Children are prize catches. African slave girls as young as eight years old are used for sexual pleasure within the Arab communities where they are held. Their genitals are mutilated according to East African Islamic custom. I saw with my own eyes little southern Sudanese girls who had been subjected to ritual genital mutilation. The tender parts of their genitals had been cut away and the wound crudely stitched closed-all without anesthesia.
Many girls die of infection before the wound heals.
This horrifying practice is unknown in southern Sudanese communities. No Safe Haven in the North To escape the war, large numbers of southern Sudanese people flee north. But in the desert cities of the Arabs, they are no better off than they were in the south. Children of southern Sudan become street children in the northern towns. Denied affection, education, and assistance, these children survive by their own wits.