By Derartu Gobena
Bontu1, was a 17-year-old girl who lived in Sebeta town of central Oromia Region. She was raped by the Oromo Liberation Army (OLA) rebels as they accused her younger brother of working with the government officials.
She was then abducted by OLA as collateral so that the family would hand over their son to the rebels even though the family denied that their son was working with the local authorities.
After the rebels kept Bontu under their custody for a day and her brother had not been found by their members, she was raped on the morning of the second day of her abduction. She was later taken to a nearby health facility but she could not survive the rape and its complications – she eventually passed away but OLA had been denying its forces involving in such atrocities.
Bontu was failed by society, health and security institutions, government and every stakeholder in the country that was involved directly and indirectly in the clashes – she was vulnerable as a young girl.
Conflicts in Ethiopia are not unique challenges for the country to face in its political history. Ethiopia has gone through wars with internal and external forces; however, recent numbers have become alarming.
According to the Ethiopian Peace Observatory (EPO), the country recorded 11, 577 incidents of conflicts between January 1997 and 2 February 2024. EPO says that Oromia, Amhara and Tigray regions recorded deadliest conflicts.
In November 2020, a civil war that claimed the lives of more than half a million Ethiopians broke out in Tigray Region between the national army and ex-rebels Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF) and it ended after a peace agreement was signed in Pretoria, South Africa in 2022.
Currently, the army is fighting OLA and Fano group in Oromia and Amhara regions, respectively. The country is also facing clashes in Benishangul-Gumuz, Gambella and South Ethiopia regions as security forces were fighting against ethnic-based armed groups.
We usually tend to talk about the conflicts, their implications, impacts and the peace making processes by turning blind eyes to their implications on girls and women directly.
That is why the protection of girls, women, disabled persons and minorities should be prioritised having regard to their peculiar vulnerability in any conflict.
The central issue here is not only Bontu’s personal story but, rather, it is about Ethiopia’s politics, legitimacy of the federal government and nation-building efforts at large.
Advocating for the inclusion of women inadvertently provides platforms for the inclusion of the disabled, minority religious and ethnic groups, rural populations, the illiterate and peripheral groups as well as other underrepresented segment of the population.
However, women are not numerically minority but, majority. This paper will draw attention to minority groups as well as silenced majorities.
The demand for the inclusion is not resounding the women’s needs only rather it includes other groups that are traditionally excluded from political decision-making.
That’s why the agenda of intersectionality is important and everyone should be conscious about representation of groups at every aspect of peacebuilding and nation building.
When women are involved in peacebuilding and nation building, it increases the chances of having long-lasting peace agreements. According to research conducted by the International Peace Institute, women’s involvement in peace agreements increase the probability of peace agreements lasting at least two years by 20% and a peace agreement lasting 15 years by 35%.
Women’s participation also minimises the chances of the peace agreements to fail easily as they uniquely contribute in reaching long-lasting, durable and well implemented peace deals.
Involving women also give chance to understand conflict affected community well and gather well-informed and first-hand information.
The tendency to classify issues like rape and subsequent death of women as private matter that has to be dealt with through family and communal structures and the death of men in combat as national matter that has to be dealt with through state mechanisms involving courts and compensation plans has rendered this agenda invisible.
Does the country need to sacrifice more lives to realise the importance of its women population in national agenda such as peacebuilding? How long does it take to stop these atrocities against civilians, especially against girls and women? When is the right time to make the protection of women a central agenda and allow women’s voices to be included in political decision-making?
When are women going to be considered as “first class” citizens and taken and heard seriously in nation building and peacebuilding at every level?
Ethiopia does not need to sacrifice more women to include them in nation building and peace making. We should not wait longer than this and now is the right time to initiate an all-inclusive peacebuilding process.
Bontu’s story and other similar incidents should be sufficient for the government to actively involve women in peacebuilding and nation building. Her story is enough for the government and institutions to make this a policy agenda.
Ethiopian female population was estimated to be 59.84 million in 2021. This shows that the country has a large female population that could take part in politics, peace-making, higher political leadership, governance and economic sectors if given equal chances and representation. Having a women population which is estimated to be more than half of its general population and not involving or consulting them in peace making process and nation building is not only ignoring women but it is excluding more than half of its population from national agenda.
Research conducted by Columbia University shows that at least 100,000 women have been raped during the two-year civil war where Amhara militias, army and Eritrean troops fought against TPLF-led forces.
Victims of gender-based violence are currently being stigmatised by their own families and societies at large. The victimisation of those women is double-layered: one, they were affected by the war as they faced gender-based violence and experienced war impacts and two, they were victimised by their societies even after the deadly war ended as most of them had to give birth to babies fathered by the one of the soldiers – some women do not even know the father as they were raped multiple times.
This worsens the trauma of the women as they have to deal with multifaceted layers of problems such as healing from the war impacts, being raped, giving birth, bringing up a child as a single parent with no to little support from family, having babies to sex offenders and being neglected by their families and society.
The low level of inclusivity currently in Ethiopia, both peacebuilding and nation building, can be reflected in various political processes. For instance, recent peace talks in South Africa and Tanzania are a case in point.
TPLF, OLA and government peace talks
To stop such a horrific impact of war on civilians especially on girls and women of Tigray and Amhara regions – the federal government and TPLF signed a peace deal that focused on cessation of hostilities to end the active fighting.
Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, Kenyan ex-president Uhuru Kenyatta and former South African deputy president Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka led the talks on behalf of the AU between the Ethiopian government and TPLF. The talks took place first in Pretoria, South Africa from 24 October to 2 November and later in Nairobi, Kenya in December 2022. There were no women representatives on both sides.
On 27 June 2022, the Ethiopian government announced its negotiating team that would be represented by seven officials who all were men. So, did TPLF.
Yes, agreeing on cessation of hostilities was an essential step but gender diversity was also equally important in such situations where we need to hear and understand women’s perspectives on the matter.
At the peace talks one of the AU representatives, Mlambo-Ngcuka, was a woman. She is a seasoned expert in gender equality and women empowerment as she worked in different positions in her home country, South Africa and international arenas such as the UN.
Was having her as one of the mediators helped to narrow down the gap? Yes, she represented women on a historic and important stage in Ethiopia’s and Africa’s politics by being a woman representative. Two, she shared her expertise during the talks and presented the women’s perspective in the peace-making process. But it was not sufficient as we did not observe the perspectives of Ethiopian women in the talks.
It was sad to observe that the Ethiopian government had committed the same mistake when it held peace talks with OLA in Tanzania during the two rounds. Ethiopian team was represented by the same officials that represented it in Pretoria talks and OLA’s team was represented by Kumsa Dirriba (also known as Jaal Marro), Gemechu Aboye, Prof Mohammed Hassan, Jiregna Gudeta and Banti Ujulu (PhD).
Ethiopian women were not and are not being represented in peace negotiations and conflict transformation at regional and national level. Even though the two rounds of talks ended in deadlocks, women’s representation was crucial.
What we have to note from the talks between TPLF, OLA and the federal government was that the representatives from the government and rebels were not peace-making experts but rather political officials and individuals who took part in active fighting.
We can build inclusive Ethiopia
According to UN Women, women constitute fewer than 10% of peace negotiators globally and only 3% of signatories to peace agreements. Ethiopia is among the countries that have fewer than 10% women peace negotiators – the South Africa and Tanzania peace talks were good examples.
As indicated above, more than half of Ethiopia’s population are women. So, the first thing would be to recognise and give women seats at regional and national level that balances their numbers.
To create a country that is a better place for girls and women like Bontu, Ethiopia has to effectively involve them in peace-making processes. It has to be reformed from considering women from merely victims of conflicts to letting them to be the actors in conflict resolution and peace transformation.
The government should create safe spaces for girls, women, children and religious and ethnic minority groups in conflict-affected areas.
And society, security forces, health facilities, and organisations should cooperate in creating spaces for the victims to report, get legal support and medical assistance in conflict-affected areas and beyond.
Because had we had a different health facility that was designated for these kinds of health complications, Bontu might have survived the rape and would have gotten the medical attention she needed. Such health facilities could be created only if the voices of girls such as Bontu as included in decision-making processes.
Ethiopia must have its own and localised Women, Peace and Security, National Action Plan (NAP) in order to ensure gender equality in peacebuilding.
Ethiopian women have resiliently and effectively served as mothers, educators, mediators and peace builders in their communities, community leaders, politicians and political and civil leaders.
Women peace and security experts, educators, academicians, politicians, media practitioners, and the government need to come around the table and have discussions on how to integrate women in peace making processes.
Ethiopian women, organisations, women-focused organisations, the Ministry of Women and Social Affairs, other ministerial offices and the population at large must condemn the atrocities committed against girls and women and the human rights abuses.
The government and Non-Government Organisations need to level up their policies, monitor the progress on the implementation of their policies, create awareness on the roles of women’s involvements in peace making and nation building.
- Bontu is not the real name. ↩︎
