Less tokenism, more money
"budgets as tools for liberation"
Hi there,
I wasn’t able to send last week’s newsletter because I was sick. I’m back on my feet, though, after making yet another mental note not to drink coffee on an empty stomach.
I’m skipping the news updates this week for a deeper dive that looks at how government spending (or lack thereof) is affecting women and girls’ rights in Ethiopia.
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 human rights stories in Ethiopia.
Now, to the updates.
Women’s rights: it all feeds into one another
The human rights framework to secure women's rights in Ethiopia may be there, but the budget (capacity and will) to enforce it is missing.
A new paper by the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) Network breaks down how advocating for human rights is ineffective without simultaneously pushing for socio-economic rights like health, education, and labor.
The paper, which includes Ethiopia and Uganda as case studies, states that, to this effect, there is “gross underspending by states on social and economic rights.”
In Ethiopia, where the government spending on health is 8% (“below the 15% Ethiopia committed to in the Abuja Declaration”), the high mortality and morbidity rates are linked to reproductive health issues.
This is a result of a staggering number of women and girls who are getting married before they’re 18, who are not using any form of contraceptive, and have been subjected to female genital mutilation.
Education: where are we?
I’ve written updates in the past about how conflict has affected education across the country.
In the Amhara region, over four million students are out of school. The situation is similar in Tigray, where the devastation of the two-year war, now three years later, has left more than a million students out of school.
Closed schools mean girls are being married off at an early age (a situation “marked by a troubling lack of urgency and attention”). This brings us back to the issue of high mortality and morbidity related to the country’s reproductive health issues.
Though Ethiopia is one of the countries that committed to providing access to comprehensive sexual education, the reality is that sexual education is an add-on to the usual school work (“extracurricular activities”). This is also cut out completely when there are no donors to pay for it.
Not to mention that comprehensive sexual education is seen as an “imposition of Western values”, adds the report. So is the concept of marital rape, while we’re on the topic.
Labor: job creation, as it were
The paper brings up several examples of labor rights violations.
For women employed across the industrial parks, even though there is research that documents the abuse they face, there has been no response by the government, “likely due to an unwillingness to jeopardise investment deals”, adds the report.
Here’s an excerpt:
Women working in these parks often live on-site in dormitory-style housing. Reports have surfaced of rampant sexual abuse, including rape, leading to pregnancies. These women receive no protection, no support, and not even a minimum wage.
Here’s another excerpt on the way violence is being trivialized:
Rural women coming to cities to process visas for jobs in Arab countries are often given contraceptives ‘just in case they are raped.’
In the cases where women report rights violations, they have to jump through several hoops before any action is taken (requiring “referrals to other offices, experts, or institutions”).
Even in cases of intimate partner violence, judges are opting to recommend mediation (despite no current legal framework allowing for this).
Budget: buried in jargon
How do we begin to address the issues women are facing in Ethiopia?
One of the ways the government is doing this is through what is known as “gender responsive budgeting”, according to the report.
That works on two levels: first, making sure that all government work considers gender (“policies, programmes, and budgets”). Second, work that directly aims to solve gender inequalities.
Working on fixing gender inequalities requires understanding where those inequalities stem from, but so-called “gender offices” at local levels of government don’t get enough money allocated to run programs that can monitor and track this.
Here’s an excerpt that paints a better picture of this issue from the report:
Shockingly, in certain regions, the entire budget is only enough to cover planned activities for March 8 (International Women’s Day), indicating the tokenistic nature of these budget allocations.
Local civil societies, on the other hand, seem to have a “severe lack of understanding” about gender responsive budgeting itself, adds the report.
Media: are women not people?
The numerous conflicts and the speed of new developments in the country make reporting on women’s rights issues seen as a ‘luxury’.
Programs slotted for women (and children) are regularly dropped to make way for more pressing news, according to the report.
Here’s an excerpt:
When conflict dominates the national agenda, efforts to bring about social change are often sidelined, and key stakeholders will say, “Now is not the time.”
When is the right time? Take a look at the history of Ethiopia’s state feminism here (spoiler: it never is).
The full report by the Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa (SIHA) Network, entitled “Budgeting for Inequality: The Decline in Gender Responsive State Spending for Socio-Economic Rights in Ethiopia and Uganda,” 2026, here.
That’s all for this week. I’ll catch you next Monday.
In the meantime, if you know someone who might be interested in this, share and let them know!
Thank you, My for the update. this is not shocking but still pissing me off. hellloooo!
🫶🏻