Women’s Bodies as Battlefields
Cinzia Canneri
Winner of the 2023 Camille Lepage Award
The systematic targeting of women’s bodies in war has come to light as a strategy used around the world. Women are subjected to specific forms of violence, in particular sexual violence, or what has been termed “gender-based violence.” Clearly men are also victims of violence, but it is the gendered nature of violence which marks the experience of women as different.
This project has focused on the situation of Eritrean and Tigrinya women who have fled across the borders of Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan, three countries with geopolitical links. The women here are constantly subjected to physical violence, while also being victims of socio-political forces and ethnic and border-related conflicts. And this did not change after Eritrea and Ethiopia signed a peace deal in 2018, an agreement that led to the Nobel Peace Prize being granted to the Ethiopian Prime Minister in 2019.
The project was initially on Eritrean women fleeing one of the most repressive regimes in the world, and seeking refuge in Ethiopia between 2017 and 2019; it was then extended after the Ethiopian National Defense Force, backed by forces from the Amhara region and from Eritrea, invaded Tigray in northern Ethiopia in November 2020. Tigrinya and Eritrean women fled to refugee camps, some to Addis Ababa and others to Sudan.
Preview
United Nations experts have made accusations of crimes and atrocities against all sides involved in the Tigray conflict, including the Ethiopian National Defense Forces (ENDF), Eritrean Defense Forces (EDF), and Amhara militias (Fano), and there have been specific charges of sexual violence against women. Eritrean armed forces used sexual violence as a weapon of war against both Eritrean and Tigrinya women, punishing Eritrean women for fleeing their country, and targeting Tigrayan women to exterminate them. Their bodies became battlefields. They have suffered individual and gang rape, sexual slavery, mutilation, and torture, leaving lasting physical and mental scars.
Very young Tigrinya girls joined the army for protection, while Eritrean girls feared their own soldiers. Women who have been victims of violence have been abandoned by their husbands and face social stigma, but some have formed support networks to rebuild their lives, and many have found plots of land to farm and provide food.
The International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia was set up in December 2021 to investigate violations, but the Ethiopian government has been obstructing such external efforts. After two years of war, the Ethiopia-Tigray cessation of hostilities agreement (the Pretoria Agreement) was signed, but peace is a long process, not just a military deal, and requires the recognition of human rights, for both men and women. Women are demanding justice and are aspiring to a better future for themselves and their children.
Cinzia Canneri
