Tigray war: Horror of women infected with HIV to reduce target population
A group of women and children walk next to members of the Amhara Special Forces in a street in Humera, Ethiopia, on November 22, 2020. A study says the number of women subjected to the most heinous crimes in the Tigray war may have exceeded 100,000.
What you need to know:
- The horror of sexual violence has ripped off thousands of Tigray women's sense of human hood.
- Biostatistician Kiros Berhane's study on sexual and gender-based violence during Tigray civil war concluded that the number of women subjected to the most heinous crimes may have exceeded 100,000.
For more than 100,000 women in Tigray, in the northern region of Ethiopia, their lives are like empty shells floating in a wavy sea. The horror of sexual violence has ripped off their sense of human hood.
A Columbia University biostatistician Kiros Berhane conducted a study on sexual and gender-based violence during Tigray’s two-year civil war (November 3, 2020 -November 2, 2020).
He concluded that the number of women subjected to the most heinous crimes may have exceeded 100,000.
How they were done was extremely inhuman.
Women were subjected to multiple incidents of rape, including sexual slavery, with survivors typically held for two to 35 days, found another research carried out by a woman academic trapped in the region during the war.
Others were gang raped by three to 10 armed combatants before objects were inserted into their private parts, horrendous acts of violence against a fellow human being.
In some cases, the attackers forced the family members to witness or participate in the act.
The study also established that women were intentionally infected with HIV/Aids through rape to reduce the number of the targeted population.
But this violence is not just limited to Tigray’; in the recent wars in Gaza and Ukraine, there have been reported of women being captured and raped in detention.
Global leaders
The horror is similar to the more than more than 3,000 women who suffered sexual violence in 2007/08 post-poll in Kenya and the perpetrators have not been brought to justice.
Global leaders cannot keep calm anymore. A group of academics, politicians and human rights defenders want the issue addressed at the ongoing two-week 68th annual Commission on the Status of Women(CSW) in New York.
Making reference to the Tigray horrors perpetrated against women, the global women rights advocates said it's time for tangible actions to end the violence.
In a March 11, 2024 statement, the advocates said “warm words,” have not helped violated women get justice.
“Nor has it prevented women in Ukraine, Gaza or Israel being subjected to extreme sexual violence linked to the conflict in their countries,” they said in the signed statement.
They emphasised that combatants continue to unleash terror on women despite the existence of resolutions 1325, 1888, 2106, and 2467, which condemn conflict-related sexual violence and provide remedial mechanisms.
Hundreds of thousands of women affected by conflict-related sexual violence across the world would be filled with hope for justice if CSW took up the matter, they argued.
They observed that addressing the violations at the international level would also act as a “warning to perpetrators that the international community will act on its commitment to eliminate this gross injustice.”
