudan and across borders, and the continuing spread of disease. However, the grave violations – particularly sexual violence – that have been perpetrated against children have remained largely hidden from view.
Millions of children in Sudan are at risk of rape and other forms of sexual violence, which has been used as a tactic of war. The brutal reality of this violence, and the fear of falling victim to it, has pushed women and girls to leave their homes and families and flee to other cities, where they often end up in informal displacement sites or in communities with scarce resources.
Through a focused advocacy and communications campaign, UNICEF planned to shine a light on this severe protection crisis. By highlighting the courageous and resilient stories and voices of women and children who have survived sexual assault in Sudan – including infants as young as one – as well as the frontline workers who bravely serve them, UNICEF aimed to make the crisis impossible to ignore while also mobilizing desperately needed international support for the country’s children.
During December 2024 and January 2025, UNICEF documented dozens of first-hand accounts of gender-based violence, including cases involving child sexual violence survivors perpetrated during invasions of cities, while fleeing danger and while being held by armed men. These accounts were coupled with accounts from frontline workers and analysis of data compiled by gender-based violence service providers in Sudan to build a report, “Sudan’s child rape and sexual violence crisis,” that paints a searing picture of the crisis children are being subjected to.
Gathering content on such a sensitive topic, particularly amidst an ongoing conflict, posed significant risks and logistical challenges. Survivors and their families are often unwilling or unable to come forward due to fear of the stigma they could face, the fear of rejection from their family or community, the fear of retribution from armed groups, or fear of confidentiality breaches. However, through careful planning and thanks to experienced and dedicated staff and partners on the ground – and the extraordinary courage of survivors – UNICEF was able to conduct a series of interviews. The potential risks to these survivors of sharing their testimonies is obvious, and UNICEF communications and child protection specialists therefore worked closely with community members to ensure the safety and anonymity of those who shared their experiences.
“Sudan’s child rape and sexual violence crisis” provided an essential resource for media and policymakers to better understand the scale of the issue, while the multimedia web feature “Courage through adversity” provided vivid context and a global platform for the voices of survivors. The campaign involved a coordinated launch of the report through a press release, as well as targeted outreach to key international media outlets to ensure the report reached as broad an audience as possible. Survivor voices were shared through the report, the web feature, a video, and also via UNICEF’s social media channels, as was information on UNICEF’s work with partners in the country aimed at establishing safe spaces and building the capacity of frontline workers.
The combination of data and the firsthand accounts of survivors and community members collected on the ground allowed UNICEF to create a powerful campaign that helped break through the noise of competing news cycles and put this devastating yet hidden children’s rights crisis on the global agenda.
The campaign generated significant attention and media coverage. The central web feature, “Courage through adversity,” received tens of thousands of page views, demonstrating strong public interest around the topic. The campaign’s content also saw significant reach through social media, garnering 1.5 million impressions, 385,000 video views, and more than 32,000 engagements across Instagram, X and Facebook.
The campaign’s message and findings were also amplified by international media outlets. AP and AFP ran stories syndicated in The Washington Times and Le Monde, among other publications, while some of the key findings were also covered by major outlets including the BBC, CNN, and France24.
The campaign was instrumental in the Government of Sudan’s decision to sign a Framework of Cooperation to address the issue, to be implemented with UN support. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict cited UNCEF’s report as critical in achieving this outcome, with her announcement referring to the findings from the mission and the data collection on gender and sexual violence against children.
Ultimately, “Sudan’s child rape and sexual violence crisis” increased visibility around the sexual violence crisis in Sudan and helped bring this overlooked tsemergency to light. The report helped bolster advocacy efforts around sexual violence, bringing attention to UNICEF’s demands of parties to the conflict and those with influence on them. And it helped highlight the solidarity, resilience and innovation of Sudanese women who have been working to protect and provide for themselves, their families, and their communities as they support survivors.
