Mekelle፡ 19 June 2024 (Tigray Herald)
A 16-year-old teenager, Mahlet Teklay, was abducted dead.from her family, held incommunicado for a month, and tragically murdered. Despite any excuses offered by Getachew Reda’s leadership, the ongoing violence against women in Tigray is utterly inexcusable and demands immediate action and accountability
Tigray, under TPLF, has become hell on earth for women and girls.
This International Day for the Elimination of Sexual Violence in Conflict, we once again highlight the systematic and widespread sexual violence against Tigray’s women and girls that has been the hallmark of the Tigray Genocide. Ethiopian, Eritrean, and Amhara forces have treated women’s and girls’ bodies as battlefields. They have weaponized sexual violence as a tool of ethnic cleansing and genocide. A war-time study found that 43.3% of those surveyed reported at least one form of sexual violence. Despite the 2022 Cessation of Hostilities Agreement, weaponized sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) is still taking place today in occupied areas of Tigray, with Eritrean forces being the main perpetrators.
Given the continued occurrence of systematic SGBV in occupied Tigray, the lack of psychosocial and medical support for survivors, and a lack of justice and accountability for the systematic and widespread genocidal sexual violence, we call on all stakeholders to:
⭕️ Ensure the full implementation of the 2022 Cessation of Hostilities Agreement
⭕️ Expand survivor-centered medical and psycho-social support for survivors
⭕️ Support ongoing impartial documentation and accountability mechanisms
⭕️ Establish a mechanism to drive justice and accountability in Tigray to complement and extend the victim-trusted work of ICHREE
How can you help?
1️⃣Spread international awareness by sharing this post.
2️⃣Write your government representatives and voice our demands
3️⃣Contact local stakeholders focused on SGBV, such as NGOs, and tell them what is happening in Tigray and ask them to champion our demands.
4️⃣Support victims and survivors by purchasing In Plain Sight: 2nd Edition: Seeking justice for sexual violence in the Tigray War, which shares stories of survivors and for which proceeds go directly to supporting the survivors in need.
