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PART III: THEORY
In Sudan, rape victims are often blamed for their own rape, not least because it is widely believed that women cannot become pregnant as a result of undesired sex. Women and men in Darfur are raised to believe that rape is avoidable and can be prevented. In most cases, the mother of a child born of rape is no longer marriageable, because brides are expected to be virgins. Rape victims, and their children, are considered to have brought shame on their families, which is likely to exclude both. Even in communities that accept such babies, the child may be judged if it shows behavioural problems and may be abandoned.
What needs to be done to address discrimination against war children and their mothers?
There can be no single approach to this issue, not least because‘ war children’ are a very diverse group, in both their circumstances and their upbringing. Roosendaal( 2011) argues that it is vital to address the issue sensitively for this reason. Both the mothers and their children need and are entitled to receive psychological help to cope with their situation. In practical terms, assistance programmes should make sure that both receive adequate support, and should recognise that it cannot be assumed that mothers will be willing to look after their children, or are capable of doing so( Mochmann 2008).
Children of raped mothers: consequences for the motherchild interaction
War and traumatic stress severely hamper parental efforts to keep their children safe. Some evidence shows that maternal trauma negatively affects the biological and physiological development of children( Yehuda, Blair, Labinsky, and Bierer 2007) and the early mother-child relationship( Almqvist and Broberg 1997, 2003). Parental mental health problems also impede a child’ s social development and increase the risk that a child will have mental health problems, especially if it is living in a context of violence and trauma( Yule 2000).
Attachment theory is also relevant to families living in such environments. It models how children learn to seek shelter, regulate fear and arousal, express emotions, and trust themselves and others in their early dyadic relationships( Bretherton 1992). A child that has secure relationships with sensitive and available adults is able to achieve a balance between emotional exploration and restraint. By contrast, children who seek protection in themselves tend to avoid risk, and ambivalent children tend to cling to adults to obtain a sense of safety.
Traumatised parents, for their part, withdraw from interaction with their children, or overprotect them, because of their own fears.
The concept of‘ intergenerational transmission of trauma’ was developed to describe children who react to their parents’ traumatisation by developing symptoms of trauma themselves( Danieli 1998). Such children have not necessarily had traumatic experiences; the trauma is communicated to them through their dyadic relationships. Fear in a mother’ s eyes is especially traumatising for infants, and traumatised mothers often lack energy, express flat emotions and disengage from relationships. Parents may be numb, in denial, or overwhelmed by their memories, and may oscillate between absent-mindedness and intrusive dyadic interaction with their children( Punamaki, Qouta, El Sarraj, and Montgomery 2006). When a trauma is processed well, the fragmented emotions it generates are integrated gradually. Helping mothers to process their traumatic memories is therefore of very great importance for the development of their children.