BACKGROUND
Trigger warning: The following article discusses sexual assault, violence, and rape.
This content may be difficult to read; please care for your safety and well-being.
There is a saying that rape in war is as old as war itself. Violence against women during wars has occurred throughout history and still occurs today. Weaponized sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is currently rampant in the Tigray region of northern Ethiopia since the unelected Prime Minister of Ethiopia, Abiy Ahmed Ali, launched a military operation to disband the elected Tigray regional government on November 4, 2020. Five months into the war, the world has now realized that this was not a simple ‘‘law-and-order enforcement operation’’ against the Tigrayan government, but an attack on Tigrayan civilians.
With over 2 million Tigrayans internally displaced, over 70,000 Tigrayans fleeing to Sudan, over 4.5 million Tigrayans at risk of starvation, and 70,000 Tigrayan civilians massacred, the “law-and-order enforcement operation” has turned into a genocidal war in Tigray. Women and children are bearing the brunt of the genocidal war as SGBV is being used as a weapon of war and submission. It has been reported by multiple credible sources that Eritrean forces and Amhara militias have joined the war in Tigray, in addition to the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF), all of whom have been reported to be perpetrators of weaponized SGBV.
