By Maebel Gebremedhin<\/p>\n
In the summer of 2023, while I was negotiating the price of a pair of cloud-shaped wire sunglasses, a man walked behind me and sexually assaulted me. I was at a stall in one of the many open-air markets in Mekelle, Ethiopia\u2019s second-largest city. The man touched my body, attempting to feel as much of me as possible. I stood for a few seconds, unsure of what was happening, until his hands went further and his body got closer.<\/p>\n
Jolted out of my shock, I turned to face him and started yelling. My mother, who was standing next to me, did her best to defuse the confrontation and quietly shooed the man away. As soon as he left, many people who had witnessed what happened \u2014 from the boys selling peanuts nearby to a woman strolling with her children \u2014 laughed. The laughter is what stays with me.<\/p>\n
It was not the first time I encountered the troubling consequences of sexual assault during my trip to Mekelle last year, nor was it the last. My assault was just one of many painful encounters that highlighted the pervasiveness and intense normalization of sexual violence in Ethiopia, especially in regions like Tigray that are warped by other kinds of violence.<\/p>\n
Two weeks earlier, I had flown to Mekelle from Brooklyn. It was the first time I had returned to Ethiopia in\u00a020 years. One of my reasons for visiting was to speak with women who were survivors of conflict-related sexual violence as part of my work with the Tigray Action Committee, a nonprofit my sister and I founded to raise awareness about people\u2019s suffering during the two-year civil war between Ethiopia and Tigray, the country\u2019s northernmost regional state. Many of the women I spoke to were assaulted during the central government\u2019s war on Tigray, which has been described as one of the\u00a0deadliest\u00a0of the 21st century to date, with an estimated death toll of\u00a0over half a million. Although a cease-fire was reached in 2022, sexual violence\u00a0continued for months after that, countless families\u00a0remain displaced, and the country is at risk of\u00a0sliding into famine.<\/p>\n
Women in Tigray were subjected to unimaginable crimes during the war and its ongoing, tumultuous aftermath. Over\u00a0100,000 women\u00a0in Tigray are thought to have experienced conflict-related sexual violence.\u00a0Health experts\u00a0recently estimated that over 40 percent of Tigray\u2019s women experienced some type of gender-based violence during the war. Most of them \u2014 a whopping 89.7 percent \u2014 never received any medical or psychological support afterward.<\/p>\n
Survivors have reported that\u00a0foreign objects\u00a0were inserted in their bodies, that their\u00a0children\u00a0were murdered in front of them, that they were forced into\u00a0sexual slavery, starved and\u00a0intentionally infected\u00a0with H.I.V. and other sexually transmitted pathogens. One victim recalled being told that she was being raped because \u201ca Tigrayan womb should never give birth.\u201d Some survivors are now taking care of\u00a0children fathered by their rapists. Others are likely becoming\u00a0new survivors\u00a0of conflict-related sexual violence, with little hope of\u00a0recourse\u00a0from the government.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, the women of Tigray are not alone. Conflict-related sexual violence remains a persistent issue across the Horn of Africa. United Nations experts have expressed alarm about the reported widespread use\u00a0of\u00a0rape by the Rapid Support Forces\u00a0in Sudan\u2019s ongoing war, a horror eerily reminiscent of the genocide in Darfur, where women experienced sexual violence en masse. In Eritrea, Tigray\u2019s neighbor to the north, women conscripted into the federal army have reportedly been\u00a0subjected to sexual violence\u00a0during compulsory national service. In Somalia, to the east, women living in refugee camps and centers for internally displaced people\u00a0face gender-based violence\u00a0in high numbers and are often targeted by predatory clan militias and soldiers. Outside the Horn, the Democratic Republic of Congo has witnessed\u00a0alarming levels\u00a0of sexual violence during its continuing conflict, with especially high numbers of child victims.<\/p>\n
ALSO READ:\u00a0Ethiopian PM Abiy, Tigray leaders meet over differences on referendum, drought response<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s a practice that continues to be used with impunity, despite international pledges to\u00a0eliminate it. In 2022, President Biden released a memorandum\u00a0on conflict-related sexual violence, pledging to strengthen the U.S. government\u2019s commitment to combat and hold accountable those responsible for such violence. The European Union continues to\u00a0release statements on the need to end conflict-related sexual violence\u00a0worldwide. And\u00a0U.N. Resolution\u00a01325, passed nearly 25 years ago, calls on \u201call parties to armed conflict\u201d to take special measures to protect women and girls from gender-based violence in that context, particularly sexual abuse. Yet the violence and impunity continue.<\/p>\n To put an end to conflict-related sexual violence, women\u2019s voices must be included at every level of decision making. Research shows that when women participate in a peace process,\u00a0it lasts longer; maintaining peace is one way to ensure that conflict-related atrocities do not continue. In Tigray, this will require the active engagement and participation of women in designing and carrying out protective measures, shaping legal and judicial actions and contributing to sustainable peace-building initiatives. One good example to follow would be Liberia, where women,\u00a0including survivors,\u00a0spearheaded movements\u00a0that played a critical role in ending a brutal civil war\u00a0characterized by extensive rape.<\/p>\n Outside Tigray, the United States and other powers must put pressure on the Ethiopian government to follow the terms of the 2022 cease-fire, which includes a clause about condemning \u201cany act of sexual and gender-based violence,\u201d to allow unfettered humanitarian access and to refrain from restricting or shuttering internet access. International aid organizations must prioritize setting up health care infrastructure for the countless survivors in Tigray today, and local organizations that are committed to this work should be better funded.<\/p>\n The\u00a0relative Western disregard\u00a0for the Tigrayan war and the horrific acts of violence against Tigrayan women presents a lesson to learn from; Tigray stands as one of many stark examples of what happens when conflict-related sexual violence goes unchecked. It is time the world speaks up for African women and holds governments, armies and all other perpetrators accountable for the crimes they are committing. If not, they may continue to suspect that when it comes to them, accountability and justice are only buzzwords.<\/p>\n During my trip last summer, I spoke to women in every town I visited, asking about their lives, experiences, hopes and dreams. I asked them if they saw a future for themselves in Tigray or anywhere at all. Overwhelmingly, they said their goal was to leave Ethiopia or to help their children leave if they could not. They wanted their daughters to experience a different life, to have a chance at something else.<\/p>\n \u2022 Maebel Gebremedhin is a co-founder and the president of\u00a0Tigray Action Committee<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0United Women of the Horn<\/a>\u00a0and is the mother of three boys.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"