What set this in motion?  

Three years ago, 32-year-old Zewdu Haftu was dragged by the hair and fatally crushed with a car on a busy street in Mekelle simply for resisting an attempted sexual assault. Although her murderers Yared Gebreselassie, who also admitted to killing another young woman, Mulubrihan Mekonnen, and Angesom Hailemariam were initially sentenced to life in prison, they were set free by the Central Court of Mekelle citing  the disappearance from file of a key piece of evidence. 

Keneni Adugna, a 25-year-old engineer and social media influencer, died on 10 March 2025 after reportedly falling from the fifth floor of an apartment she shared with her partner, musician Andualem Gosa. Andualem was initially detained as a suspect but was subsequently released due to "lack of evidence” even though there is multiple evidence that indicate physical abuse and the case could be a femicide, he was released with no proper investigation and court trial. 

Heaven Awot, a 7-year-old girl from Bahir Dar, was raped, strangled, severely mutilated and murdered in August 2023. Her convicted rapist and murder, Getnet Baye, was sentenced to 25 years in prison and reduced to 21 years through an appeal despite endless calls for a harsher sentence. These cases were closely followed by other femicide incidents including the case of Ikram, Liza and countless other women and girls whose names have filled our feeds, the pursuit of justice is repeatedly derailed by missing files, opaque legal processes, and broken systems. These are not isolated tragedies; they are the symptoms of a structural emergency. 

Violence against Women and Girls (VAWG) in Ethiopia has reached catastrophic proportions, yet it continues to be treated as a series of isolated tragedies rather than a systemic emergency requiring an urgent, coordinated state response. Intimate partner violence remains devastatingly high, with over 31% of ever-married women experiencing abuse, showing virtually no meaningful shift over the past decade. Data also shows that women's share of intentional homicides has surged significantly in urban centers while overall homicides declined, meaning fewer people are dying overall, but a rising share of those killed are women. But the justice system is time and again facing fracture under political instability, evidence vanishing, trials facing endless delays, and perpetrators walking free. This petition, and the #TISEMA campaign that set it in motion, calls for a concerted effort by the government to ensure accountability for VAWG.

#TISEMA (#ትሰማ) campaign:

#TISEMA (meaning Let her be heard) is a public advocacy campaign calling for violence against women and girls in Ethiopia to be recognized and responded to as a national crisis. It began as a call for justice and accountability following the killings of individual women whose names entered public conversation. Today, it stands as a prominent public demand to recognize these deaths as a broader pattern of violence and miscarriage of justice, urging the government to deliver on commitments it has already made in various policy and strategy documents. We believe this form of declaration is the only way to break the cycle of injustice, public outrage often followed by silence from all those meant to protect the rights of Ethiopian Women and Girls. 

Our Demand:

We demand that the Ethiopian government formally declare violence against women and girls, including femicide and sexual violence, a National Crisis, requiring an immediate, whole-of-government emergency response.

To make this declaration real, it must include:

• A named accountable office: Held at a level above any single line ministry to drive a unified response.
• Transparent budget lines: Fully identifiable in public accounts to resource prevention, protection, and survivor services.
• Strict delivery timeframes and public reporting: Regular, transparent updates that ensure accountability and prevent crucial roadmaps or evidence files from "disappearing."
• Immediate transparency: Release of authoritative frameworks, including the National Policy on Women's Empowerment and Gender Equality and outstanding domestic violence data chapters.

Why This Matters:

If VAWG is declared a national crisis: it establishes a high-level coordinating body with the authority to compel cross-ministerial cooperation, secures a dedicated domestic treasury budget line to properly fund survivor services, and enforces strict delivery timeframes and mandatory public reporting to ensure accountability.

Sign this petition to demand that the government declare a national crisis, and treat violence against women and girls with the absolute urgency it demands. True national progress is impossible while half the population lives under the constant threat of unpunished violence.

#Tisema #ትሰማ #HaDhagaamtu #HearUs #EndFemicide #Accountability