Executive Summary
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Organization for Justice and Accountability in the Horn of Africa (OJAH), have documented widespread, systematic and deliberate conflict related sexual violence (CRSV) in the Tigray region. Evidence gathered by PHR and OJAH, through a systematic review of medical records, shows that CRSV was used as a clear tactic during the active conflict period between November 2020 and November 2022 and has continued since the signing of the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (COHA) in November 2022. In addition to ongoing CRSV, there have recently been reports of escalating tension along the Ethiopia-Eritrea boarder raising concern about a new war, and ongoing violence in Eastern Tigray, which is still reported to be occupied by Eritrean forces, and in areas in Western Tigray that are reported to continue to be occupied by Amhara forces. Since the signing of the COHA there has also been an escalation of conflict in other regions of Ethiopia. There have been reports of CRSV, attacks against health care, mass arbitrary detention, and mass killings among others in the Amhara, Afar, and Oromia regions.
It is critical that the Ethiopian Government conduct independent and impartial investigations into allegations CRSV and other atrocities and hold perpetrators to account. To the extent such efforts occur within a transitional justice framework, the Ethiopian Government’s Transitional Justice Policy has thus far failed to provide holistic, survivor and victim-centered pathways to peace and justice for all those impacted by the conflict in northern Ethiopia, as well as for victims and survivors of abuses across the country. Such shortcomings raise serious concerns regarding whether the Transitional Justice Policy complies with key regional standards, including the African Union’s Transitional Justice Policy. It is with concern for the escalation of violence across Ethiopia and the failure of efforts toward accountability and justice that PHR and OJAH proposes the following questions and recommendations be integrated into the Commission’s state review of Ethiopia at the forthcoming African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights session. This submission draws on public documents, including press reporting, research from PHR, OJAH and other human rights and civil society organizations, and United Nations documents and reports.