A staggering number of rape victims reported in Ethiopia since the Covid outbreak

The world is in chaos. You hear sad stories on the news on a daily basis. Lives are lost, the environment is crashing and burning and to top it all off there is a universal pandemic that is affecting humanity to the core. In the midst of all this, the untold stories of children that are abused and raped remain beneath the surface.Child sexual abuse which is using children for the sexual gratification of an adult is a criminal act committed against children which probably is one of the least acknowledged and least explored forms of child abuse in Ethiopia. This undermined rape and abuse culture in Ethiopia has many sides. While the victims are mostly women and girls, recent happenings have shown boys to be an object of the same ill fate.During the time when the coronavirus pandemic has forced many people to stay indoors countless unspeakable things are happening. Mrs Almaz Abraha, Head of Addis Ababa City Administration women, Children and Youth Affairs office, had an interview on a show that was aired on Walta TV, state-affiliated media, and stated that during these past two months more than one hundred children were raped and abused in Addis Ababa and that the data was gathered from three hospitals only. “The numbers are staggering,” she says “and the fact that these cases were discovered in a hospital shows that there might be more cases that haven’t come to light and that concerns us.”Ato Amha Mekonnen is the chairperson of the Ethiopian Human Rights Council and the Director of Lawyers for Human Rights, according to him the recent issuing of the state of emergency and the partial closing of courts might have initiated the thought that abusers can get away with doing these wrong deeds. “The government should have worked on emphasizing the point that even though courts are partially closed and the focus seems to be on the current pandemic, matters concerning any human rights violations are dealt with in a serious manner.” He says.“A systematic approach to handling an undermined crisis like this should have been put in place to protect the women and children” Ato Amha elaborated. “Taking the seriousness of the current pandemic and the urgency to respond to it into context, one might say the government might be somewhat not fully committed as it should have been regarding human right protection when it comes to women and children, but this is a grave mistake and the consequences are being seen.”“Sexual crimes only come to light once the victims show signs of pregnancy or get sick while trying to abort it,” says Mrs Almaz "Men who used to practice different habits outside their homes are now doing them to their children when they stay at home,” she says. “More than a hundred children is a very large number, these children might have been subjected to abuse repeatedly because they are shut off in a house with their abusers and there was no way of that being known but we are working to change that” The Ethiopian Women Refugee Council Chairperson, Mrs Mahlet Hailemariam expressed that the regular shelters that welcome the attacked women and children have stopped accepting new cases due to coronavirus, and many victims that came seeking shelter were turned away. “Because of that a six-month shelter that will receive new cases has been set up and so far there have been 27 cases.” She explained further.The suffering of these children is not something that is getting enough attention. They need their voices to be heard and they need to understand that there is a system that will accept their cry for help and work on helping them out.

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