Girls in CAR need supplies and support they can reach quickly
24 November 2025By MariaSole Fanuzzi, Deployable Humanitarian Policy, Advocacy and Diplomacy Specialist at the Humanitarian Policy, Advocacy and Diplomacy (HPAD) Unit in the Global Humanitarian Team
“I feel powerless in front of certain situations,” says Ayub, who coordinates the response to violence against women and girls (GBV) in a rural community in Central African Republic. “Five girls who were returning from the market were sexually assaulted and eventually raped. But on the referral pathway, there is nothing: all agencies working in their area have shut down offices. There is nothing I can do for them.”
In the Central African Republic, more than one in five survivors of such violence are children. Behind that number are girls and boys whose lives are changed for the worse in an instant. For rape survivors, the first 72 hours are critical to access post-exposure prophylaxis to prevent HIV and other emergency care. Missing that window can mean lifelong consequences.
When an alert comes from a remote village in CAR, the response often hinges on whether supplies and trained staff are already available on the spot. Too often, they aren’t. Even when humanitarian partners can move post-rape kits, the bad condition of roads means deliveries can take days. Transport happens through humanitarian convoys, but a convoy can rarely be mobilised at such short notice.
“The 72-hour window for a child who has suffered sexual violence is not an aspiration. It is a life-breaker line,” adds Ayub, who, since 2024, has seen one organisation after another close offices, lay off staff, and leave behind little more than confusion and disorientation. “If survivors can be reached before that, a life can be saved and the worst consequences avoided. After that, anything between pain, stigma, unwanted pregnancy, poverty, dependency, and death are likely possibilities.”
Funding cuts decimate response
Ayub told me that funding cuts are decimating the response in CAR. When I travelled to a nearby village, I understood what this meant for children. I met Alima*, a girl only 14 years old, visibly bearing the signs of a pregnancy following sexual abuse by a boy living nearby. Post-partum bleeding and aches make her days and nights restless. Her family’s rejection of her baby, refusing to care for yet another mouth to feed, means she is left alone to work out how to care for a newborn, while she herself is still a child. When I ask her, what would you like to become when you grow up?, she gives no answer.
I met other children like Alima, girls who consistently asked for three things: to continue their studies, to receive the support of their families, and to keep being accompanied by humanitarian organisations.
Immediate, compassionate coordinated assistance
We know what helps. Children who experience sexual violence need immediate, compassionate, coordinated assistance: timely medical care, psychosocial support, and safe referral pathways to protection and justice.
Additionally, girls know their future depends on staying in school. They want to stay in class and stay children. Families need help to understand the value of girls’ education and to challenge norms that push them toward early marriage. Protection, education, and food security must work together to ease the poverty pressures that drive child marriage.
Plan International works with national and local partners to strengthen community-based child protection and GBV prevention, improve safe referrals for survivors to medical services, and support children’s education through cash assistance and school kits. We also train teachers and parent-teacher associations on safeguarding, codes of conduct, and referral mechanisms, so that when they see signs of abuse, they can act fast.
Here is the message I’m bringing back from CAR: we must restore and protect funding for violence against women and girls, and child protection services in CAR so that essential care is within reach of survivors. Invest in the first 72 hours, nationwide: pre-position supplies, train staff, and remove transport bottlenecks so no child is turned away by distance or time. Back locally-led services that keep skills and trust inside communities where girls and boys live.
No child should lose access to life-saving care because the nearest trained nurse or post-rape kit is a day’s travel away. In CAR, the clock is always ticking. Let’s make sure help is close enough to make a difference.
*Names have been changed for safety and safeguarding reasons.
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