change the law, don't break it

and the annual rights report on women and children

A screenshot from the trailer of the documentary entitled, ‘Take Me to Fendika’, a film about Fendika, the cultural venue in Addis Abeba.

Hi there,

Fendika won big at the African Cultural Film Festival, where it was nominated in the documentary category. It is a consolation for the venue which was demolished last week, along with what looks like most of the ‘old’ Kazanchis area. You can learn more about the documentary here. Meanwhile, state broadcaster EBC has announced that the ‘Addis Ababa City Administration has launched its largest land auction to date’ and has urged those interested to partake in this ‘unprecedented opportunity to acquire valuable land.’

For anyone with time tomorrow, Access Now will be hosting a webinar on the impact of the prolonged internet shutdowns in Ethiopia’s Amhara region. You can find details on that, here. As most readers know, I have been compiling updates on the security situation in this region since the conflict started last year. You can find all XXXI updates, here.

To new subscribers, welcome!

My name is Maya Misikir, and I’m a freelance reporter based in Addis Abeba. I write Sifter, this newsletter where I send out the week’s top 5 stories on human rights and news in Ethiopia.

Now, to the news.

---

Human rights: the annual report on women and children

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission has released its annual report on the rights of women and children in Ethiopia. I wrote highlights last year as well, which you can find here.

I don’t think there are many people here who aren’t aware of the abysmal state of women’s rights in the country. Nearly every week, there’s a trending hashtag or movement from local rights organizations and activists following one brutal act of violence after the other, advocating for survivor’s or victim’s justice. This situation has been made worse by the past few years of conflict across the country,

This is the third year since the Commission launched this specific annual report and it cites the inclusion of sexual and gender-based violence as crimes to be investigated and prosecuted under the country’s Transitional Justice Policy (adopted in April 2024) as one of the wins of the past year.

Some of the setbacks recorded by the Commission include increasing numbers of female genital mutilation (FGM) in the country’s South Ethiopia Region. This is because of conflict, as ‘government attention shifts, and as its authority wanes’. 

Women and girls, aged anywhere between 1 to 84 years old, are being subjected to FGM, as these (criminal) acts are believed to be cures for health conditions in reproductive organs.

Between July 2023 and October 2023, in the Amhara region, the Commission says there have been at least 200 documented cases of women raped, including health care providers and displaced women.

Conflict has also been the reason behind the closure of over 5,500 schools over the past year in different parts of the country. Ethiopia’s Amhara region is where 4,178 of these schools have been closed.

Another observation in conflict areas is that the number of health professionals has significantly decreased, impacting health services provision for mothers and children.

An increasing number of abandoned infants and children are also recorded in Afar, Oromia, and Amhara regions. In Jimma Zone, Oromia, over 50 children have been documented in such cases.

In an assessment conducted on 28 large-scale farming stations across 7 regions, investigators found that women working on these farms were getting paid as low as half as the men, were forced to share sleeping quarters with men, and were exposed to sexual violence. The women and girls working on these farms were also not given maternity leaves with pay.

In coffee, tea, fruit, vegetable, corn, and spice farms, the Commission also documented cases of child labor, where children below 15 years of age were working on these farms after having dropped out of school to work for months on end.

One of the more shocking cases of child labor was in Ethiopia’s Jimma Zone, in Oromia, where children in primary schools were being forced to work on commercial farms up to 2 days out of the week, with the income generated going to the schools. If the students did not work, they would face expulsion or a fine. They worked from 8 am to 6:30 pm, with only a one-hour lunch break in between.

The full report by the Commission, in Amharic, here.

---

Press freedom: a quick fix

New changes to the country’s media law (2021), which had initially garnered such high praises, will be tabled to parliamentarians on Tuesday (October 29).

The new draft amendment proposes a provision that permits political party members to sit on the board of the Ethiopian Media Authority, the regulatory body, according to a story by BBC Amharic.

Board members are not allowed to be members of a political party as per the current law to avoid political pressures and interference from the government. Despite this, previous board members had been members of the ruling Prosperity Party. This has directed questions, and criticism at the Authority in the past.

Other proposed changes to the law include shifting the power to nominate the head of the Ethiopian Media Authority from the board to the prime minister. Again, this provision was enacted to minimize interference from the executive body.

The power to decide on refusal to renew licenses, to suspend and cancel them for media houses, currently a power given to the board, is also proposed to be shifted to the Authority instead.

The full story on the BBC, in Amharic, here.

---

Health: malaria cases on the rise

Malaria cases are increasing significantly in Ethiopia. There are a lot of reasons behind why this is, including, ‘armed conflict, climate change and mosquitoes’ growing resistance to drugs and insecticides’.

This is sad not only because a lot of people are being seriously affected (needing hospitalization to recover) but also because Ethiopia has made so much progress in the past in containing the spread and providing treatment for the disease.  

Here's an excerpt from a story I covered for The New York Times:

After years of sustained investment mirroring the push against malaria elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, the Oromia region saw its cases fall from 900,000 in 2011 to about 100,000 per year in 2019. But last year the number surged to 2.8 million people, and in the last three months alone 1.4 million of 45 million people in the region were diagnosed with malaria.

New cases are being reported in areas that never had malaria; urban areas, and highlands. The former attributed to a new invasive Asian mosquito species (Anopheles stephensi), an ‘urban mosquito, breeding in discarded soda cans and in drainage ditches and thriving in congested cities’.

But the conflicts in Ethiopia have also played a big part, making medicine and insecticide access a challenge, and displacing millions of people, who are ‘more vulnerable to mosquito bites while living in temporary shelter’ and are spreading the disease when they move. The number of cases started surging in Oromia in 2019, the first year of open conflict in the region.

The full story on The New York Times, here.

---

Labor rights: teachers unpaid

Teachers in Ethiopia’s newly formed regional states are struggling to make ends meet because of disruptions and cuts to their salaries, according to a story by Addis Standard. Teachers who advocated for change by ‘collecting signatures and preparing to submit a petition to the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission’, were detained.  

Here’s an excerpt from a story on Addis Standard:

Educators report that these financial challenges are eroding their morale and forcing many into low-wage alternative jobs just to make ends meet.

Amanuel Pawlos, President of the Southern Ethiopia Teachers’ Association, outlined critical issues plaguing the education sector, including planned salary reductions, disruptions, and unfulfilled promises by regional governments.

There are cases of teachers, with over 17 years of experience, who say that they haven’t received a full salary since August last year.

The full story, on Addis Standard, here.

---

Civic space: continued pushback

The civic society space in the country is facing challenges that ‘threaten its foundation’ says the rights advocacy group, the Center for Advancement of Rights and Democracy (CARD).

The last time I cited work by this organization was when they presented their investigations on the state of human rights in Ethiopia’s Oromia region, particularly focused on the Guji Zones (the ‘major battlegrounds’ between the federal government and the region’s Oromo Liberation Army). You can find the update on that, here.

Despite the laws being improved (in terms of regulation of civil society organizations) the ‘reality on the ground tells a different story’ for civic space actors including journalists, and human rights defenders, says the statement.

At least 54 human rights defenders have been forced into exile since 2020 and over 200 journalists have been arrested since 2019.

The full post by the Center for Advancement of Rights and Democracy, here.

---

That’s all for this week. I’ll be back next week with more updates!

In the meantime, feel free to share this with anyone you think can benefit from keeping up with what’s going on in Ethiopia.

Was this forwarded to you by someone? Then hit the button below to subscribe and get free weekly updates.