By UN Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN)
“The knowledge [that FGM is harmful] is increasing,” said Abate Gudunfa, head of the Ethiopian National Committee on Traditional Practices (commonly referred to as EGLDAM – its name in Amharic]. “Children born more recently are safer.”
Still, FGM is carried out on girls as young as 80 days old, particularly in the predominately Christian highlands, and up to 14 years of age in the lowland Muslim regions. A network of 40 NGOs, including EGLDAM, the government and international organisations, are involved in anti-FGM campaigns in Ethiopia. Policies have also been reviewed to ensure participants are punished.
“Prevalence, especially among newly born children is decreasing – meaning that more families have sufficient awareness and do not support this practice anymore,” Abate added.
A 2007 survey conducted by EGLDAM found that prevalence across the country had dropped from 61 percent in 1997 to 46 percent.
Nine regions including Tigray, the Southern and Oromiya as well as two city administrations namely the capital Addis Ababa and Dire Dawa, showed the highest improvement. Other regions recorded minimal change. “There is almost no decrease in Afar and Somali [regions] – the strongholds of infibulation,” the survey noted.
EGLDAM found a decrease in almost all ethnic groups. Some 29 groups reflected a 20 percent decline, of which 18 were located in the Southern Region.
“Those ethnic groups …should be considered real success areas and given due attention as possible learning sites,” EGLDAM said. “Six ethnic groups show about or less than 10 percent decrease and should be considered as groups of probable major resistance to change.”
These included the Harari, Shinasha, Alaba and Hadia ethnic groups.
Globally, an estimated two million girls are still at risk of undergoing FGM each year. Activists say FGM is deeply entrenched in society despite various efforts to stop it.
According to the Inter-African Committee, the practice is a serious health issue affecting women, helping to spread HIV/AIDS and responsible for high female mortality rates in Africa.
Beit Shean, Israel – She spent the first few days weaving in and out of the crowd, ducking here, hiding there. By the time her parents, back home in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, realized their 12-year-old-daughter had joined the caravan of Jews leaving for Israel, she was far away in the Sudanese desert.
Hava Almu spent 12 days and nights crossing Sudan on foot, in extreme conditions, and a year in a squalid refugee camp outside Khartoum, before she was airlifted to a new life in Israel.
Throughout the 1980s and 90s close to 100,000 Ethiopian Jews were brought here as part of major operations – code-named “Moses” and “Solomon” – in line with Israel’s law of return which guarantees citizenship for all Jews. Their immigration is often depicted as a fulfillment of the biblical prophecy of gathering all Jews to Zion, and their arrival was accompanied by excitement and celebration. But their journey has not been simple.
Over 4,000 of them died en route. And many of these immigrants, who came from remote, poor villages, have since struggled to adapt to the industrialized, multiethnic society that adopted them.
Even today, 23 years later, in her Beit Shean home, where she and her policeman husband are raising a brood of Hebrew-blabbering children, the anxieties of that journey out of Africa, the years of longing for her family, and the difficulties of taking first steps in Israel haunt Ms. Almu.
They haunt her, but she’d never spoken of them – until the day six years ago that Talia Argaman came along and opened a free women’s drama class at the local community center. “In our community you keep things in the belly,” Almu had explained patiently to Ms. Argaman, a newly minted community social worker from a nearby kibbutz in the Jordan Valley.
But that was then.
Now, the little drama club has turned into a unique amateur Ethiopian women’s theater troupe – the “Roots Theater” — that performs a play about that journey to Israel and the absorption process at small venues around the country. It gives audiences a rare peek into the often closed world of the Ethiopian community here and has also given the women of the troupe an improved sense of self.
“I want people to come out of the play knowing that we made real efforts to come here,” says Almu today, fixing her rhinestone-decorated baseball cap and kicking off her strappy gold sandals. “Most Israelis don’t understand this. It’s not like we came here because we had nothing in Ethiopia and it’s not like we were just airlifted out and that’s that.”
“We are often portrayed as people who were so poor and gentle that we would have gone anywhere. But it’s not true. We did this because we yearned for this country our whole lives and because we belong here in the land of our forefathers.”
• • •
This summer, the Israeli government announced it was ending large-scale immigration from Ethiopia and that all further requests would be considered case by case. This policy leaves an estimated 8,500 so-called Falash Mura – Ethiopians who claim Jewish roots, the majority of whom have family in Israel – still clamoring for their collective right to immigrate.
The decision and the subsequent media coverage of the Falash Mura’s demands to be brought to Israel have reignited a sober public discussion here of this immigrant group and their complex integration.
Almost 65 percent of the community are on some kind of welfare assistance, according to a June report of the State Comptroller’s Office, And, while Ethiopians make up only 1.5 percent of the population, 11 percent of those in battered women’s shelters are Ethiopian. Last year, five of the 16 women murdered in domestic disputes were Ethiopian immigrants. Drug and alcohol problems among these immigrants are growing, too.
“Israeli society hears these stories but still doesn’t fully understand what is behind it,” says Lea Kacen, a professor of social work at Ben Gurion University in the Negev who has done extensive work on the Ethiopian community. “These immigrants went through a real trauma on their way here. They were robbed and raped and killed in the Sudan – and this trauma has affected not only the first generation but the children too.”
And moreover, she continues, few immigrant groups to Israel have had to make such a wrenching adjustment or had to deal with the collapse of so many of their traditional family and community structures. “They went from the Middle Ages to the 21st century. This is a story we know, but don’t give enough weight to.”
• • •
Argaman, who grew up going to the theater and did some acting herself, always believed in the power of performance to convey a story. So, it was only natural that, when it was suggested she run a class for new Ethiopian immigrants in a development town near her kibbutz, she immediately put up a sign-up sheet for a drama club.
It was not all smooth sailing. Twenty women signed up – but then none, actually, showed up. “No matter what time I called class for, no one would arrive until an hour or two later,” recalls Argaman. “I realized that I could not come in and impose my way of doing things. I had to let things flow according to their pace.”
Doing things their way included accepting that time – and, significantly, being on time – had a different urgency than it does in Israeli society. Meanwhile ,over half the group soon dropped out after their husbands protested. Argaman’s friends all wondered why she kept at it.
But, while most other initiatives started by veteran Israelis at the community center did fold after a month or two, Argaman, a tough-talking, red-haired, divorced mother of two, is not the giving-up sort.
“We come in with good energy but then it gets sapped. The cultural codes are so different and things fall apart,” she admits. “But I believed something special would come out of it if I kept going. And I was right.”
Argaman sat with each of the women, heard her story, took notes and, sitting home at night in her house at the kibbutz, wove their personal stories into one longer ensemble piece about that historic journey to Israel.
In the piece, one woman tells of her baby brother dying in her arms in the desert. An aunt stuffed a blanket in her mouth, she recalls, so she would not cry out and risk being found by Sudanese soldiers. Another woman relays how the community would all cook on the sabbath, despite the Jewish law prohibiting it, just so the other refugees in the camps would not suspect they were different.
There are tales of bandits and rapists and elderly left behind. But here are also stories of success and accomplishments, big and small. A young girl, toward the end of the play, stands up an speaks about making her first Israeli friend in school.
The women all learned their lines slowly – through repetition, as most of the performers are illiterate – and the play evolved. The result, Argaman judged, was worthy of an audience.
“I told them we would put on a real show, with lighting and sound system and everything – but they did not believe me. They just thought, ‘Here is another white person with promises.’ They were not very trusting, and it was hard.”
Almu, who has taken on a lead role in the production, and today dreams of also having her own TV talk show someday, blushes. “True,” she admits. “But then things changed. We began to feel like we were capable of doing something – of standing and talking in front of a crowd. Talia recognized we had strengths we did not know of.”
“These are not actresses; they all came out of the kitchen and none have any formal education,” says Argaman. “But we convey an important message with the play, which is, ‘Look, we have something to say, too. We have voices and stories too … and we are part of this country too.’ ”
JIJIGA – Ethiopia has been accused of deliberately underestimating the scale of a deadly drought facing millions of its people, some of whom are being deprived of emergency food aid by the country’s military.
The humanitarian crisis, caused by three years of failed rains, currently affects about 4.6 million people, though the official number could jump to as high as 6.7 million this week.
United Nations agencies say that the real number at risk is above 8 million, an estimate disputed hotly by Addis Ababa, which is insisting on publishing a much lower figure.
“The figure has risen very substantially, maybe even doubled,” said Sir John Holmes, the UN’s emergency relief co-ordinator, who visited Ethiopia earlier this month. “Any government doesn’t want to be perceived as always in the position of receiving aid.”
The crisis is at its most worrying in the vast deserts of the Ogaden region, where the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) says in a confidential alert to donors that it is receiving “increasing reports of hunger-related mortality”. About two million people are at risk until the main rains fall next spring – if they fall at all. The Ogaden is Ethiopia’s biggest and most remote state.
Nomadic tribes there are resorting to eating dead leaves and cactus fruit to survive the worst drought since the famines of 1984-85, when an estimated one million Ethiopians died.
A twenty-mile trek on foot into the bush revealed mediaeval mud-hut villages, where ethnic Somali herdsmen say that their children have died after eating poisonous buds from trees, for lack of anything else to eat. Others say that they depend on camel milk and meat because cattle, sheep and goats have perished in their thousands.
“I am ill and hungry,” said one man, removing his shirt to reveal his rib cage visible through taut skin. “Because of the drought we have nothing to eat. The only people who receive food are the military forces.”
The UN has raised about 60 per cent of $325 million (£181 million) it is seeking in emergency relief for Ethiopia and says that it is suffering a shortfall of about 300,000 tonnes of aid.
The WFP has told donors that it blames Ethiopia’s “delays in recognising the extent of need” for causing the rapid depletion of existing food stocks. But a Channel 4 News investigation tonight claims that the army has withheld food from villages in the Ogaden deliberately as part of a “scorched earth” policy against separatist rebels of the Ogaden National Liberation Front (ONLF).
Herdsmen in villages almost completely cut off from the outside world said that many of their animals had been killed by Ethiopian soldiers, who also deprived them of water.
“We walk for eight hours to collect water,” said Abdi, a villager about three hours from Jijiga, the regional capital. “Then the military take the water from us. They say the rebels pass through our villages and that we give them supplies. But what can we give? We are dying of hunger. We have nothing to give to our own children.”
The UN says that it has negotiated with the Ethiopian army for the military’s role in food distribution to be kept to a minimum. “If there is a situation where food is taken by the military, we protest,” said Mohammed Diab, the WFP’s Ethiopia director.
However, a confidential investigation by USAid, the US Government’s disaster relief agency, complained in March that “literally hundreds of areas . . . have neither been assessed nor received any food assistance”, with “populations we met terrorised by the inability to access food”.
“This situation would be shameful in any other country,” the report concludes. “The US Government cannot in good conscience allow the food operation to continue in its current manifestation.” The US is spending more than £230 million on food aid for Ethiopia this year but is hamstrung from being too critical in public; Washington sees Meles Zenawi, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister, as an ally in the War on Terror after Ethiopia’s invasion of Somalia in 2005, which ousted an Islamist administration from power.
Britain has doubled its annual aid to Ethiopia in the last three years to £130 million, including £15 million this summer through the UN’s Humanitarian Response Fund, while Save the Children (SCF) is halfway through a campaign to raise £10 million for the country. Two SCF workers were expelled from the Ogaden last year amid allegations – rejected by SCF – that they had diverted food to ONLF rebels. The British charity abandoned a full-scale feeding programme, fearing supplies could be diverted.
ADDIS ABABA — Ethiopian development researcher Dr. Nigussie Haregeweyn won an award of the Belgian Development Cooperation Prize 2007 (BDCP), Belgian Embassy in Addis Ababa announced.
A scientific research works award winner, Dr. Nigussie’s essay under the theme “Sediment-bound nutrient export from micro-dam catchments in northern Ethiopia” is deemed one of special contributions to sustainability and poverty reduction.
The embassy stated that Dr. Nigussie’s study is framed in “a wonderful example of co-operation between Ethiopian and Belgian research units which involves quantifying the mechanisms at play in soil erosion and sediment and nutrient retention (nitrogen, phosphorus, carbon, potassium, calcium and magnesium) and consequently assessing their impact on the efficiency and cost of agricultural practices in Ethiopia.
The essay moreover engages the factors that cause increased erosion often linked to human activity (mainly climate change and poor use of soil: deforestation, agricultural practices, building, etc.). The numerous negative impacts include increased sedimentation in the catchments whose barrages were built in order to manage water resources better.
Comparing several small basins, the essay also recommends better management which makes it the first study of its kind to be carried out in Ethiopia especially in the region where the loss of nutrients can not be easily compensated by fertilizers given the severe financial constraints to which the population is subject. “This fact alone is enough to prove the significance of this work and its contribution to sustainable development as the quality of the approach is an exhaustive end-to-end and multidisciplinary study, remarked the embassy’s statement.
The researcher holds a Master of Soil Engineering and Water Conservation, Alemaya University, Ethiopia, and Doctor in Geography, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium, and presently following a specialized training at the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Tervuren, Belgium.
ADDIS ABABA — The International Society of Obstetric Fistula Surgeons (ISOFS) held its first annual meeting in Addis Ababa from September 15-16, 2008.
The conference was organized in collaboration with the Ethiopian Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, Johnson and Johnson, UNFPA and other partners.
The Secretariat of ISOFS, Dr. Biruk Tafesse said the participants, medical practitioners discussed on issues of training with a main theme of “Trained human power for quality Fistula care.” In addition to that scientific papers were also presented on fistula issues at the two day meet.
The conference also discussed and endorsed a final draft of the constitution, which was prepared by the ISOFS. According to the secretariat, the final draft includes national and international legal codes, professional ethics, standardization of practice, regarding memberships and other issues.
“Even if we don’t have the exact figure of the Fistula cases in Ethiopia and also in the world because it is hidden, its estimated that around 25,000 fistula cases are existing in Ethiopia. In addition to that eight to nine thousand delivery end up in fistula,” Dr. Biruk told The Daily Monitor.
ISOFS established before a year with the objectives of ensuring a high standard of obstetric fistula care services in the world, playing advisory role in treatment, prevention and research pertaining to obstetric fistula and its squeal.
Specialists in the field of fistula were gathered from different countries including USA, Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Uganda and attended the first annual meeting in Addis Ababa.
ADDIS ABABA (AFP) — The United Nations on Tuesday warned that a shortage of food and water was worsening the effects of a searing drought in Ethiopia’s restive Somali region.
“The overall humanitarian situation in the region has worsened due to progressive shortages of water and food,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a statement.
“Food and water shortages have reached critical levels in many areas of the region leading to increased rural-urban migration.”
The agency, citing aid workers, said five administrative zones in the region, also called Ogaden, are affected because of ongoing military operations against the rebel Ogaden National Liberation Front.
Authorities have denied as exaggerated charges by aid groups that the military operation has hampered delivery of aid to the region, neighbouring lawless Somalia.
In early September, UN humanitarian chief John Holmes called on Ethiopia Woyanne to grant aid agencies more access in the conflict zone.
Ethiopia’s Woyanne military launched the crackdown last year after the ONLF, a ethnic-based separatist group, attacked a Chinese-run oil venture, killing 77 people.
According to OCHA, some 4.6 million people in Ethiopia need emergency assistance while another eight million require immediate food relief due to the drought.
“The knowledge [that FGM is harmful] is increasing,” said Abate Gudunfa, head of the Ethiopian National Committee on Traditional Practices (commonly referred to as EGLDAM – its name in Amharic]. “Children born more recently are safer.”