Ethiopian People´s Revolutionary Party (EPRP)

 የኢትዮጵያ ሕዝባዊ አብዮታዊ ፓርቲ (ኢሕአፓ)

MARCH 8/2011: International Women’s Day

The celebration of the International Women’s Day on March 8 sadly highlights the miserable condition in which Ethiopian Women find themselves in suffering from both the perennial status quo of male domination and the chauvinistic rule by a repressive dictatorship.

The dictatorial regime of Meles Zenawi has paid lip service to the liberation of women while assuring its totalitarian control over the autonomous organizations of women. Moreover, it has brazenly engaged in the spread of child prostitution, trafficking of young women especially to the Middle East and the perpetuation of harmful traditions and sale of children. Propaganda aside, the majority of Ethiopian women are in a worse situation than they ever were before while the wife of the dictator and other pampered women of the ruling clique use their so called NGOs to embezzle money in the name of the majority of women and their cause. Thousands of women suffer modern slavery conditions in Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries. Many refugee women suffer because they have been denied asylum and human rights by governments ranging from that of Norway to that of Libya and the EU countries.

Any society that does not respect the rights of women is not a free society. In Ethiopia the majority of women have little or no rights. Rural women suffer from absolute denial of rights by the male dominated society and by the dictatorial regime. Preteen girls and young women are subjected to all types of harassment, rape and denigration. All this is directly connected to the system in place that has exposed women to a degraded status that we, as we observe March 8, are forced to castigate, condemn and to call for the respect of the rights of Ethiopian women.