TIGRAY
AFAR Situational Analysis: Gender-Based Violence AMHARA in Northern Ethiopia (Afar, Amhara, and Tigray Regions)
PRIORITY NEEDS Facilitate safe access for GBV service providers: GBV service providers who facilitate life-saving interventions are unable to access a large portions of Tigray due to insecurity.
Expand mental health and psychosocial support: Professional mental health providers who can provide a higher level of care need to be deployed to the region. The capacity of community based mechanisms such as women’s associations needs to be strengthened to provide basic psychosocial support and referrals for survivors.
Increase access to health services: Health centres with the capacity to treat survivors need to be prioritized during the distribution of life-saving drugs, and medical equipment. INGOs providing medical support and community health workers need to be trained to identify, treat and refer GBV survivors.
Assess urgent GBV needs: Ethical and safe GBV assessments need to be carried out in hard-to-reach communities. Community structures need to be urgently engaged and capacity build to address GBV prevention and support response activities.
Mitigate GBV risks across sectors: GBV risk mitigation measures need to be integrated throughout the food security, WASH, shelter and camp management clusters.
Scale-up capacity of INGOs and local organizations to provide case management services
Overview Women and girls There have been numerous reports of sexual violence including rape against women and girls, fleeing the violence have told harrowing and also men and boys in the Tigray region of Ethiopia. These incidents have been—and continue accounts of sexual to be—reported by survivors and through eye witness accounts following the start of the conflict violence perpetrated in the Tigray region in November, 2020. Women and girls fleeing the violence have told harrowing by military elements accounts of sexual violence perpetrated by military elements, including being forced to have sex in return for basic supplies.1 Women and girls in Amhara, Tigray and the Afar regions of Ethiopia have reported being sexually assaulted and raped during the conflict, while fleeing from the conflict, accessing WASH facilities and walking long distances to fetch water and firewood. No place is seemingly safe, particularly in Tigray –the epicentre of the crisis.2
1 SRSG on Sexual Violence in Conflict, Press Statement, 21 January, 2020.https://www.un.org/sexualviolenceinconflict/ press-release/united-nations-special-representative-of-the-secretary-general-on-sexual-violence-in-conflict-ms-pra- mila-patten-urges-all-parties-to-prohibit-the-use-of-sexual-violence-and-cease-hostilities-in-the/ 2 Mekelle City RHINGO Assessment; Afar Rapid Needs Assessment 2-7 December; South Tigray (Alamata, Mehoni, Mekelle, and Enderta) Rapid Needs Assessment 20-28 December; https://www.un.org/sexualviolenceinconflict/ press-release/united-nations-special-representative-of-the-secretary-general-on-sexual-violence-in-conflict-ms-pra- mila-patten-urges-all-parties-to-prohibit-the-use-of-sexual-violence-and-cease-hostilities-in-the/
Please contact Dientje van Dongen ([email protected]), GBV AoR Coordinator in Ethiopia if you have any questions about the content of this brief. Shelters for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are made of substandard materials that are severely overcrowded and lack doors with locks, which further exposes households, particularly female-headed households, to GBV risks. Reports from open “collective centres” for IDPs in Amhara region highlight the lack of latrines and sanitation facilities. Aside from health issues, this creates overlapping protection concerns for women, girls, and boys. Recent inter-agency assessments of affected communities in Tigray, Afar and Amhara further revealed that access to markets and livelihood opportunities continues to be disrupted. Women …Access to markets are accumulating debt to meet their family’s most basic needs, which exposes both women and and livelihood opportunities girls to an increased risk of transactional sex and sexual exploitation and abuse, especially in Tigray continues to be where they are experiencing severe food shortages. Child marriage was prevalent prior to the disrupted. crisis. In the Amhara Region, 45.0% of women are married before the age of 14. It has the lowest median age at first marriage (15.7) followed by Afar Region (16.4) and Tigray (16.6).3 Community members in Afar are worried that child marriage will increase due to the crisis and they will lose the gains they had made to reduce this abhorent practice.4 The impact and prevalence of these human rights violations is exacerbated by limited access to critical GBV prevention and response mechanisms, particularly in communities where access has been a challenge.
Coordinating a multi-layered GBV response In Ethiopia, the Child Protection (CP) Area of Responsibility and Gender-Based Violence (GBV) Area of Responsibility (CP/GBV AoRs) are jointly co-led by UNICEF (CP AoR), UNFPA (GBV AoR) and the Ministry of Women, Children, and Youth (MoWCY) to ensure there is effective and cohesive CP and GBV emergency-related data collection, planning and response. Sub- national AoRs have been (re)activated in Amhara, Tigray, and Afar Regions; they report to, and are supported by the national AoR. UNFPA has hired additional GBV national staff to support coordination across the regions, and will deploy an international GBV Specialist to Mekelle to support AoR coordination once access has increased. There are currently over 20 GBV partners (including child protection actors responding and preventing various forms of GBV and providing support to child survivors) who have plans to expand existing GBV prevention and response services or launch new programmes in affected There are currently communities. GBV partners are deploying international and national technical expertise into over 20 GBV partners (including child Tigray Region to assist with this scale up. These actors include UN, local and international protection actors NGOs and government actors (Bureau of Women, Children and Youth and Bureau of Social responding and and Labour Affairs). Many of the risks identified by women and girls are directly linked to preventing various other sectors such as shelter, WASH, and food security. Therefore, collaborating with these forms of GBV and sectors to identify and mitigate GBV risks is a high priority for the GBV AoR and its members. providing support to child survivors) who have plans to GBV response services and outstanding needs expand existing One of the primary functions of the GBV AoR at the onset of any emergency is to support the GBV prevention and response services mapping of life-saving GBV response services, and develop and strengthen GBV referral pathways or launch new so that women and children at risk of GBV and survivors of GBV can access comprehensive programmes in multi-sectoral and survivor-centered services for immediate and long-term recovery. This has affected communities. been challenging in Tigray. Humanitarian actors have limited access to affected communities due to the ongoing conflict and a lengthy “access” approval process by the Government and a previous lengthy approval process by the Government prevented fast scale up of capacity. Even before the conflict, survivors of GBV experienced challenges accessing support services due to stigma from family and the community at-large. Fear of retaliation from the perpetrator and distance, quality and cost of services also negatively impact service accessibility.5 The hospital-based One Stop Centre model (health, psychosocial support and legal service providers operating in the One Stop Center) is used throughout Ethiopia to deliver comprehensive multi-sectoral services to survivors of GBV. They are usually based in regional hospitals and operated by Government counterparts. Currently, there are verified, functioning One Stop Centers located in the following hubs:6
3 EDHS 2016 4 Mekelle City RHINGO Assessment; Afar Rapid Needs Assessment 2-7 December; South Tigray (Alamata, Mehoni, Mekelle, and Enderta) Rapid Needs Assessment 20-28 December 5 CARE, Drought Gender Analysis, 2019 6 Verified through GBV AoR sub-national co-leads and partners • Tigray - Mekelle • Amhara - Dessie and Bahir Dar • Afar - Dubti Town and Asayta Town. Women and girls from conflict-affected woredas who need referrals for GBV medical treatment would normally be referred to Mekelle but they are unable to travel to Mekelle due to movement restrictions and insecurity. The nearest functioning referral hospital with a One Stop Centre in Afar is over 500km away from these The hospital-based conflict-affected woredas. One Stop Centre model (health, Prior to the crisis, GBV survivors from across Tigray would access the One Stop Centre in psychosocial support Mekelle for support and referrals to social services and the safe shelter, but with the current and legal service providers operating insecurity and constrained access, the referral linkage to the One Stop Centre is limited. in the same location) Medical providers in Mekelle (Tigray Region) report that they are currently running low on is used throughout medical supplies, specifically those used to treat sexual assault survivors. UNFPA has these Ethiopia to deliver health commodities in stock and is working with Government, civil society and UN partners comprehensive multi- to deliver them in Mekelle and across the Tigray Region. Services at hospitals and community- sectoral services to survivors of GBV based health facilities in the greater Tigray Region have been completely disrupted due to the armed conflict which has resulted in looting of buildings and fleeing health staff. Sexual violence survivors who are unable to receive life-saving medical treatment can suffer from life-long physical, social, and economic consequences.7 Health facilities in affected communities in Afar are dysfunctional due to a lack of electricity, water, basic supplies, destruction of infrastructure, staff shortages, and lack of pay. These same health facilities in Afar are dealing with an increased number of patients coming from the Tigray Region, which is overloading an already severely weakened system. Health facilities in Amhara seem to be functioning at normal capacity.
Mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) services Short-term counselling continues to be provided at the one-stop centers but mostly as a means of facilitating medical referrals. There is a need to scale up the availability of specialised mental health services in the affected regions. Currently, mental health services are only available in major cities. Community-based psychosocial support services provided by members of women’s associations and other entities that were trained by development actors were available in some communities but they have been severely interrupted and overburdened because of ongoing population movements. This is a huge gap for survivors There is a need to scale of GBV and also for women, girls and boys experiencing conflict-associated trauma. up the availability of specialised mental Government-supported social workers were often the sole provider of GBV case health services in management services prior to the crisis but they lacked consistent training, critical psycho- the affected regions. social support skills and resources such as transport. These government social workers Currently, mental health services are are currently being (re)deployed to scale up the response. GBV partners, including child only available in protection partners providing services for child and adolescent survivors, are in the process major cities. of scaling up psychosocial support and collaborate with health actors to ensure access to specialized mental health services.
Protection – shelters and police There is one functioning safe shelter (women’s rehabilitation centre) in Mekelle town for women and girls of all ages (boys can stay up until age 3). The shelter’s office sustained significant damage and there is a need to expand the shelter’s capacity to take in new survivors. Therefore, the building will have to be rehabilitated. The shelter has a referral linkage with the One Stop Centre in Mekelle and still has the capacity to receive new clients despite the damage to its’ infrastructure. There are little to no options for women and child survivors in affected communities in Afar who need to access safe shelters. As mentioned previously, survivors living in border communities would often access services in Mekelle prior to the crisis but are currently unable to do so due to the insecurity. The Amhara Region shelter remains operational and is still receiving survivors from Amhara affected woredas.
7 IASC GBV Guidelines, “Impact of GBV on Individuals and Communities”, p.8 Police officers have Police officers have been an integral part of the GBV referral pathway, especially those been an integral part specifically trained to process GBV cases. These specialized officers are usually stationed at One of the GBV referral pathway, especially Stop Centres. However, current police structures especially at woreda levels are not functional those specifically and therefore unable to provide protection and perform basic services. Community-based trained to process protection structures including anti-harmful traditional practices committees and the GBV cases. These Community Care Coalitions play an important role in identifying and referring women and specialized officers children with protection concerns, including GBV, to relevant services. However, partners are usually stationed have been unable to confirm whether they are still functioning, particularly in Tigray. at One Stop Centres.
One Stop Centre functionality overview This overview does not substitute location-specific referral pathways, which are currently in the process of being re-established and updated where access has been restored. Contact the GBV AoR8 for updated information on referral pathways.
TIGRAY Mek'ele Provision of Clinical Management of Rape AFAR Bahir Dar Case management Asayta Psycho-social support Dubti AMHARA Facilitation of referrals to police Dessie Referrals to safe shelter Legal counselling
8 GBV AoR coordinator for Ethiopia: Dientje van Dongen ([email protected])