Unpacking the Conflict and Gendered-Violence in Tigray, Ethiopia

    

Photo by Ian Macharia on Unsplash

    Since November of 2020, the Ethiopian federal government has been at war with Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region. Global Leaders have denounced the atrocities committed against the people of Tigray as ‘ethnic cleansing.’ The humanitarian crisis has left 400,000 people in famine conditions and 1.1 million people displaced (GIWPS) from their homes in Tigray. While years of history precede this conflict, the United Nations isn’t concerned with sorting out minute political quarrels, especially given the alarming number of reports revealing the gendered violence targeting women and girls of the region.

    All sides of the conflict in Tigray have employed sexual assault as a means to destabilize and infiltrate one-another’s communities. Since war first broke out, 2,204 survivors have reported sexual violence to clinics (Global Issues). Moreover, 90% of those survivors were underaged girls. While these numbers alone are unsettling, global leaders have stated that these statistics are only underestimates o
f the actual number of cases due to a lack of medical facilities in the Tigray region and violences such as gang raping that instill fear in women. While current humanitarian facilities are being exhausted, the long-term ramifications of diseases such as HIV are placing immense pressure on the U.N.’s efforts in providing care and support for displaced communities such as Eritrean female migrants.

Over this past summer, the U.N. formally condemned this gendered violence earlier this year, citing U.N Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1325 and 1820. Each of these documents denounce the genocide and gendered violence taking place in Tigray, some experts castigating them as “some of the most egregious violations of human rights and humanitarian law” (Relief Web). While President Biden has aided the U.N.’s efforts in providing financial stability for families and establishing more clinics in Tigray and East Africa, action must be taken by more countries such as neighboring African countries in providing relief and medical attention for refugees and sexual assault survivors of this humanitarian crisis.

Sources:

1. Global Issues

2. Relief Web 

3. GIWPS