9. CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Urgent steps must be taken to prevent further sexual violence, both in the context of ongoing hostilities and in the context of displacement and post-conflict situations. Accountability for violations is crucial both to ensure justice for survivors and as a deterrent against further abuses. Prompt, independent, and impartial investigations must be carried out into allegations of sexual violence with a view to bringing suspects to trial in compliance with international standards for fair trial. Judicial and trial proceedings must be transparent, as it is crucial that justice be done and be seen to be done to send a clear message that sexual violence will not be tolerated. States must also take a number of proactive steps to prevent gender-based violence in conflict and postconflict situation, including through laws, policies, protocols, and trainings, and through adopting a zerotolerance policy towards sexual violence perpetrated by both state and non-state actors.133 Survivors of sexual violence in the conflict also have a right to reparation as a step towards restoring their well-being through concrete forms of assistance as well as symbolic measures.134 This should include restitution, compensation, rehabilitation, satisfaction and guarantees of non-repetition. In the case of sexual and gender-based crimes, transformative reparation measures “should aspire, to the extent possible, to subvert, instead of reinforce, pre-existing structural inequality that may be at the root causes of the violence”, including violence that women in particular experience before, during and after the conflict. 135 UN Security Council resolutions under the Women, Peace and Security agenda also acknowledge that structural gender inequality and discrimination are the root causes of sexual violence, and affirms the importance of the participation and empowerment of women as the only viable route to sustainable peace and security.
RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE ETHIOPIAN GOVERNMENT In light of the above, Amnesty International calls on the Ethiopian government to take the following measures:
INVESTIGATIONS, TRUTH, ACCOUNTABILITY, REPARATIONS, COMPENSATION •
Ensure that allegations of sexual violence perpetrated since the outbreak of the conflict in the Tigray region are promptly, effectively, independently and impartially investigated, and bring those suspected of criminal responsibility to justice in open, accessible civilian courts in full compliance with international standards for fair trial without recourse to the death penalty. Where appropriate,
Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, General recommendation No. 30 on women in conflict prevention, conflict and post-conflict situations, 18 October 2013, para. 38, https://www.ohchr.org/documents/hrbodies/cedaw/gcomments/cedaw.c.cg.30.pdf. 134 See, for example, Basic Principles and Guidelines on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Victims of Gross Violations of International Human Rights Law and Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law (hereafter Basic Principles on the Right to a Remedy), A/RES/60/147, 21 March 2006. See also, "Nairobi Declaration Women's and Girls Right to a Remedy and Reparation, 2007, available at www.fidh.org/IMG/pdf/NAIROBI_DECLARATIONeng.pdf, Resolution on the Right to a Remedy and Reparation for Women and Girls Victims of Sexual Violence, November 2007, www.achpr.org/sessions/42nd/resolutions/111/ 135 Report of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences: Reparations to women who have been subjected to violence (2010), para. 31, www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=A/HRC/14/22 133
“I DON’T KNOW IF THEY REALIZED I WAS A PERSON” RAPE AND OTHER SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN THE CONFLICT IN TIGRAY, ETHIOPIA Amnesty International
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