Ethiopia: history, culture, and geography

Women's Issues In Ethiopia

The mortality rate among Ethiopian mothers is extremely high party because of food taboos observed among pregnant women, poverty, early marriage and birth complications of female genital mutilation or FGM, especially infibulation. According to recent statistics, every Ethiopian woman gives birth to 7.07 children on the average. Other deleterious practices imposed on them include uvulectomy, milk-teeth extraction, marriage by abduction and food and work prohibitions. The Ethiopian Constitution establishes the legal age for marriage for females at 15 but early childhood marriage is common in rural areas. Girls as young as 9 are given away to arranged marriages, often with much older men. It has been found that pregnancy at this early age often brings on obstetric fistulae, which, in turn, results in lifelong hardship and permanent incontinence. The problem is that only one hospital in Addis Ababa makes treatment available. That hospital conducts 1,000 fistula surgeries each year. Recent statistics also bared the effects of excess mortality on account of AIDS. This, in turn, can decrease life expectancy, higher infant mortality and death rates, lower population and growth rates and changes in population distribution by age and sex otherwise expected

Ethiopia's 1960 Civil Code derives from a monarchical constitution, which treats women like children or disabled. It establishes and recognizes the husband as the legal head of the family and the sole guardian of children older than 5 years. Marriages are dissolved legally by family arbitration councils, not by the courts. Domestic violence does not constitute a ground for divorce. Regardless of the length of marriage, the number of children and the joint property between the couple, the woman is entitled to only 3 months of financial support in case of separation or dissolution of the marriage. Their law recognizes that the husband is not obliged to provide financial support to his family. This is why Ethiopian women and children are abandoned in case of marriage dissolution or failure.

Although illegal, abduction is a kind of marriage in Ethiopia, especially in the rural areas where 85% of the Ethiopian population lives. Women are abused physically during abduction and forced sexual relationships, which follow the abduction, often characterizes the marriages, which result from it. A further consequence is the series of conflicts among families, communities and ethnic groups on account of the abduction and its results. There have been revisions and changes on the country's 1957 Penal Code, especially on issues surrounding rape, domestic violence and child molestation. But despite these and in practice, women still do not enjoy equal status with men in Ethiopia. Young girls continue to be abused as 72.7% of the female population is subjected to FGM, whereby the clitoris is removed with the labia 7 days after birth. Infibulation, which is the most dangerous form of FGM, is performed between 8 and the onset of puberty. While its Constitution states that all persons are equal before the law and extends protection without discrimination, the government has not yet established the proper mechanism to enforce these provisions for protection. The provisions for equality are not applied in actual life. These also clash with the 1960 Civil Code and the 1957 Penal Code, which still exist.

Spade work has been started towards the establishment of equality between the sexes in Ethiopia. Among the objectives of the National Policy on Women are to facilitate the conditions, which would raise their participation in the political, social and economic life in equal terms with Ethiopian men. This participation would insure their right to property, enjoy the fruits of their labor and perform public functions as decision-makers in the same level as men.

Ethiopian culture has made wife-beating and marital rape pervasive social problems. Although women could report their experience to the police and the courts, their own societal norms and limited resources inhibit them. Social practices discourage and hamper investigations into rape and the prosecution of the offender. Many victimized women are likewise unaware of their rights under the law. There are only around 20 estimated rape convictions every year and the penalties imposed are much lighter than the 10 to 15 years imprisonment prescribed by law.

The United Nations reported that 60% of Ethiopian women were subjected to sexual violence, including marital rape. It said that this happens at the domestic level in the households and in an institutionalized manner. The UN report likewise stated that around 130 Ethiopian women and girls had been subjected to FGM. It concluded that Ethiopia has inadequate laws, which should protect its women, and that violence against its women has not yet received priority attention to enable significant change to take place in the country.

Women in urban areas have fewer employment opportunities than men. The jobs these women obtain do not provide equal pay for equal work. When changes were introduced to its labor law in 1998, thousands of women went to work in the Middle East as industrial and domestic workers. Female workers in these places were reported to have been abused or even killed. Close to 15,000 Ethiopian women worked in Lebanon as domestic workers who were also reported to have been subjected to abusive treatment, such as sexual exploitation. Ethiopian women who worked in other Middle East countries were also reported to have suffered the same fate. In response to this development, the Ethiopian government created the National Program of Action in 1997. It sought to expand work and educational opportunities available for its women, improve their access to health care, and educate them about the unhealthy consequences of traditional practices, such as early marriage. There have as yet been negligible improvements on their status since the start of the program. Ethiopian girls have, however, been reportedly attending school in some regions, according to a study conducted by the National Committee on Harmful Traditional Practices. As a consequence, these deleterious practices were said to have decreased somewhat.

The observance of patriarchal customary laws has hampered Ethiopian women from entering informal labor markets. Prevailing gender bias has also restrained them from acquiring land, seeking legal remedies and participating in development activities. Until recently, the responsibilities and roles of the Women's Affairs Office have remained unclear and inadequate. This office has depended only on donors or non-government organizations for funding. It faces constraints in preparing and implementing the appropriate development plans for the country's women. It also lacks gender-desegrated data and this lack has limited the creation of gender-sensitive development interventions and responses. Regional governments do not have the necessary institutional capability to successfully enforce development policies and programs. Cultural taboos and harmful practices prevent women's groups from forming. Collaboration among non-governmental and private groups has also been weak.

The National Policy on Women was established in 1993 to set up appropriate structure within government offices and institutions, which would introduce and implement appropriate gender-sensitive public policies. The 1995 Ethiopian government renewed its commitment to the policy under its new Constitution. It also waged an intense and extensive regionalization process, which would spread gender-sensitive policies and development interventions. Currently, interventions made available for the women of Ethiopia have consisted largely in temporary and unconnected individual projects. If these continued, they tended to just remain gender-neutral and not too effective in benefiting these women. The biggest challenge confronted by regional governments in Ethiopia is that the reverse hierarchy of activities does not reach targeted women effectively. Reasons include a lack of institutional capacity at the sub-regional level and the lack of participation in delivery assistance services. Development plans are not demand-driven and, thus, have failed to recognize regional differences. This trend has disconnected the target women from development interventions. The view at this point does not appear very optimistic.