{"id":471,"date":"2021-03-03T06:50:04","date_gmt":"2021-03-03T06:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/campaign4her.net\/?page_id=471"},"modified":"2021-06-30T22:09:43","modified_gmt":"2021-06-30T22:09:43","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/campaign4her.net\/?page_id=471","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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About Us<\/h2>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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#Campaign4her has been initiated to mobilize and seek feminist solutions to the ongoing conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) against women and girls in Ethiopia\u2019s war-torn Tigray region. #Campaign4her stands in solidarity with women and girls in Tigray and refugee camps by amplifying their voices, telling their stories, and campaigning for their human rights and justice.\u00a0<\/p>

We are feminists, human rights defenders, and activists who are outraged about the systematic rape used as a weapon of war in Tigray. As feminist advocates, we can not look away while women and children are being subjected to weaponized sexual violence and other atrocities. Hence, we aim to mobilize feminist networks within and beyond the continent to seek feminist solutions and advocate for gender-responsive collective action in response to the crisis. While women and girls in Tigray are suffering disproportionately, and they are the primary targets of rape, we recognize that men and boys may also be victims of conflict-related sexual violence.\u00a0<\/p>

Women and girls in Tigray are being silenced as they face weaponized rape and other horrific forms of sexual violence committed against them as a part of a larger warfare strategy of ethnic cleansing. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on Sexual Violence in Conflict\u00a0 described the sexual violence in Tigray region as\u00a0\u2018\u2018a level of cruelty beyond comprehension<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>

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''There is no doubt that sexual violence is being used in this conflict as a weapon of war, as a means to humiliate, terrorize, and traumatize an entire population today and into the next generation.''<\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Sir Mark Lowcock<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator <\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Girls as young as eight years old are being targeted<\/b>, many women have faced sexual slavery, forced pregnancy, sexual torture, gang rape over a number of days, usually in public, in front of their children and family members and other horrific abuses, including individuals forced to rape their own family members. Ever more horrific forms of sexual violence continue to surface: women have had their genitals burned and their uterus filled with foreign objects, including burning sticks, hot metal rods, stones, nails, pieces of plastic and sand in the attempt to make women of Tigray infertile.\u00a0<\/b><\/p>

A doctor treating survivors of sexual violence in Sudan, Hamdayet refugee camp, reported to CNN<\/a> that “The women that have been raped say that the things that they say to them when they were raping them is that they need to change their identity–and that they’ve come there to cleanse them <\/b>… to cleanse the bloodline<\/b>,” Dr. Tedros Tefera said. “Practically this has been a genocide,”<\/b> he added. The perpetrators<\/a> were identified as members of the ”Ethiopian National Defense Forces, Eritrean Defense Forces, Amhara Special Forces, and other irregular armed groups or aligned militia.”<\/p>

The full extent of the sexual violence committed against women and girls in Tigray remains unknown due to the Ethiopian government\u2019s communications shutdown and limited access to the region. Furthermore, survivors are compelled to navigate the aftermath of sexual violence in situations of curfew, movement restriction, repeated sexual attacks, fear of retaliation, stigma and lack of access to services due to the systematic destruction of the healthcare centers.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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''In the remote, mountainous regions of North and Central Tigray, women and girls are being subjected to sexual violence with a level of cruelty beyond comprehension.'' <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t
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Ms. Pramila Patten<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
United Nations Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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The UNFPA expects that at least 22,500 survivors of sexual violence <\/a>are estimated to seek clinical care due to the consequences of conflict-related sexual violence. The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Sir Mark Lowcock confirmed that \u201cthere is no doubt that sexual violence is being used in this conflict as a weapon of war, as a means to humiliate, terrorize, and traumatize an entire population today and into the next generation.\u201d <\/b>During the UN security council briefing in April 2021, Sir Mark Lowcock reported that an unspecified agency operating in Tigray had estimated that 30% of all incidents <\/a>against civilians involved sexual violence and nearly 25% of reports<\/a> received by another involved gang rape.\u00a0<\/p>

These atrocities must come to an end and urgent measures need to be taken to prevent further sexual violence from happening and to protect all civilians in Tigray, including those who have been internally displaced by the conflict and those who remain in refugee camps. Hence, we call upon African feminists, global feminists, peacebuilders, women in leadership, and global human rights defenders to use their voices to end the severe perpetration of rape as a weapon of warfare in Tigray and demand that all perpetrators be held accountable. Survivors of CRSV deserve access to medical care, security, justice, and support to restore their dignity. We will continuously campaign for the safety and protection of the human rights of women and girls who are still trapped in conflict in Tigray, to make sure that their voices don’t get silenced nor forgotten.<\/p>

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For more information on Tigray humanitarian crisis<\/h6>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\tRead Here<\/span>\n\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

About Us #Campaign4her has been initiated to mobilize and seek feminist solutions to the ongoing conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV) against women and girls in Ethiopia\u2019s war-torn Tigray region. #Campaign4her stands in solidarity with women and girls in Tigray and refugee camps by amplifying their voices, telling their stories, and campaigning for their human rights and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-471","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/campaign4her.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/campaign4her.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/campaign4her.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/campaign4her.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/campaign4her.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=471"}],"version-history":[{"count":262,"href":"https:\/\/campaign4her.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/471\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2719,"href":"https:\/\/campaign4her.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/471\/revisions\/2719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/campaign4her.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}