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NEWA in collaboration with DEMO FINLAND has delivered series of trainings that focus on women’s political participation and decision-making for women in politics. The three two days trainings have been conducted in the towns of Adama and Assosa from May to August 2022. Participants of these trainings were women members of Benshangul Gumuz regional Council, Oromia regional council and federal house of people’s representatives. The main objective of the training workshops on Women’s Political Participation and Leadership is to strengthen the role of women parliamentarians and regional council members in a way that increases their influence in decision-making for effective governance and plays their role to enhance women’s political participation both at regional and national level. The training covered range of topics under policy influencing opportunities and challenges while touched core concepts in the essence of gender and the recognition of women’s political participation and decision-making in development activities, the relationship between gender and women’s political and decision-making participation and forms of women’s political and decision-making participation. The trainings were attended by more than 180 women politicians. As a follow up activity to these trainings, a post-election review meeting on the 6th general election process with members of Women Politician Network has been conducted and a project idea developed based on way forwards and lessons drawn from the meeting. The need for a regularized and systematic dialogue platform facilitated by mandated agencies such as (NEBE) in collaboration with political parties would have immense contribution for women politicians to come together to exchange, learn and network was one of the recommendations of the review meeting. A continuation of pre-election capacity-building training on women political participation for female members of political parties at the national level has been delivered to 50 women in early September 2022. Mrs. Desta Tilahun, executive secretary of Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary party (EPRP) was one of the participants of the training for women politicians. She is also vice chair of women politicians’ network/coalition. She believes the training helped them to get insight on how they can build their capacity and pass the hurdles the patriarchal system poses on women who wants to join politics. “We, women in politics need to work on ourselves and improve our self-esteem. We have got a lot from the training sessions on how to bypass the patriarchy that puts hurdles in our way”. According to Desta women politicians, both in the ruling and opposition party face similar challenges and the training helped them to have a common agenda around this and beyond. Mrs. Herowak Girma, executive committee member of Oromo Federalist Congress (OFC) is another opposition politician who have attended the training. She found the training to be practical as its focus was on how to enhance women’s political participation, and personally she got very good insights on how to build self-confidence. She thinks similar trainings should have been given by the government as its also responsible for improving women’s participation in politics. Her party is planning to deliver similar training to women members.

Women’s movements are instrumental in flagging issues relating to women’s rights and Gender equality. This has been witnessed through the various movements that have championed women’s causes in Ethiopia. It is with this context that NEWA had planned this year’s “Gender talk Forum ”, which is NEWA’s signature dialogue platform that has been ongoing for many years. This year, in commemoration of International Women’s Day, The Gender talk forum tried to bring together governmental and non-governmental stakeholders with the theme of “Revisiting women’s movements in Ethiopia by sharing best practices, highlighting experiences, and deliberating on ways forward. The Gender talk forum is a part of the project titled ‘Women’s Voice and Leadership’ currently being implemented by NEWA in partnership with Plan International Ethiopia. The gender talk forum was held on March 24, 2022, in Sapphire Addis Hotel. This platform brought together women right organizations, CSOs, International organizations, UN representatives, Academia’s, and also prominent women right activists. This year’s gender talk forum themed “Women’s right movements in Ethiopia towards gender equality” focused on highlighting the history, struggle, milestones, setbacks, success and challenges of the Ethiopian women’s right movement. A presentation by Dr. Agaredech from AAU was presented to the scene after which an intergenerational panel discussion was held. The panelist were two known women right defenders, Ms. Huluagerish from Addis Ababa Women Associations and Ruth Yitbarek from Yellow movement. An interesting discussion was held on the feminism history in Ethiopia as well as the importance of solidarity, networking and collaboration of women right structures for a better impact. During this year’s Gender talk forum, Mrs. Letty Chiwara the UN women’s representative to Ethiopia, AU, and UN ECA was recognized and a small farewell party was held towards the end of the event.  

Many researches indicate that there is a significant increase in the number of GBV cases faced by women and children. According to the latest Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS 2016) at least one out of every three women in Ethiopia has been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in her lifetime, by an intimate partner, and nearly one-quarter (23 percent) of women have at some point in their life lives experienced physical violence, while 10 percent of the women have experienced sexual violence. It is noted in the survey that there is a high rate of reporting of (66 percent) by women and girls who experienced violence. As Network of Ethiopian Women’s Associations, NEWA’s member Ethiopian Women Lawyers Association EWLA’s November 2022 intimate partner violence report of cases handled under the organization’s head office there was 6 reporter of intimate partner violence and 90 percent of 66 divorce cases are results of physical, psychological, and sexual abuses. In cognizant with that, SGBV is at a concern state in Ethiopia, whether within the context of conflict or outside the conflict setting as reports are stating the high occurrence of SGBV. SGBV are detrimental to women’s physical, psychological, economic, and overall well-being. Conflict should not be a ground for conflict related sexual violence (CRSV). Women face sexual violence in all settings, such as workplace, school, home, during conflict etc.  Hence, it is important for everyone to do their part in combatting SGBV. To ensure accountability, the government, CSOs and influencers should work on creating awareness and to bring a change in attitude. The issue of combatting SGBV should be done with a human right approach rather charity-based approach. This is since women’s and girls’ safety from SGBV is a human right. Hence, any form of violation on women right is by default a violation of human right. In relation to this any sort of victimization and victim blaming of survivors that are being witnessing at alarming rate should be addressed as a violation of human right as well.  It should also well noted that the society needs prevent and stand against any form of SGBV. The government is also obligated to ensure whether in the context of conflict or not that any case of SGBV is well accounted for. The access to medical, psychological, and legal aid for survivors of SGBV should be ensure by the government and concerned non-government bodies. Furthermore, we encourage the continued CSOs effort in creating awareness on SGBV as a violation of human right. It is important to highlight the fact that although governmental and non-governmental organizations working on women right have not been to fully combat SGBV. However, combatting SGBV faced by women and children is a responsibility of family, religious institutions, and schools, hence should take it as a concern with the stand of not being silent in the face of SGBV. As it is time more and more cases of violence against women coming to light, this kinjit’s newsletter message is focused on standing against SGBV. NEWA had served as the coordinator for the campaign against gender-based violence group (GBV-CE) since 2006 to combat and decrease SGBV in Ethiopia. This year (November 25, 2022- December 10, 2022) with the theme for the GBV campaign group is “In conflict or peace, let’s stop sexual and gender-based violence” there were different activities focusing on discussions, awareness program, online and offline activisms. Finally, we relay the message that the government and non-government institutions should work to ensure safety of women and children from SGBV. The society should focus on combatting SGBV in all settings. The government in conflict and in another context should work to fight SGBV.