BY STAFF REPORTER
The T-TPLF group, during its aggression against the Amhara and Afar states, murdered innocent civilians, looted properties, damage public and private facilities, displaced thousands of people. Aside from that, in its short stay in Nifas Mewcha, Amhara State, insurgents of the rebel faction raped little children, married women and elders heartlessly.
According to reports from various entities including Amnesty International, several women were gang raped by fighters of the rebel group during the attack on the town
As survivors told Amnesty International, women, regardless of their age, were raped at gunpoint, robbed, and subjected to physical and verbal assaults by TPLF fighters.
Following, the evil acts of the insurgents, many of the women, who have gone through the cruelty, have developed a wide range of traumatic consequences such as physical, emotional and psychological pains and exposed to socioeconomic problems. Sadly enough, even those children who witnessed the violence perpetrated on their family members, (mothers, and sisters) faced with psychological traumas.
In fact, the government in collaboration with State’s bureaus, partners and stakeholders is undertaking wide ranging activities to support and rehabilitate victims who were attacked by the insurgents of the terrorist faction. Recently, Amhara State’s Women, Children and Social Affairs Bureau have announced that it is mobilizing resources to rehabilitate survivors of rape in a sustainable way.
As part of this effort, according to the Bureau, thus far a total of over 400 million Birr has been raised from various entities.
This was revealed at a discussion forum held last Wednesday, July13, 2022, at Bahir Dar Town to deliberate on ways to prevent gender-based violence against women and to alleviate the undesirable social impacts the case may produce on women following the assault, ENA reported.
Speaking on the occasion, Deputy Head of the Bureau, Selamwit Alemayehu, said that the terrorist TPLF group, in its short lived in some parts of the State, committed several inhuman crimes, including rape against women and children.
In seven zones of the State where the rebels had occupied for few days, 1,939 women had been raped by fighters of the terrorist group. Of these, 140 were children and 46 were elderly.
According to her, the victims are being provided with psychological support from five permanent and 16 temporary one-stop center services, and free healthcare services from health facilities.
Following resource mobilization and coordination efforts, so far over 400 million Birr has been collected. Concurrently, efforts are underway to engage those elder women who have recovered from their injuries and the young ones who are at the right age to be employed in various income-generating activities in order ensure the financial sustainability of them, she remarked.
Director of Human Rights Affairs at the State’s Justice Bureau, Tsehayneh Admass on his part said that efforts are being made in terms of providing psychotherapeutic treatment for survivors; rehabilitating and reinstating them to their former life.
As to him, adhering to adopted laws and preventing gender-based violence and sexual assaults is the responsibility of all.
Amhara State’s Police Commission’s Women and Children’s Affairs Department Head Meaza Walelign on her part said that by establishing an investigation team, it is enabled to investigate and verify the crimes committed by the group.
Mentioning that most of the investigators are men, Meaza said that the survivors were reluctant to disclose that they were sexually abused to men investigators; and were less comfortable to utter their story to men as much as they did with female investigators.
To curb such challenges, working in collaboration with partners and increasing the number of female detectives; offering them on-the-job trainings and upgrading their professional skill will be the next activity, she said.
Engender Health Ethiopia Program Coordinator Meseret Demissie, for her part said that stakeholders have been working jointly to respond to the sexual violence came to happen against women and girls in relation to the conflict.
The forum was also organized with the aim to identify problems that had happened in the past, create lasting solutions and expand best practices in so doing to enable stakeholders perform better in the future pertaining to fighting gender-based violence and abuses, she added.
Stakeholders drawn from federal and state’s supreme courts, representatives from women, children and social affairs, health, and justice bureaus, police and other institutions took part in the forum.
THE ETHIOPIAN HERALD FRIDAY 15 JULY 2022
