The genomes of Ethiopian people hold echoes of the meeting between a legendary king and queen.
About 3000 years ago, the Queen of Sheba purportedly travelled from what is now Ethiopia to meet King Solomon in Israel. Ethiopian folklore even tells of a child between the pair. But that’s just a story, right?
Perhaps not entirely. Luca Pagani of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK, examined samples of Ethiopian genomes and noticed that some individuals had components of both African and non-African lineages. Delving deeper, Pagani and his colleagues discovered that the non-African genetic components had much more in common with people living in Syria and around the eastern Mediterranean than in the nearer Arabian peninsula. What’s more, the gene flow probably took place around 3000 years ago.
The finding is backed by linguistic research, which shows that one of the four language families of Ethiopia migrated from the same region about 3000 years ago. “Middle Eastern language came to Ethiopia along with Middle Eastern genes,” Pagani says. “And that is when the Queen of Sheba legend is supposed to have happened.”
The meeting between the queen and Solomon remains a story, but the populations they came from did meet around that time, says Pagani.
“Who among us could write what I’m about to read,” asked Carl Bernstein, “spirit unbowed, faith in freedom and the power of the written word untrammeled?” That is how Bernstein, a legend of American journalism, paid tribute to one of Ethiopia’s most improbable convicted “terrorist,” Eskinder Nega, a brave fellow journalist who sits in jail for speaking truth to power at the Public Forum program about imprisoned writers and artists presented by The Public Theater and PEN American Center on December 3, 2012. Bernstein was reading an article Eskinder published just five days before his arrest. The article criticized the government’s arrest of a 72-old-year actor on terrorism charges and discussed the improbability of critical journalists and dissidents as terror suspects.
Year on year the numbers of men women and children leaving Ethiopia in search of work and freedom from repression in one of the Gulf States and beyond is increasing. Lured by the often hollow prospect of earning enough money to support their family, United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) estimate around 85,000 men women and children, desperate and naïve, have this year, no matter the severe risks, made their way to Yemen, the hub of migration out of the Horn of Africa.
In the last six years around 250,000 Ethiopians have made the dangerous journey into this very poor, deeply divided country besieged with internal problems, which has limited resources, the second highest rate of chronic child malnutrition in the world and where 45% of the populations live in poverty.
Into this chaos step the Ethiopian migrants, who, unlike Somali’s have no refugee status, suffer from poor consular support and are seen by most Yemenis as an unwelcome burden. They sit low on the domestic workers hierarchy and, along with other African nationals are discriminated against throughout the Gulf region where xenophobia and racism has found expression in the region’s politics and government policies.
The majority of migrants leave the security of their home, the love and comfort of their families, not because they want to, but because they have, they believe, no alternative. Overwhelmingly young, 18–30 years of age, from rural or semi-rural environments, poorly educated with many lacking basic literacy, driven by poverty the majority go in search of work, whist around 25% are estimated to be from political opposition parties. The Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) who make up almost 50% of all registered migrants arriving in Yemen, and the Ogoden National Liberation Front (ONLF). Legitimate groups persecuted and branded terrorists, by the EPRDF government that in all but name, rules over a single party state and allows no form of political dissent or opposition, no matter the constitutional content to the contrary.
The influence of smugglers, masquerading under the acceptable guise of ‘broker’ on many vulnerable individuals living in rural areas, with no knowledge of the wider world, is great. Imbedded within the community they paint a picture of migration coloured by wealth and prosperity, opportunity and excitement. Accounts of horrific migration experiences are known, but all too often ignored,’ smoking kills’ deterring nobody. Arguments of self-persuasion and denial reinforced by brokers who see another victim, another human commodity, to be wrung dry. Migrants and smugglers alike are pushed to extremes, desperately trying to survive in a ‘dog eat dog’ world, dominated by an unjust, corrupt market economy, that persecutes the poor and concentrates unlimited wealth and power in the hands of the few; causing extreme inequality, hardship and unbridled human and environmental destruction. A system In which huge corporations, banks and financial institutions of the developed nations along with their allied governments condition and define developing countries as they try against all odds to haul themselves out of poverty.
Hopeless journeys made in hope
Djibouti city is the first major stage in the harrowing journey to Yemen, here or at sea all possessions, including mobile phones, cash and clothes are stolen, by smugglers, corrupt police or border guards. The journey to Djibouti’s capital is harsh and dangerous, in which many Ethiopian migrants die of starvation, dehydration or are killed by bandits. Trafficking is also serious a danger, Djibouti the US state department say is “a transit, source, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking… [Migrant] women and girls may fall victim to domestic servitude or forced prostitution after reaching Djibouti City, the Ethiopia-Djibouti trucking corridor, or Obock – the preferred crossing point into Yemen,” and gateway to the Gulf. Here migrants “have no access to food, safe drinking water or shelter from the sun,” the Danish Refugee Council (DRC) report, ‘Desperate Choices’, states, and wait for days or weeks for favourable conditions to cross the perilous waters of the Gulf of Aden, in flimsy boats manned by vicious criminal gangs. They have usually come from Ethiopia by truck, although occasionally the entire journey is made on foot, over weeks through one of the hottest, most inhospitable areas in the world. Some aren’t lucky enough to get to the port, in September last year, IRIN 15/11/11 report, 60 Ethiopian migrants were found dead about 120 km west of Djibouti’s capital.
Abduction murder and rape
More shocking even than the numbers of people is the violent treatment they face. Murder, abduction and ransom demands, torture, rape, sexual abuse and more rape, are the nightmares many are subjected to by criminal gangs and smugglers. And all in the pursuit, not of happiness, which they left behind, but $100 a month, to feed and clothe their families 1000 kilometers or more away.
On arrival in Yemen men and women are separated, wives taken from husbands, daughters from Fathers brothers from sisters. Trafficking and multiple rape of women is widespread, IRIN 12/03/12 state “the majority of the approximately 3,000 women held by smugglers in Haradh [on the border with Saudi Arabia] over the past year were raped, many of them repeatedly.”DRC relate this account from a 15-year-old boy, who “was captured by Abd al-Qawi’s gang. They tied a rope round my legs and hung me upside down and beat me almost to death for three days. I was made to watch an Ethiopian woman being raped and an Ethiopian baby about one year old being killed.”Cases of male rape, punishment for trying to stop the rape of a wife or sister, have also been documented.
On a positive note, deaths at the hands of smugglers have dramatically decreased, only to be replaced by another atrocity – abduction, the terrifying experience of the majority. With $100 – 300 being demanded from family members who can barely feed themselves, let alone pay a ransom. Torture and violence at the hands of hostage takers is brutal; pulling teeth, gouging eyes, driving nails through hands and feet, cigarette burns are all reported, and if ransoms are not paid, migrants, after this hell are often beaten to death. In March this year 70 Ethiopian men and women were discovered in Yemen’s Hajjah Governorate, again near the border with Saudi Arabia, the UN humanitarian news and analysis, reports, “their captors, they said, had beaten them with pipes, burned them with cigarettes and poured liniment in their eyes making them scream in pain.” This horrific incident indicative of many follows close on the heels of the killing of three Ethiopian men in January, shot while trying to escape from smugglers. They had made the arduous journey from rural Ethiopia to Yemen, full of hope, only to be tortured and finally murdered.
The ordeal of women begins in Djibouti, DRC report an Ethiopian man recounting the sea passage when “four Yemeni smugglers were on board the boat. They raped the girls in front of us, we were not able to move or to speak, and those girls were already sold to Yemeni traffickers.” Many are abducted and held captive, sometimes for months on end, their experiences are harrowing in the extreme, DRC tell of a 16 year old girl from Wollo who was imprisoned for six months and repeatedly raped by gang members. Far from being the exception the majority relate incidents of sexual abuse, with “many reporting being raped at almost every stage in their journey and stay within Yemen.” They “are often captured, kidnapped and disappear and it is believed they are trafficked for sexual or domestic slavery”. It is unclear where women are trafficked, it is suggested they are sold to Saudi families as “virtual slaves”, many no doubt end up in some kind of sex trade, those that eventually make it out of Saudi Arabia relate incidents of rape at the hands of brokers or employers. The horrific stories are endless, extreme abuse and brutality by vicious criminals who are destroying lives in the thousands, and it seems, with impunity. Those victims lucky enough to make it home need therapeutic support and time to gently heal, the Ethiopian government in partnership with international and national NGO’s, in addition addressing the reasons why their citizens are leaving home, need to provide professional care to help the victims overcame such trauma.
Yemeni collusion
The smugglers are organized and well armed, raiding their houses, the Chief of Police for Haradh District that borders Saudi Arabia, where 4,000Ethiopians currently await repatriation, said, Reuters report, “we face fierce resistance and shootouts. It’s like fighting an insurgency… As long as these people keep arriving the smugglers will keep taking them. There is nothing we can do.” The Yemeni and Ethiopian governments have been discussing ways to present “all facilities required to return the Ethiopian refugees to their home,” said the Yemeni Interior Minister, with standard political ambiguity, failing to mention the brutal criminality taking place inside his country, the security services corruption and the complete lack of police activity to apprehend the smugglers, protect the migrants and bring the trafficking to an end.
The Yemeni authorities shamefully complicit in the violence are portraying Ethiopian and other migrants as the cause of and reason for the increased level of extreme criminality, and as UNHCR report with internal instability giving rise to “reduced police presence…[that is] giving human traffickers and smugglers more room to operate.” And in a sign that suggests further state collusion with criminal gangs, we are informed that police activity “is also frequently preventing patrols along Yemen’s shores by humanitarian teams as they try to reach new arrivals before the smugglers.” Corruption is endemic, with security officials coordinating with smugglers on the border with Saudi Arabia, “a climate of collusion and low political will to apprehend and prosecute smugglers is allowing the trade and abuse of migrants to flourish” (Reuters). The country is run, a military officer on the payroll of the smugglers to the tune of $2,000 a month says, “by tribes not policemen: these people are my friends.” ‘These people’ are turning a blind eye to the murder, rape and trafficking of innocent migrants seeking work to feed their families.
The right to be free and safe
The realization of freedom for the people is the solemn duty of the Ethiopian government, it is the foundation of democracy without which no true and lasting human development will take place, it is however a duty regarded by the TPLF/EPRDF with contempt and disregarded totally. The quest and heartfelt desire of the people of Ethiopia is for social justice and liberty not migration to the Gulf or beyond. They are deeply proud, dignified and many devoutly religious, who love the land of their birth. Overwhelmingly they risk life and limb not in search of material wealth but to escape economic hardship and political imprisonment at the hands of a highly repressive regime that seeks total control and denies all freedom of speech, acknowledged as a human right in the federal constitution.
The political space, narrow in the extreme must be opened, to allow, indeed encourage political and social participation and responsibility. Participation feared only and always by the dictator, would enrich the society, allowing the free flow of ideas to address the many issues facing the country. Such inclusive measures, in keeping with the time and the aspirations of the people would cultivate an atmosphere of hope and strengthen the community. A nationwide programme to raise awareness of the dangers inherent in migration via Yemen and to Gulf countries more broadly, aimed at deterring the unknowing is an imperative responsibility of the government, designed and delivered perhaps in collaboration with international NGO’s working throughout the country, further facilitating involvement and cooperation.
The non-partisan distribution of development aid, an ignored legal requirement, would be a positive step in bringing relief from extreme economic hardship and curtailing migration. Currently, grain fertilizer and food, are selectively distributed by regime stooges based, not on need, but on political affiliation. Ethiopia’s primary donors, America Britain and the European Union, have a responsibility to ensure this is addressed, in addition to insisting the Ethiopian government observes human rights, adheres to federal and international law and dismantles mechanisms of state repression. All such steps would build confidence in change, reducing the need to migrate. Development that does not address humanitarian needs justly, and denies the observation of basic human rights enshrined in law, pollutes the notion of change, allows state corruption and limits government responsibility to the realization of targets set by international institutions seeking to maximize their return and build political/economic models of conformity and control.
In accordance with the responsibilities of office, the Ethiopian government must take all necessary steps to safeguard its citizens. Appropriate consular support is essential in offering protection, advice and sanctuary to migrants, no matter their political affiliation or ethnicity. Urgent, sustained and coordinated efforts are needed by the affected countries law enforcement agencies and judiciary to close down the criminal networks, route out corruption and safeguard migrants. The innocent men women and children from Ethiopia making an impossible choice, with they see no alternatives, are not the villains in this ongoing human tragedy they are the victims trapped in a terrifying nightmare.
With her decision to withdraw from consideration as secretary of state, Susan Rice—and her greatest champion, President Obama—is finally bowing to the inevitable. Her supporters concocted any number of reasons to promote her ascension to the top floor of Foggy Bottom. She was, they said, being demonized by the right. She was being subjected to racism. She was just trying to please her superiors. And so on.
U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice speaks during a Security Council meeting on the situation in Syria in August in New York. (Stephen Chernin/AFP/Getty Images)
Don’t believe a word of it. The real problem is not that she bungled Libya. It’s that she should never have been ambassador to the United Nations in the first place—let alone become secretary of state.
Until recently, Rice was smoothly on track to become the Edmund Hillary of foreign-policy strivers. But unlike the legendary climber, she only glimpsed but never quite reached the summit. Her entire career has been based less on solid accomplishment than on her networking skills. In that regard, she exquisitely represents her generation, which largely consists of unwise men and women.
Even a cursory look at Rice’s résumé should induce some queasiness. Essentially, she was molded in Washington, D.C. She punched all the right tickets—National Cathedral School, Stanford, Rhodes scholarship, Brookings Institution. She is a perfect creature of the Beltway. But the downside is that there is scant evidence that she ever flourished outside the cozy ecosystem of the foreign-policy establishment.
It has not always been thus. Henry Kissinger produced serious books about international affairs. Further back, Dean Acheson was a successful lawyer. James Baker was both a shrewd lawyer and political operative whose wheeler-dealer skills translated well into dealing with foreign allies and adversaries. Now it’s not necessary to be all of these things at once. No one would claim that Hillary Clinton is a Kissingerian-style intellectual. But Clinton’s stature and political prowess allowed her to crack heads during the recent Gaza crisis.
What would Rice have brought to the State Department? The most she seems to have accomplished outside the foreign-policy world is to serve a stint as a management consultant at McKinsey & Co. Otherwise, she has produced no memorable books or articles or even op-ed essays. The most interesting thing about Rice has been the kerfuffle over her move to become secretary of state.
Perhaps it should not be altogether surprising that her record in Africa seems to have been one of catering to some of the most loathsome dictators in the region.
Throughout, her most distinguishing trait seems to be an eagerness to please her superiors, which is entirely consistent with how she rode the escalator to success. Want to avoid declaring that genocide is taking place in Rwanda? Go to Rice. Want to fudge the facts in Libya? Rice is there again. Obama had it right when he observed that she “had nothing to do with Benghazi and was simply making a presentation based on intelligence that she had received.” But why, as Maureen Dowd asked, didn’t she question it? The answer is simple: because she rarely, if ever, questions authority. Instead she has made a career out of catering to it.
Perhaps, then, it should not be altogether surprising that her record in Africa seems to have been one of catering to some of the most loathsome dictators in the region. She fell over herself to praise the late Ethiopian dictator Meles Zenawi in September.
In a keen analysis in the National Journal, Michael Hirsh noted that she has come under severe fire from human-rights activists for her insouciance about Africa and that, “recently, during a meeting at the U.N. mission of France, after the French ambassador told Rice that the U.N. needed to do more to intervene in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rice was said to have replied: ‘It’s the eastern DRC. If it’s not M23, it’s going to be some other group,’” according to an account given by a human-rights worker who spoke with several people in the room. (Rice’s spokesman said he was familiar with the meeting, but did not know if she made the comment.)
Once again, this may not have been her personal predilection, but Rice was only too happy to try and bury foreign-policy problems rather than confront them.
Now that Rice has fallen short, she may be succeeded at the U.N. by her former antagonist Samantha Power, who originally reported that Rice had worked to whitewash events in Rwanda. Unlike Rice, Power has traveled extensively in dangerous regions, combining the professions of journalist and activist. She resembles a modern Rebecca West. Whether the acidulous Power can ultimately muster the diplomatic skills to surpass Rice will be one of the tantalizing mysteries of Obama’s second term. For now, it appears that Obama will select either John Kerry or Chuck Hagel to run the State Department. It will allow Rice to try and once more burnish her résumé. But the amazing thing isn’t that she failed to become secretary of state. It’s that Rice rose as high as she did.
December 13, 2012 marks the 9-year anniversary of the brutal massacre of 424 disarmed Anuak in Gambella, Ethiopia by the TPLF/EPRDF Defense Forces armed with guns and militia groups armed with machetes. Not just the families of the victims, but all Anuak, will forever remember that dark day that brought so many pains, tears and suffering.
Even after 9 years, some widows, some fathers, some mothers and children are still waiting to bury their loved ones properly. Some day their bodies, which were buried in mass graves, will be exhumed and buried with proper respect by their families and loved ones. Someday a memorial of remembrance may be erected in Gambella in their honor, to remind people that behind every name on that memorial, is a human life, given as a precious gift from God, our Creator.
Such memorials may be erected all over Ethiopia where innocent lives of Ethiopians have been taken. Someday, a large monument—a wall of shame—could be erected in Addis Ababa with the names of the Anuak and the names of all other people throughout Ethiopia who have lost their lives at the hands of this government that devalues human life.
On this Anuak Memorial Day, Anuak in Gambella cannot join with Anuak in the Diaspora in observing this day. It is prohibited by the TPLF or EPRDF government. Instead, they will have to look forward to the day they will be able to join together in a service such as the ones being held in USA, Canada, Europe, Australia, Kenya, South Sudan and in other cities where there are Anuak where they are free to remember the death of more than 1500 other Anuak who were killed in the next two years following the December massacre.
Because public mourning is not allowed, those who want to remember family members, friends and community members who died, must quietly carry out some kind of observances within their homes and hearts.
This TPLF regime wants to erase it from the memory of the Anuak, but this will never happen. Someday, all the details will be revealed for all to see on the shame-filled pages of our Ethiopian history books. Until then, Anuak are still waiting for those responsible to be brought to justice. As one Anuak who lost a family member recently said, “the TPLF and it killers have moved on, but we will never stop grieving or rest until the killers have been brought to justice and until our family members are buried properly.”
For the Anuak people and supporters of the Anuak, let us all remember this day together. Let us take this day of sorrow and make it a day of reconciliation and healing among all peace-loving Ethiopians. This pain we feel was brought because of hate, anger, envy and greed and we want to create a different Ethiopia.
May God bless all of those who are remembering this day of tragedy and may God help bring about an Ethiopia where truth, justice, freedom, reconciliation and harmony prevail over death and destruction.
Please take a few minutes and watch this heartbreaking video below: The testimonies of survivors and other witnesses of the December 13th Massacre. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaZty97JXzU
EDITOR’S NOTE: While Ethiopia’s regime cooks up fantastic numbers to show double digit growth, the realities on the ground are more sobering and depressing. The political elite is addicted to foreign handouts and human trafficking. In an economy where unemployment runs as high as 50% and foreign exchange is continuously in short supply, the regime has embarked on a major initiative to export young women for profit. Within Ethiopia itself, poverty, bad cultural practices and the presence of so many alms givers in a destitute country is exposing poor and vulnerable children to exploitation.
Stolen Childhoods: Child Prostitution And Trafficking In Ethiopia
By Graham Peebles
Prostitution, perhaps the most distressing form of child abuse, is an epidemic throughout Ethiopia. The innocence of a childhood shattered, causing a deep feeling of shame, poisoning the sense of self and excluding the child from education, friends and the broader society. A society, which stands idly by whilst children suffer, speaking not in the face of extreme exploitation, denying the truth of extensive child exploitation and acts not, is a society in collusion.
In the capital, prostitution abounds, “It is difficult to give an exact figure for the prevalence of child prostitution in Addis Ababa but observation reveals that the numbers are increasing at an alarming rate in the city”1 The joint Save the Children Denmark and Addis Ababa City administration (SCD) study states: “Interviewing children revealed that over 50% started engaging in prostitution below 16 years of age. The majority work more than six hours per day”
There are many grades or levels of prostitution, “Some children engage in commercial sex in nightclubs, bars and brothels, while others simply stand on street corners waiting for men to pick them up.” (CPAA)
The SCD study “identified types of child prostitution: working on the streets; working in small bars; working in local arki or alcohol houses; working in rented houses/beds and; working in rent places for khat/drugs use. Each location exposes the children to different risks and hazards.”
“The major problems that have been faced by children engaged in prostitution include: rape, beating, hunger, etc. Based on the responses of children engaged in prostitution, about 45% of them have been raped before they engaged in the activity”. (CPAA)
The dangers associated with child prostitution affect the girls physical and mental/emotional health. Violent physical abuse, being hit and raped is common, Birtuken a 17 year old child sex worker (CSW), “prostitution is disastrous to the physical and social wellbeing of a person.” (CPAA)
The impact on the long-term mental health of a child working in prostitution, can often cause chronic psychological problems, “the emotional health consequences of prostitution include severe trauma, stress, depression, anxiety, self-medication through alcohol and drug abuse; and eating disorders.2
The risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s) and HIV/Aids is great, so too the chances of unwanted pregnancies, as men, immersed in selfishness and ignorance, refuse to wear condoms. Their arrogance and macho bravado is a major cause in the spread of HIV/Aids in Ethiopia USAID3 suggests, “1.3million people are now living with the virus in the country”. It is estimated that “70 per cent of female infertility is caused by sexually transmitted diseases that can be traced back to their husbands or partners.”4 “Women in prostitution have been blamed for this epidemic of STDs when, in reality, studies confirm that it is men who buy sex in the process of migration who carry the disease from one prostituted woman to another and ultimately back to their wives and girlfriends.” (EoP)
There are various causes for the growth in child prostitution in urban and rural areas as well as Addis Ababa, arranged marriages, illegal under Federal Law is cited as a key factor, “Research carried out in 2005 established that most victims of commercial sexual exploitation found in the streets of Addis Ababa had been married when they were below 15 years of age” (SAACSEC) In highlighting the factors that drive children away from their homes and into commercial sex work, the CPAA study found that “Most of the child prostitutes came from regions to look for a job, due to conflicts at home, early marriage and divorce.
Poverty, death of one or both parents, child trafficking, high repetition rates and drop out from school and lack of awareness about the consequence of being engaged in prostitution are key factors that push young girls to be involved in commercial sex work”. (CPAA)
In addition to arranged marriage, which is a significant cause, the study found that “the major reasons identified by the children themselves for engaging in commercial sex work are: poverty (34%), dispute in family (35%), and death of mother and/or father. 40% joined prostitution either to support themselves or their parents. Quite a large number of girls (35%) have joined prostitution due to violence within the home. Thus violence within the family is the main cause for children fleeing from home.”
The causes listed are complex and interrelated. At the epicenter of these diverse reasons though sits the family. Conflict at home is for many girls (and boys) the force driving them away from family and onto the streets of Addis Ababa, or one of the provincial towns and cities. Division and conflict grow from many seeds, repeated physical abuse at the hands of a parent or stepparent, rape at the hands of a Father, stepfather or extended family member, physical and verbal abuse, all are factors that force girls to leave the home and seek release from what has become a prison like existence of servitude, intimidation and fear. “When physical and psychological punishment becomes intolerable, it may lead to the child running away from home. Girls tend to become prostitutes when they run away from home.” (VACE2)
Another burgeoning group from which many children fall into the net of prostitution is that resulting from HIV-orphans who have lost their parents to the virus. “Ethiopia has one of the largest populations of orphans in the world: 13 per cent of Ethiopian children have lost one or both parents…the number of children orphaned solely by HIV/AIDS has reached over 1.2 million. These children find themselves at a very high risk of entering commercial sex to survive, yet there is very limited support available for them either from government [emphasis mine}.”(AACSE)
Coherent or dysfunctional, the social fabric is a tapestry of interrelated, interconnected strands. Neglect by the Ethiopian Government in areas diverse, and fundamental is the glue that is binding together a polluted stream of suffering and pain.
Bussed in Married off
In 2006/7, I worked with the Forum for Street Children Ethiopia (FSCE), running education projects for the children in their care. Girls living and working on the streets, mainly the hectic cobbled broken pathways around the Mercato Bus station. “This extremely poor neighborhood in the city has become ‘the epicentre of the capital’s illegal [emphasis mine] industry of child prostitution’5
The children at FSCE ranged in age, although many did not even know their date of birth; most the children do not have documentation “the problem is further aggravated by a widespread lack of birth registration” (CPAA). Some were as young as 11 years old, “over 50% started engaging in prostitution below 16 years of age” the study states. “In almost every case the girls come to the city from the countryside, their families cast many out, others sent to Addis to work”.
Arriving at the city’s main bus-station, shrouded in naivety and fear, with little or no education, the girls make easy pickings for the men that greet them, with a warm smile, and a cunning mind only to mistreat, use and exploit them. With nowhere else to go, and no alternatives, the girls find themselves working the street and the journey into the painful, destructive prison of prostitution has begun.
Many, according to Save the Children Denmark (STCD), come from the Amhara region, the second most populated region, with a population of over 20 million. These children arrive in the capital knowing nobody, with (probably) no money and no contacts.”Enforced child marriages, abuse, and the prospects of ending their days in the grip of poverty are factors pushing Ethiopian girls as young as nine years of age’” (VACE), to risk their childhood and their lives in the city.
According to (CPAA) “There are many factors pushing the girls away from the region, (Amhara) including poverty, peer pressure and abuse. But child marriage is one of the most common explanations we hear when interviewing the girls,” Arranged marriages are widespread in the (Amhara) region in the north of Ethiopia, where young girls, children are forced to marry adult men, all too often this ‘union’ results in rape, abuse and violence, from which the innocent child is forced to flee, only into the clutches of exploitation, violence and abuse. And do they recover, is there healing and release, is a childhood stolen, a childhood lost, let us pray it is not so.
Marriages entered into unwillingly by extremely young girls, some as young as seven years old usually in exchange for reparations of some kind, money, cattle, land, lead all too often to abuse and violence, “traditional practices like female genital mutilation (FGM) and early marriage, are causes for the increased violence against children.” 14-year-old boy 6 “in Wolmera Woreda, the practice of FGM is nearly universal since girls must be circumcised before marriage.” (VACE2) Once committed to a marriage, by parents who often regard the child as no more than an object to be traded, the girl is frequently raped and mistreated and treated as a servant. “Abduction, rape and early marriage may ultimately lead many girls to prostitution. Early marriage and abduction seldom produce successful marriages. In fact, such relationships are short-lived. As a result, most of these young girls run far away from their husbands in an attempt to start a new and happier life elsewhere. Unfortunately, many of them end up as prostitutes.’ (VACE2)
“Early marriage is illegal (except under particular circumstances), weak law enforcement [Emphasis mine] allows this practice to be widely followed throughout Ethiopia; the phenomenon is reported in almost every region of the country.
Nationwide, 19 per cent of girls were married by the age of 15 and about half were married by the age of 19; in Amhara region, 50 per cent of girls were married by the age of 15. “When the marriage finally collapses, the girls usually migrate to urban areas since breaking a marriage arranged by their relatives is considered a shameful act and they are no longer welcome within their families and communities.
Once in larger towns they end up living in the streets given their lack of skills to find employment. Such dire circumstances lead many girls to be exploited in commercial sex.” (CPAA)
To break free of a forced marriage entered into against the child’s will, and be punished by banishment from the family home, is a form of social injustice based on traditions, which have long failed to serve the children, the family or the community at large. It is time long since past that these practice’s where changed. Education, cultivating tolerance and understanding of the Human Rights of the Child are keys to undoing such outdated destructive sociological patterns, together with the enforcement of the law to deter parents and prospective ‘husbands’.
No options, no hope
No child enters into prostitution when they have a choice, “prostitution is seen as a social ill that is unaccepted, prohibited and fought in most parts of our continent. Prostitution is not only a question of morality but a human problem, a problem of human exploitation, a problem of societal failure in providing equal opportunities.” (CPAA) “At the end (of the interview) Belaynesh said that no girl/woman would like to be a prostitute but the problems force them to be in such a situation.” The circumstances that lead a young girl away from the games and innocence of childhood and what should be, the love and gentle kindness of her family, into the shadows of prostitution, may vary and circumstances differ, suffering though is common to all those forced into such a lifestyle, the impact long lasting and severe, the consequences dire, destroying many lives.
The children at FSCE in Mercato told us their stories, often with shame, through tears and embarrassment, always with pain. A thread connected them all, yes poverty, was a major issue, so too poor education however, the stream that united the group of wonderful 11 to 18 year olds, was a breakdown in human relationships, of one kind or another.
Once outside the family, and society, young girls desperate to survive have little choice but to work as CSW. For those recruiting and selling girls It is a business, for the children on the streets it a torture. “Almost all respondents do not like prostitution (99%). Almost all the girls are involved in prostitution not because they like what they are doing but due to other factors, to support themselves or their families.” (CPAA) “Child prostitution [is] a big business involving a whole series of actors from abductors at bus stations, to blue taxis and bar/hotel owners who tend to see children as the spices of their trade. The business actors, oblivious to pervasive taboos, have long abandoned recruiting adult prostitutes.” (CPAA)
Trafficking lives
Child prostitution and trafficking of children are inextricably linked. They are of course both illegal. All international conventions, from The Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) to International Labor Organisation (IL0), as one would expect, outlaw them. So too do Ethiopia’s Federal laws, “The 1993 Labor Proclamation forbids employment of young persons under the age of 14 years.
Employment in hazardous work is also forbidden for those under 18. The Penal Code provides means for prosecuting persons sexually or physically abusing children and persons engaging in child trafficking including juveniles into prostitution. Federal Proclamation no.42/93 protects children less than 14 years not to engage in any kind of formal employment.” (CPAA) And yet both child prostitution and the trafficking of minors goes on, and on and on. “The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reported that girls are trafficked both within the country and abroad to countries in the Middle East and to South Africa.”7
Children are brought from rural areas of Ethiopia to the capital city by brokers, “ttraffickers, who feed on parent’s low awareness with false promises of work and education for their offspring.” The numbers are staggering, the money tiny, the damage unimaginable “up to 20,000 children, some 10 years old, are sold each year [for around $1.20 to $2.40] by their parents and trafficked by unscrupulous brokers to work in cities across Ethiopia.”8 And who would do such a thing. Who would ‘sell’ an innocent child; condemn a child to slavery and brutal exploitation, pain and acute distress? “These traffickers are ‘typically local brokers, relatives, family members or friends of the victims. Many returnees are also involved in trafficking by working in collaboration with tour operators and travel agencies.”9
“The Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children from Sexual Exploitation in Travel and Tourism has not been signed by any travel and tourism company in Ethiopia.” (CPAA) The Ethiopian Government acting in the interest of the children upon their homeland, and their responsibilities under international law, should rightly and immediately make all tour operators sign the afore mentioned treaty, or face closure, and criminal prosecution.
“The International Organization for Migration (IOM) stated that Ethiopian children are being sold for as little as US$ 1.20 to work as domestic servants or to be exploited in prostitution.” The Middle East is the major international destination of choice for traffickers, “Many Ethiopian women working in domestic service in the Middle East face severe abuses indicative of forced labor, including physical and sexual assault, denial of salary, sleep deprivation, and confinement. Many are driven to despair and mental illness, with some committing suicide. Ethiopian women are also exploited in the sex trade after migrating for labour purposes – particularly in brothels, mining camps, and near oil fields in Sudan – or after escaping abusive employers in the Middle East.”10 “At least 10,000 have been sent to the Gulf States to work as prostitutes.”(CTE)
Let us not even begin to look at the complicity of such states in the destruction of the lives of these children and women, the ‘little ones’ that dance upon the waters of life, seeking only a gentle heart to trust, finding the dark days of Rome, and in despair we cry “Men’s wretchedness in soothe I so deplore,”11
Meles Zenawi loves to ‘talk the talk’ to his western allies, the US, Britain, the European Union and the like, whilst turning a blind eye, a deaf ear to the cries of the child being beaten, the young girl being raped and traded for sex and the teenager separated from her family, her friends and her childhood, sold into servitude and abuse within Ethiopia and across the Red Sea in the oil rich ‘Gulf States’.
(This article is part of a series).
Notes:
1. Addis Ababa City Admin Social & NGO Affairs Office (SNGOA), Save the Children Denmark (SCD) and ANNPPCAN-Ethiopian. Child Labor in Ethiopia with special focus on Child Prostitution Study. ‘Child Prostitution in Addis Ababa 2006 (CPAA)
2. Health Effects of Prostitution (EOP), Janice G. Raymond
3. http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/global_health/aids/Countries/africa/ethiopia.html
4. Jodi L. Jacobson, The Other Epidemic
5. Sofie Loumann Nielsen. The Reporter 10 September 2010
6. Violence against children in Ethiopia (VACE). Africa Child Policy Forum
7. http://www.childtrafficking.org/cgi-bin/ct/main.sql?ID=2067&file=view_document.sql
8. ILO. http://www.childtrafficking.org/cgi-bin/ct/main.sql?file=view_document.sql&TITLE=-1&AUTHOR=-1&THESAURO=-1&ORGANIZATION=-1&TOPIC=-1&GEOG=-1&YEAR=-1&LISTA=No&COUNTRY=-1&FULL_DETAIL=Yes&ID=2067. (CTE)
9. Ecpat Global Monitoring report status of action against commercial sexual exploitation of children, Ethiopia. (AACSE)
10. http://ovcs.blogspot.com/2008/01/ethiopia-is-source-country-for-human.html
11. Faust Part One, Mephistopheles.
(About the author: Graham Peebles is Director of The Create Trust, a UK registered charity, supporting fundamental social change and the human rights of individuals in acute need. He may be reached at [email protected])
