“While women remain a minority of combatants and perpetrators of war, they increasingly suffer the greatest harm,” said the veteran editor at the African Woman and Child FeatureService, Jane Godia, in an interview with Gender Governance Kenya.
It comes as no surprise that women and men get affected by armed conflicts differently. In fact, women, children, elderly, among others are the most vulnerable segments of the society in armed conflicts.
Various studies indicate that in times of armed conflict, sexual abuse, including gang rape, mutilation of sexual organs, forced pregnancy, and prostitution, is used as an extension of the battlefield.
The independent and joint investigations that were recently released back to back are best showcases in this regard. In almost each report- the Joint Investigation Team (JIT) report revealed by the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OCHRC) as well as the report by the Amnesty International and other independent investigation reports- clearly portray that women were highly exposed to Sexual and Gender Based Violence (SGBV).
“The testimonies we heard from survivors describe despicable acts by TPLF fighters that amount to war crimes, and potentially crimes against humanity,” Amnesty’s Secretary-General Agnes Callamard. “They defy morality or any iota of humanity,” Amnesty international stated.
The report further elaborated that sixteen women from the town of Nifas Mewcha in Ethiopia’s Amhara State. As the victims told Amnesty International, they were raped by fighters from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) during the group’s attack on the town in mid-August 2021.
Survivors described being raped at gunpoint, robbed, and subjected to physical and verbal assaults by TPLF fighters, who also destroyed and looted medical facilities in the town. Fourteen of the 16 women Amnesty International interviewed said they were gang raped.
Hamelmal was one of those women who were the target of the evil deeds of the criminals. As she told to the Amnesty International, she was raped by four TPLF fighters.
“The one who raped me first is their superior. He was saying ‘Amhara is a donkey, Amhara has massacred our people (Tigrayans), and the Federal Defense forces have raped my wife, now we can rape you as we want’.”
Meskerem, age 30, is the other the survivor the violence. She also told Amnesty International that three TPLF fighters raped her and beat her with the butts of their guns.
“They were insulting me, calling me ‘donkey Amhara, you are strong, you can carry much more than this’. I was unconscious for more than an hour,” told to Amnesty.
The report saddened, ashamed and angered many Ethiopians.
In an interview with Ethiopian Press Agency, Human Rights Activist Obang Metto noted that the rape and sexual violence that TPLF committed on women and girls in Amhara State clearly signifies that freedom were not its motives in the first place.
“If freedom was its prior motive, the group would have only fought with the government rather than committing an embarrassing and heinous act on women and children who have zero contribution to the fight”, he underscored.
He went on saying that a person who fights for freedom would not have the gut to harm other people. In fact, it is what the group proves to everyone by harming innocent civilians, damaging public properties and destructing infrastructures.
Condemning the act that the terrorist group committed in Amhara state as it was revealed by Amnesty international, the Human rights activist stressed that everyone should denounce the act.
According to him, group’s act unmasks its real motives despite its claim of liberating the people of Tigray. Most of the crimes perpetrated by the group violets the ethics of Ethiopianism and it is clearly inhuman act, he added.
He said in his words that the heinous and inhuman acts that the TPLF group committed would not have been perpetrated by any external factors adding that the fact that the group committed such act on its own people, would put it in black list in the history.
He noted that the group is proving through the crimes it has committed in gang rape and other acts that it is changing in to human beast.
For her take on the issue, Human rights Activist and Executive Director of Enquwa Tabra Women Empowerment, Eyerusalem Negash stated that sexually attacking a woman in front of her children is entirely immoral and it is a clear indication of group’s cruelty.
Worse than the gang rape committed by members of the terrorist faction, the sexual violence that was committed on women while their children are witnessing the disgracing moment manifests group’s inhuman nature and cold heartedness the level of their rudeness.
Speaking with the Ethiopian Press Agency, Eyerusalem mentioned that the inhumane act that the report of Amnesty International uncovered was something distressing and a thing that is hard to believe.
As to her, the hard facts on sexual violations are not only concerns of women and children; but they are very shocking and heartbreaking for all human beings.
The despicable act that members of the TPLF rebels committed endangers the women and children survivors of sexual violence to lasting psychosocial problems and draws them back from realizing their dreams, she stressed.
BY BETELHEM BEDLU
The Ethiopian Herald 18 November 2021
