The Lost Girls Empowered

Despite the hardships they have faced and the pressures of cultural norms and gender roles, the Lost Girls refuse to be forgotten. 
  
By Aditi Pooviah

Aduei Riak sat demurely with one leg crossed over the other. She breathed softly, smoothing the fabric of her clean cut black work pants and absentmindedly stroked the red velvet lining of the deep red armchair, a splash of colour in the corner of her Boston area apartment. She was dressed as any average American lawyer would be: a crisp black blazer, hair cropped short and a delicate silver chain around her slender neck.

"I've seen a lot of things that a person of my age should not have been exposed to. The (memories) tend to be very dark and gray. I don't like talking about them, because for me talking about them is living them again." she said, eyes still glued to the floor, and even as her eyes swiveled up at me, she seemed far gone. Her usually lively eyes, the colour of sunlight shining through a glass of rum, were misted over with memories. “I was pretty much on my own at age six”.

Riak was one of the 89 ‘lost girls’ to survive the Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005), and succesfully escaped from the desolation, migrating to America. Along with other children, all torn from any sense of security, she embarked on a harrowing journey from South Sudan to Ethiopia. Facing a myriad of diseases, fatigue and starvation these children defied all odds and survived, finding refuge in a camp in Kenya. In 1999 the UNHCR created a US resettlement program for Sudanese children, and successfully resettled 4,000 boys across the United States. These boys were given the opportunity to take control of their futures in a newer, safer environment, often guided by facilitators and host families, while hundreds of girls remained forgotten, never even told about the option of applying for resettlement.

To be eligible for the program, you had to be an orphan, and for cultural reasons girls could not be left alone in camps and were sent to live with surviving families or adults. During the year that the resettlement program began, the girls had been living with these guardians for 9-14 years and were no longer considered orphans, leaving them ineligible. Repressed by a system that was made to protect them but instead restricted them, and cultural values that did the same, Sudanese girls had little hope of escaping from the future that had been chosen for them.

Aduei Riak’s survival and resettlement was a testament to her luck and perseverance, but the fact that she is thriving, an independent career woman who has more than overcome her horrific past, is what makes her story an inspiration. Riak is a beacon of hope to all who have been held back, restrained or oppressed, and especially to those that still dream of breaking the cycle, and choosing their own path.

Riak reached for her coffee, stirring with a degree of intensity, sombre as she mulled over her next answer. Like many Sudanese children, she had grown up with a warped sense of belonging. Separated from her loved ones while fleeing from danger, Riak has been a part of three foster families since being relocated to Boston. Now supported by her current foster family and a network of friends, she accredits her job as a paralegal at the law firm ‘Ropes and Gray” to this community saying: "I am where I am right now (at Ropes & Gray) because a lot of people have invested in me." Her foster parents share her affection and are ever supportive. "I'm amazed," says Garrett Parker, Riak’s foster father, clean cut in a homely grey sweater. "I think everybody that meets her is amazed at what she's been able to do. She came here with a lot of drive. She had always wanted to be more than what her culture wanted for her."

The Kakuma refugee camp has a population of 70,000 but only has the resources and services of a town of 5,000. Diseases like cholera, typhoid and malaria are extremely common. The lost boys took part in a psychological program where they were offered guidance, while the girls were supposed to seek comfort and advice from their families. This analysis was part of the criteria that was considered when choosing the candidates for resettlement, and this lack of foresight is why so few girls were resettled. The girls that were moved were mostly sisters, cousins and friends of the boys, who were personally recommended. While the girls lived with their foster families, the boys were placed in a group home and loosely supervised by adults. The girl’s homes were supposed to provide them with a more wholesome and nurturing environment, but instead these girls simply went missing over the years. Even to this day, many of the girls left at the camp (those who were not resettled) are still living with exploitative foster families. These lost girls, the pinnacle of strength when overcoming adversity, are being forced into labour as domestic servants or sex workers. They are being degraded through beatings, rape and cruel mistreatment at the hands of their families, or in many cases other men who pay a bridal fee of between 5-50 cows for them. "They think that war only affected the men," Riak says. "They do have sisters. … We do exist."

Riak moved about her apartment with ease, her sensible heels clacking on the wooden flooring as she disappeared into her kitchen, reappearing with a bowl of mixed nuts and a variety of biscuits, which she proceeded to set on the table. Apologizing immensely about her lack of equittequete at having so little to offer me she encouraged me to eat, continuing to anxiously smooth the fabric of her work pants. Her fidgeting fingers were the only telltale sign of her discomfort, flitting between the chair and the fringe of her blouse, re adjusting the chain around her neck and running across the top of her head. Riak was well adjusted to her new surroundings, but her expression was that of a woman who knew well what she had overcome to get where she was today. A woman who remembered her home before it was a plush Boston apartment and wants to leave her past far behind her.

Riak watched me as I served myself, smiling politely as I did, hands now clamped together on her lap. “I’d just like to say,” she said cautiously, but as I beamed at her, she seemed to shake off some reluctance. “Thank you.”

Some have tried to bring attention to the lost girls and their troubles, but few have been successful in inciting change. In the December of 2000, Julianna Duncan, an anthropologist specializing in refugee children wrote a report about the fate of the lost girls but even then, drama in the Kakuma camp pulled attention. In April of 2001, over 20 employees in the Nairobi UNHCR office were arrested for extorting money from refugees. “The girls were back-burnered again,” said a humanitarian worker who spent four years in Kakuma. The state department gave $6 million in 2003 to support the resettlement program, hoping that more cases would be referred and more lost girls moved, but part of the money was used to create a UNHCR staff position in Kakuma and nearly three years after Duncan’s report, no more lost girls have been referred to the department for resettlement. The situation of the lost girls seems desperate, but women like Riak show that not all hope is lost. Despite their often horrific pasts, and the fact that many lost girls are still overcoming various cultural and social challenges, the lost girls that have persevered and are living in the US have achieved a lot. Many have college degrees, careers and are happily married. Some have even returned to their homes in Sudan and are working with the government to rebuild their country, while others are sharing their stories and educating others on the plight of the lost girls, and the devastation of war.

The dedication and success of the lost girls of South Sudan is evidence of human endurance and faith. Although they continue to be repressed, broken down and ignored these women have shown courage and tenacity despite the trials they have faced. Being raised in a strict culture, facing gender inequality, overcoming their past, searching for a sense of belonging and thriving in a new setting is no easy task. Their lives have been difficult, but they will continue to prevail. Women like Aduei Riak grew up fast, and in adulthood they are even stronger. The lost girls are growing more independent by the day, and now that they understand their own potential, refuse to be left in the shadows.

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