By: Ateny Wek Ateny
June 28th, 2025. Β The trending video on social media, of a young lady gang-raped at Shirikat on Wednesday, June 25th, 2025 might have been one of the most horrific and disgusting incident of sexual violence to happen in the country. I am appalled and exceedingly disturbed. I went without sleep the day I saw the videoβ given how our society has become. Imagine, Jieng/Dinka men, living in a predominantly Jiengβs settlement forming gangs and raped Jieng lady (ladies)!.
I am aware the crime and criminality has no tribe or section. A crime can occur anytime, anywhere. No community/country is immune from crime or criminality. However, what matters is how government deals with given crime at given time. Safest or the worse insecure countries are judged by the level of how each country deals with crimes.
Bringing criminals to book to answer for the crimes they have committed, makes countries to be safer. The opposite is found in the counties where impunity reign.Β Now, where do South Sudan stands from the above descriptions? The answer lies on how South Sudanese deals with cases of such magnitude.
That said, it is not the first time for such gangs in Shirikats or elsewhere in Juba or South Sudan to commit such heinous crime and got away with it. The gang naming itself as βthe crewβ (the group that gang-raped) the girl in broad daylight at Shirikat on Wednesday this week, was the same group that has brutally attacked a young man in the same location last year. The victim was beaten unconscious using machetes and was hospitalized for months.
The young man who was victimized, comes from Awulian in Twic East.Β Nothing was done by the security forces to bring perpetrators to book. The gangs have then increased in numbers β rendering such places like Shirikat, Gudele, Jabel Suk, Lologo, and Hai Referendum exceedingly dangerous places to roam free.
I am happy the current IGP, Gen. Abraham Manyuat Ngong Kuel is walking those places at night in concealed identity to see things for himself. Such activity may, in the long run serve to curtail crime commission. But, the arrested criminals must receive severe punishment in the court of law, and locked up behind bar for many years. I am glad Counsel Josephine Adhet Deng with the help of police managed to lock up almost all perpetrators in the recent Shirikatβs gang-raped of a young lady.
Nevertheless, it is also a must for the government to start paying a living wages / real salaries for civil servants so that the children of our soldiers, health workers, education etc are able to afford basics need, health and education. Less than this will never work. You canβt stop crime when you donβt pay even the little salary that doesnβt even meet the living standard.
Finally, the commission of crimes often comes from frustration. A society that do not even want to discuss the importance of service delivery, improving living standards of its citizens and productivity-driven citizenship, is a failed society. Moral decadence is a byproduct of having a society that donβt produce and a civil servants that is not paid. I was appalled, by the incident of gang-rape in Shirikat on Wednesday this week which was perpetrated by the children of the some of our heroes, and the victim is also a daughter of the same echelons.
So, both the victim and the perpetrators are children of deprived members of our society. The paradigm shift in our society, is that the majority of those who liberated the country, have some of them failing to feed their children to the point of children entering into a gangsters life in order to survive, or to punish the society for making them hopeless. So, punishment alone cannot provide sustainable solution to the growing life of criminality. The locked up criminals must be put to reformatory process in an attempt to make them productive.
The writer is a former Press Secretary in the Office of the President of South Sudan, and the views expressed in this article are his own. He could be reached by email: atenypiokerwek@gmail.com
