Letters from Eritrea: Women reflect on their access to rights and services (2020)

Letters from Eritrea:

Women reflect on their access to rights and services April 2020 A report by The Strategic Initiative for Women in the Horn of Africa –SIHA Network  

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Credits and Contributors: Design and photography: Ayman Hussein Writing and research: Hala Al-Karib and Faith James Translation and focus group facilitation: Kisanet Tedros Focus group participant recruitment: Issayas Beyene Financial support: Sigrid Rausing Trust

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Contents 4 8 9 9 11 15 23 23 26 28 30 33 37 39 39 43 48 54 59 64

Foreword Acknowledgements Part I: Setting the scene Introduction Background Eritrean Women and the Nation-building Project of the EPLF/PDFJ Part II: Reflecting on women’s access to fundamental rights and services Education Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, and Torture Religious Persecution Health Gender-based Harassment, Discrimination, and Violence Migration Part III: Participant Testimonies Bilen Tsenat Freweini Hadinet Niyat References

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Foreword This report was drafted before the COVID-19 outbreak became an international crisis. While in the process of finalization and preparation for publishing, the COVID-19 pandemic erupted. Initially, this report was triggered by the weak health system in Eritrea and the obstructive role of the state, which has hindered women and marginalized communities from accessing crucial services. This report speaks to the situation in Eritrea leading up to the COVID-19 crisis. However, we anticipate that the continued spread of the pandemic will have a significant impact on Eritrea. As of 2009, Eritrea has closed all private health clinics, and by the end of last year, all the country’s faith-based healthcare facilities have been forcibly shutdown by the government. Since the arrival of COVID-19 to Eritrea in March 2020, the government has done little to prepare the healthcare sector to confront the virus. The government has created a task force to issue guidelines on virus prevention and containment but, in an address to the public, the president emphasized that fear of COVID-19 should not hinder the nation’s continued economic development. Moreover, the government’s decision to reject a large international donation of medical supplies betrays a complete deprioritization of the health, safety and wellbeing of the Eritrean people. It shows that the government values its reputation of self-reliance more than the lives of its

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people. We are particularly worried about people who are being confined in prisons and also those in the Sawa military camp. Both of these locations force large numbers of people to live in close proximity without the means to implement personal safety measures or to properly practice social distancing.

According to the Human Rights Council, Eritrea may be holding tens of thousands of political prisoners under miserable conditions leaving them at risk of contracting various diseases in addition to COVID-19.

Over the past 20 years, Eritrea has slowly faded from international headlines and public discussion. Now a far cry from the once heralded progressive young nation of the early 1990s, the country’s isolation and lack of connection with the rest of the world is staggering. The only time Eritrea seems to come up in conversation of late is in the context of migration; specifically the mass exodus of asylum seekers from Eritrea. Migration is one of the few visible means of resistance left to Eritrean citizens battling against a destructive and authoritarian regime that has appropriated personal liberties and sabotaged the social and economic wellbeing of the nation for almost 30 years. Many people believe that the Eritrean migration narrative is motivated only by economic opportunity and escape from forced military recruitment however, this is only part of the story. The Eritrean government’s systematic and extreme political, civil, and economic oppression, which is nothing short of mass enslavement, requires a much more nuanced discourse.

For SIHA, as a women’s rights network in and from the Horn of Africa, Eritrea remains both important and very dear to our hearts. Our commitment to the women and girls in this precious part of the region is uncompromised. For years, SIHA has attempted to sustain relationships with women’s organizations inside the country but as of 2007, this task has become essentially impossible. Due to political pluralism

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and the government’s suppression of civil society, SIHA is only able to work with Eritrean women and girls after they have left their home country.

Triggered by the news coming out of Eritrea in 2019, this reflection was written in response to the closure of religious-owned schools and health clinics. In June of last year, the Eritrean government closed 22 Catholic-owned health centers. The government forcibly implemented these closures whereby staff and thousands of patients were evicted by the military. Mothers and children from rural areas represent a disproportionately large portion of evicted patients as they have greater need to access the free or reducedcost healthcare offered by these religious-owned health centers. In September of 2019, the government also closed 7 secondary schools that were run by religious organizations representing multiple faiths including Catholic, Islamic, and Lutheran-Protestant. Suppressing freedom of faith is nothing new in Eritrea. In 2016, a young woman who had recently left the country, shared with SIHA the story of her sister who refused to dance at an Independence Day celebration in 2010 at Sawa military camp. She said that her sister refused because she believed that the required dancing contradicted her faith. As a result, her sister was taken by military authorities and has not been seen since.

In 2016, SIHA met with B, an Eritrean female migrant who endured a brutal journey out of Eritrea.

When she came to SIHA, she was in her 50s and the mother of seven children. She said, “I knew for a long time that my life in Eritrea was not safe, but my seven children were the reason why it took me so long to make a final decision to leave.” She told us that after she divorced her husband, she supported her family by operating a small restaurant, where she also traded products brought from Dubai. Towards the beginning of 2000, she began facing frequent arrests often lasting 3 to 6 months. B also endured

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intimidation by government authorities because she refused to relinquish her property. After 5 years of increasingly hostile treatment, B made the decision to leave because she had begun to fear for her life. F, another female migrant who worked in one of the foreign western embassies in the capital city, told SIHA that she struggled with surveillance and regular interrogation which led her to be in a constant state of fear. She said she was regularly followed and that often, authorities would seek her out and interrogate her regarding daily events in her workplace and social life. In the end, the constant fear led her to flee the country. G used to be a professor at Asmara University before she was ordered to transfer to a different college in a remote area. She attempted to explain to her manager that she could not move to the new location because it had no primary or secondary schools and G had four young children at the time. G was fired for refusing to transfer. After being fired, she was rejected for every new position for which she applied. Finally, she was told in confidence that the employers were given reports that she was disloyal and a traitor. Her suspicion that she and her children were under surveillance was confirmed when one of her children was stopped and threatened en route to school. That was when she decided to leave. The stories of these women begin to illustrate the complexity of present-day life within Eritrean borders, highlighting the fact that mass migration, far from being the only topic of note, is merely one manifestation of the hardships and injustices endured daily by Eritrean women.

 

Hala Al Karib Regional Director -SIHA Network

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Acknowledgements SIHA is very grateful to Sigrid Rausing Trust for their support of this research and the production of this report. We want to recognize the hard work and contribution of Issayas Beyene of Africa Monitors as well as the focus group facilitator, Kisanet Tedros. Both showed an exceptional amount of dedication to this work, and without them this report would certainly not have been possible.

We are very grateful to the healthcare professional whose testimony was an important resource for developing this report. We commend his bravery in choosing to speak with us, and to share his observations openly and honestly.

Lastly, we acknowledge the bravery of the women whose testimonies are reflected in this report.

They have shown incredible resilience and strength in the face of trauma and hardship. We are deeply grateful that these women recognized the importance of their stories and allowed us to share those stories through this report.   8

Part I: Setting the scene Introduction Letters from Eritrea 2020 is a continuation of “Letters from Eritrea: Refugee women tell their story” published in 2013 by SIHA Network, in which nine women shared the experiences that led them to leave Eritrea as well as their journeys and lives as refugees. This newer piece, features testimonies adapted from a focus group discussion conducted with five women who emigrated from Eritrea within the last 2.5 years. These testimonies are deeply personal, introspective, and honest accounts of what it is like living as a woman in Eritrea. They shed light on the Eritrean government’s failure to serve and protect its people, especially women and girls. The government’s failures have led many people to choose to leave Eritrea forever, nearly always at significant personal risk.

Since SIHA Network’s first publication “Letters from Eritrea,” any discourse regarding Eritrea has focused almost exclusively on the plight faced by Eritrean migrants. Eritreans are choosing 9

to migrate primarily due to indefinite conscription into the Eritrean National Service (ENS) and secondly, because of repression of press and religious freedoms. The testimonies of the women in this report bring to light an understanding of the everyday realities of being a woman in Eritrea, an aspect that has been absent from major discourse concerning this country. Through their stories, we see that the government’s forceful appropriation of women’s educational and professional aspirations as well as the denial of their healthcare needs are just as important push factors for migration as is conscription into the ENS. Indeed, nearly all participants explicitly noted that there were positive facets of the ENS, even while they called for serious changes in the way the service is governed and administered. The real tipping points that finally drove many women to leave Eritrea were the issues concerning healthcare and educational/professional achievement. While it would be helpful to improve the quality of the health and educational systems in Eritrea, it is important to note that these issues run much deeper, cannot be resolved easily and cannot be separated from the political realities of Eritrea’s ruling regime, which derives its power from the suppression and exploitation of its own population.

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Background Eritrea is among the world’s most secretive and repressive countries. It is governed using a system of fear. Eritrea is a country without due process of law, which leaves thousands of political and religious prisoners held incommunicado for years without cause. Within the borders of Eritrea, women and girls face particularly severe hardships. Women are excluded from politics and policy-making, are economically disadvantaged, and must deal with gender-based violence and discrimination on a daily basis. These hardships are not only supported by the Eritrean state, but are in fact, engineered by it. The state uses its history of colonial possession and violent conflicts with neighboring countries to justify its militant rule and further entrench values of self-reliance, national security, and military power.

The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF) won the 30-year struggle for independence from Ethiopian rule in 1991, and Eritrea became a fully independent nation in 1993. The EPLF rebranded itself as the People’s Front for Democracy and Justice (PFDJ) in its transition from a liberation movement group to an ostensibly civilian political party. Since its inception, the PFDJ 11

has been the only political party recognized by the Eritrean government. It rules the nation with full and unchecked control over military and political power. President Isaias Afwerki, who led the EPLF during the liberation war, was elected by the National Assembly in 1993, and continues to hold the same office today. Initially, a 5-year term limit was specified for this position. However, in 2001, elections were canceled and there have been no elections held in the last 19 years (Central Intelligence Agency, 2020). This complete disconnect between law and reality characterizes much of the Eritrean government’s relationship with its people. The state maintains totalitarian control over the population. Almost all of Eritrea’s commercial, industrial, agricultural and business enterprises are controlled by the government and worked by ENS conscripts (Human Rights Council, 2016). In the late 1990s and early 2000s, the government forced independent trade unions and professional associations to dissolve (Human Rights Council, 2016). A few unions, the National Union of Eritrean Women and the National Union of Eritrean Youth and Students, were allowed to continue functioning but as they are so strictly controlled by the PFDJ government, they are considered to be puppet institutions (Human Rights Council, 2016). By 2011, all NGOs had been closed down or forced out of the country.

The struggle for independence from Ethiopia was initially rooted in class-based grievances much more than identity-based issues (Riggan, 2016). The movement started in the Muslimdominated western lowlands. During the 1960s and 1970s, the urban intellectuals and elite formed the ELF, which began recruiting Christians, primarily students, from the central 12

highlands. These efforts were aided by the repressive nature of the Ethiopian regime. Before long, a group from within the ELF, members who were particularly influenced by Maoist ideology, formed the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (EPLF). The new EPLF positioned itself as an egalitarian and inclusive front in contrast to their rival front, the ELF. The ELF was Muslim dominated and framed the bid for independence as an Arab/Muslim fight for self-determination away from Ethiopia. The EPLF, on the other hand, initially had half Muslim and half Christian leadership, and pushed for independence based on a revolutionary ideology of the egalitarian society that Eritrea could become if emancipated from Ethiopia. The EPLF ensured that both Tigrinya and non-Tigrinya speakers were members of their coalition. By referencing both Italian and Ethiopian colonizers, the EPLF sought to unite Eritreans against Ethiopia because of the suffering all Eritreans experienced any time an external force took away their autonomy. The EPLF gained significant support from Muslim and Christian groups by representing themselves as multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious, and as a ‘party of the people’ committed to gender and economic equality. This positioning was so successful that by 1982, the ELF had largely disappeared and the EPLF had become fully established as the dominant front for Eritrean liberation (Riggan, 2016). The EPLF is credited with leading the nation to victory, sovereignty, and self-determination.

Despite EPLF/PFDJ rhetoric, since independence, the government has engaged in generalized oppression, targeted intimidation, and legal discrimination against minority groups (Tronvoll, 13

2009). The EPLF/PFDJ decided that minority rights are anti-Eritrean and thus subject to suspicion, punishment, and persecution. The government mistrusts those who speak languages other than Tigrinya and individuals can be accused of planning illicit activities such as escape and desertion, if they are heard speaking a language other than Tigrinya (Hirt & Mohammad, 2013). The current regime has recast the Tigrinya highlander culture, predominantly Eritrean Orthodox Christianity, as a unified Eritrean national identity, and makes room for only token representation of minority cultures in Eritrean society (Tronvoll, 2009). Through EPLF/PFDJ propaganda, a sedentary agricultural way of life, which is associated with Tigrinya highlanders, is constantly portrayed as a superior, more modern way of life that best contributes to economic development. In contrast, the pastoral and nomadic ways of life most often practiced by ethnic and religious minorities are portrayed as backward (Tronvoll, 2009).

The notion that Ethiopia might reopen hostilities is a fear that the current regime has leveraged to justify severe, isolationist policy and indefinite, universal ENS conscription (Said, 2020). For this reason, among others, many people held high hopes for lasting beneficial outcomes from the peace agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia in 2018. The peace agreement established an open border and free movement of people between the two nations. Unfortunately, the Eritrean government once again closed the border less than a year after the agreement was signed.

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Eritrean Women and the Nation-building Project of the EPLF/PDFJ During the liberation war, the EPLF movement was built on an egalitarian ideology, which emphasized inclusion and equality – particularly gender equality and the equitable distribution of economic resources. The movement also emphasized values of hyper-nationalism and selfreliance to the point of isolationism, and, that victory could only be achieved through sacrifice, military obedience, and disciplined training. The EPLF used political ideology education programs to unite people under their cause for liberation and the utopian nation they promised to create. EPLF’s ideological indoctrination successfully reduced the political salience of differences along both ethnic and religious lines, and won significant popularity during the years of struggle for liberation.

The highly progressive gender norms established by the EPLF during the liberation struggle, resulted in significant gains for Eritrean women. By the end of the war, Eritrean women made up over 30% of combatants, they had significantly increased access to education, the public arena and political space and as well, they had developed the National Union of Eritrean Women, which drafted the women’s agenda during the struggle. They were allowed more freedom in clothing choices, hairstyles, and in cross-gender social interaction which meant less social 15

pressure to marry and have children. Eritrean women enjoyed a significant reduction in genderbased labor divisions as well as greater equality in land rights. The EPLF implemented marriage regulations designed to end all forms of coercive, abusive, and subjugating marriage practices.

These were to be replaced with marriages characterized by love, partnership, and an equal sharing of resources (Hale, 2001).

Once liberation was won, it quickly became evident that the EPLF and later the PDFJ, would not honor the egalitarian ideology it had promised. Instead, the party engineered a social, political, economic, and physical infrastructure that would ensure their absolute and unchecked power.

To this end, the small circle of EPLF leaders transitioned the infrastructures of war into a system of surveillance, monitoring, and institutionalized control designed to keep all workers and citizens in a state of vulnerability, dependency, and isolation. Drawing on Maoist and Leninist teachings, the EPLF/PFDJ implemented a system where decision-making and control were fully centralized and exclusively top-down. Political or ideological pluralism, freedom of press, democratic elections, and human rights have been continuously painted by the EPLF/PFDJ as frivolous in the face of the importance of national security thus legitimizing and justifying harsh punishments and heavy surveillance (Reid, 2005).

The EPLF/PFDJ regime fully turned its back on the gender equality it preached during the liberation struggle and that it had enshrined in the Eritrean Constitution. The Eritrean state treats women as a resource to be molded to the changing needs of the nation. During wartime, the state needed women to be like men so it encouraged equality. After Eritrea gained its 16

independence, the state needed women to revert to subservient civilian women and to take on primarily reproductive and caregiving roles. This transformation was achieved through a calculated dismantling of the image of the free and fearless Eritrean woman liberation fighter who could take care of herself and maintain agency over her life and was replaced with the subservient and self-sacrificing mother figure. The returning female liberation fighters were expected to fully renounce the freedoms for which they had fought and return to a life of economic dependence, child rearing, and an almost complete usurpation of their autonomy in which their sexuality, bodies, and decisions were once again rigidly controlled by men and the male-dominated state. Within the first 10 years of independence, this loss of autonomy was also implemented at the macro level, whereby the NUEW, which started off as a means of ensuring women’s political power, became a puppet of the male-dominated EPLF/PFDJ (Hale, 2001). The NUEW is now an utterly sidelined and marginalized institution, which the PFDJ government uses as a guardian to facilitate the subordination of Eritrean society, and in particular, Eritrean women. Today, membership in the PFDJ is an unofficial prerequisite for joining the NUEW, and the Union’s leadership is almost exclusively composed of women who are ex-liberation fighters or affiliated with patriarchs of the ruling regime. Like many totalitarian regimes, the PFDJ government has strategically established a bogus women-only wing of the government. This act strangles any potential for an actual independent women’s movement, while simultaneously maintaining the charade that the government is implementing pro-women’s rights policy (Tétreault, 1994).

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Since 1998, conscription into the Eritrean National Service has been indefinite and there has been no major demobilization of recruits. This fact was officially announced in 2002 with the Warsay -Yikealo Development Campaign (WYDC). Indefinite service was ostensibly motivated by the need to maintain forces strong enough to respond to potential future threats to Eritrean sovereignty and to facilitate the reconstruction and development of Eritrea (Bozzini, 2011).

Eritrean National Service is characterized by obligatory military training for all students in their final year of compulsory education and, the assignment of military training graduates to their subsequent educational or professional career paths. This compulsory military training takes place at the Sawa national military training facility, where students live isolated from the rest of the population until completion of their training. In reality, the ENS is a means to keep the Eritrean population economically downtrodden. Conscript wages are very low. Every participant in this report explained that the wages are too low to cover a family’s basic needs and they further explained that conscripts are not allowed to engage in additional income-generating activities outside of their national service hours. Eritreans are only given the right to work in other positions or with private companies once they have been discharged from national service.

Eritrean law stipulates that national service is supposed to end after 18 months, but in practice, national service is indefinite and Eritreans never know when or if they might be discharged.

Because civilian national service jobs are administered in the same militaristic fashion as Sawa and military service, all three are characterized by the same rampant abuse of power by those in authority within the system. Because this system is entirely devoid of functional pathways to 18

hold abusers accountable for their actions, women and girls in Sawa or any ENS post are particularly impacted. Women are much more often the targets of sexual abuse, harassment, and exploitation along with other gender-based abusive treatment, such as retaliatory punishments against women who refuse the advances of a superior officer. This program not only ensures that labor and wages remain under state control but it also perpetuates abuser impunity and is used strategically by the state to impose EPLF/PFDJ ideology on each new generation. Loyalties to any subnational identity are systematically broken down in favor of a limitless willingness to sacrifice for the nation.

Ideological indoctrination is further achieved by the government’s regular practice, through everyday symbols and messages, of mythologizing the Eritrean liberation struggle. Nakfa is a town in the north of Eritrea, which is remembered as a crucial stronghold of the EPLF during some of the darkest moments of the war of liberation. In present day Eritrea, the town’s name is routinely heard in music and other state-controlled entertainment media, and it is also the name of the country’s currency (Reid, 2005). The invocation of Eritrea’s liberation struggle history in everyday life through the national currency and media, is a calculated choice by the government to remind Eritreans of their duty to place the nation before everything, including their own lives and individual liberties. Another example of the government’s national mythology building is the pressure it exerts on parents of children who commit suicide. The government wishes these parents to remain silent about how their children died in order to facilitate the illusion that the children could have died serving the nation with honor (Hirt & Mohammad, 2013). The 19

government further seeks to keep people in a wartime mindset with a constant stream of propaganda and exaggeration, often portraying Ethiopia and other neighboring countries as imminent threats. This makes it easier to justify human rights abuses and militant totalitarian governance tactics which are essential to the government’s strategy for maintaining absolute and unchecked power.

As part of the EPLF/PFDJ government’s strategy to break down the people, it has regularly targeted families and other groups that foster mutual solidarity among members, such as churches, self-help groups, and different forms of associations and civil society. The government has sought to break down these supportive networks in order to isolate individuals (Hirt & Mohammad, 2013). For example, the government strategically assigns ENS conscripts to work at farms, mines, or construction sites far away from their families. This makes it impossible for conscripts to care for their elderly/sick family members, children, or spouses and makes it more difficult to meet a spouse and start a family because of the military-like conditions by which even civil labor is organized (Hirt & Mohammad, 2013). The EPLF/PFDJ have sought to suppress traditional values and norms that are rooted in ethno-linguistic, religious and regional identities.

As well, the government has tried to extinguish the values of individualism and democracy so that the value system of the EPLF/PFDJ dominates Eritrean society fully (Hirt & Mohammad, 2013). The EPLF/PFDJ land reforms and local governance structure implemented by the party in the 1990s facilitated these aims.

One of the messages consistently cultivated through state-controlled media, is the belief that the 20

international community is duplicitous and self-serving and that war is always imminent. This is part of the government’s strategy to keep people isolated, not only from their immediate social support networks, but also from any networks that might be developed with other nations. The isolationist policies of the government further ensure that no outside messages will be allowed to contradict EPLF/PFDJ propaganda. The EPLF government capitalized on the widespread suspicion it had cultivated to swiftly imprison all oppositional or potentially oppositional groups, and individuals under hyperbolized assertions of their threat to national autonomy and paradoxically, to Eritrean liberty. This established a climate of fear and mistrust, which encouraged obedience to EPLF and later PDFJ rule. Moving forward, the government strategically used violence, detention, and even arbitrary and unpredictable regulations/laws to keep people in a constant state of fear and worry, thereby distracting and weakening any potential for cultivating resistance (Hirt & Mohammad, 2013; Reid, 2005). Then, in 2001, it seemed that there would be a turning point in Eritrean history and a shift away from autocratic crack down on civic space and liberties. At the time, the conflict with Ethiopia had just ended and there appeared to be time and space for politics, academic thought, and public debate. However, at this crucial historical juncture for the young nation, the PFDJ government chose to further clamp down on freedoms. When members of government, leaders from the party, ministers, and ambassadors spoke critically of the party, nearly all were arrested and most have not been seen since. Private press was completely shut down and all independent journalists either fled or were arrested.

Many people were arrested merely on suspicion of political activism (Riggan, 2016).

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Part II: Reflecting on women’s access to fundamental rights and services Education During the Dergue (1974-1991) regime, the Workers Party of Ethiopia (WPE) controlled the University of Asmara. Party members were present at all meetings and class sessions whether academic or administrative, and they could jail people for making comments inconsistent with the principles and positions of the WPE. Eventually, the WPE closed down the university altogether (Rena, 2007). The University of Asmara was reopened in 1991, but was in a grave state as resources had been depleted while under Ethiopian control (Rena, 2007). Despite branding themselves as different from the Dergue, the EPLF/PFDJ government quickly seized tight control over the university (Rena, 2007).

In 2001, students and professors presented papers critical of the government at an academic conference in Asmara. Later that year, the student leader of the University of Asmara’s (UoA) graduating class, Semere Kesete, gave a speech at the graduation ceremony. In his speech, Semere discussed concerns about the state-mandated program requiring all graduating students 23

to work for very little pay on government assigned projects throughout the country during the summer immediately following graduation. As a result, Kesete was arrested and tortured, and the students who protested his arrest were sent to perform unpaid, hard labor for the summer months. After these events, it became clear that the university was expected to serve the party’s agenda rather than foster the academic development of students (Rena, 2007). The conference and graāuation speech of 2001, were the last incidences of public criticism of EPLF/PFDJ rule by students or professors in Eritrea.

In due course, the PFDJ administration disbanded all foreign chapters of the Research and Information Center on Eritrea (RICE), an international network of Eritrean academics. This action allowed a greater centralization of control over higher education to the detriment of the quality of higher education in Eritrea (Rena, 2007). The PFDJ party leader and Eritrean president also held the position of university chancellor. The government perpetuated the view that pursuing personal aspirations was unpatriotic and a betrayal to the nation. The government stated that people should only pursue higher education or work in order to benefit the country and not to benefit themselves (Müller, 2018). A few years after Semere’s graduation speech, the University of Asmara was fully shut down by the government and replaced with 5 colleges that are more technocratic, militarized, and are significantly less open to the full diversity of students’ academic aspirations (Müller, 2018). Since the closure of UoA, there are no internationally recognized higher education institutions in Eritrea.

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The policies and practices that govern the ENS greatly impact the state of the Eritrean education system. This begins with the military training that all students must undergo at the Sawa training camp during their final year of secondary education (Said, 2020). When the practice of sending students to Sawa first began, students started trying to intentionally fail courses so as to delay entering their final year of secondary education. In response, the Ministry of Education issued a directive in 2003, which prohibited teachers from failing 11th grade students on their final exams (Müller, 2018). After Sawa, all graduating students are then immediately assigned to tertiary education or to a position in the ENS; the ENS encompasses military and non-military public work. Whether the student is sent to university or the ENS, they have no say in the area of study or work to which they are assigned. The Eritrean women whose letters form the central piece of this document, report that the impact of having no say in one’s educational and professional future is profound, and indeed, is the reason many choose to leave Eritrea. The word ‘demoralizing’ came up often when these women described how this policy made them feel (Focus Group, 2019). The women explained that within this system, students and professionals tend not to give their best efforts to their work because they are not passionate about their assigned area of work. This leads to poorer outputs by students who are nearly always studying in a department that suits neither their strengths nor their passions. This also leads to a poorer quality of education as many people who are forced to become teachers are completely uninterested in the teaching profession leaving them feeling unmotivated and apathetic.

Additionally, teachers are paid poorly which leaves them further discouraged.

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Arbitrary Arrest, Detention, and Torture In Eritrea, citizens are routinely denied access to passports and even freedom of movement within the country. Eritreans are denied freedom of press, freedom of religion and freedom of speech. Moreover, their educational and professional pursuits are suppressed and unduly controlled by the State.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Eritrea is the “most censored country” in the world (Al Jazeera, 2019). Beginning 18 years ago, the Eritrean government stopped allowing any media and journalism outlets not owned and controlled by the government.

Anyone who attempts any independent journalistic activities is subjected to imprisonment without cause or trial. The whereabouts and condition of the journalists who have been imprisoned within Eritrea over the past 18 years continue to be unknown (Human Rights Watch, 2019). The same CPJ report also names Eritrea as “the worst jailer of journalists in Sub-Saharan Africa.” This is based on evidence that at least 16 journalists are currently imprisoned in Eritrea, most since 2001, while up to seven more appear to have died in custody (Al Jazeera, 2019).

When former finance minister, Berhane Abrehe, was arrested for writing a book that criticized 26

the Afwerki regime, he and his wife were both imprisoned without trial. Both continue to be held incommunicado (Human Rights Watch, 2019).

The conditions in the prisons of Eritrea are horrific. Prisoners are regularly exposed to emotional abuse and torture. Inmates are kept in overcrowded spaces, and are denied basic rights including bathroom breaks, food, visitors, and fresh air. The situation is generally worse for women and girls as guards often use their power and the complete lack of accountability, to sexually exploit them. According to a Human Rights Watch Report from 2012, somewhere between 5,000 to 10,000 Eritreans – women, men, boys, girls, journalists, business people, ex-government officials, and ENS evaders/escapees – were being held without cause (Human Rights Watch, 2012). The highly secretive nature of the regime prevents us from knowing how many more people have been arrested since 2012, as well as how many of those in detainment are still alive.

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Religious Persecution Only four religious groups are allowed to exist in Eritrea: Roman Catholic, Eritrean Orthodox, Evangelical Lutheran, and Sunni Islam. Despite their ostensibly legal status, the secular Eritrean government still represses these religious groups. This includes the imprisonment of religious leaders and members and the forceful closure of religious-run health and education centers (BBC, 2019). In March of 2018, the Eritrean government released the body of Hajji Musa Mohamed Nur who had been in jail since 2017. Nur had been imprisoned for protesting the closure of a private Islamic school where he had been the honorary president (Human Rights Watch, 2019). He was 90 years old. The government persecuted a great many Eritreans who gathered to mourn his passing. Reports indicate that approximately 800 people were arrested just after Nur’s funeral (USCIRF, 2019).

State religious persecution is rooted in the EPLF’s history and nationalist ideology, which demands and asserts that all Eritreans place their national identity along with national priorities, above any other aspect of their individual identity including religion, ethnicity, or first-language.

The EPLF’s suppression of Islam in Eritrea is linked to the history of the ELF as being a predominantly Muslim, lowlander, pastoralist movement, and therefore, an oppositional party 28

and a threat to the EPLF and later the PFDJ’s monopoly on political power in Eritrea (Tronvoll, 2009). Since independence, religious persecution intensifies anytime the state feels threatened by the slightest indication of consolidation or strengthening of a group’s religious identity. For example, a big wave of the Warsay generation joined evangelical churches between 2000 and 2002. This threatened the PFDJ and consequently, the government banned all evangelical churches (Hirt & Mohammad, 2013). In another example, the Muslim minorities in Eritrea began to use Arabic as the language for instruction in schools. This was seen as a way to have a common means of communication across the diverse ethno-linguistic groups that practice Islam in the country. In response, the government chose to crackdown on Islamic intuitions, particularly schools and health clinics.

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Health The state of healthcare in Eritrea is very poor. The government hospitals lack equipment and medications and medical personnel are often under-trained and under-qualified. The hospitals are also poorly managed and constantly under-staffed relative to the volume of patients. An individual who previously worked as a healthcare professional in Eritrea, interviewed as part of this research, noted that people usually have to wait between 6 months and 1 year to get a medical opinion (Mebrahtu, 2019). The long delays in receiving medical attention cause many deaths and also serve as a strong push factor for many Eritreans to risk the dangerous path of illegal migration. Eritrea has no teaching hospitals, which means that medical students do their practical learning components in regular government hospitals. As a result and as a further violation of citizens’ rights, patients do not have the option to accept or refuse to be treated by a student (Mebrahtu, 2019).

To make matters worse, healthcare personnel are often unmotivated because they did not choose their career path and they receive very low wages. These policies are even more dangerous when combined with policies that prevent public health workers from engaging in income-generating 30

activities outside of their national service work hours. These circumstances have given way to severe and frequent shortages of medications as staff members are choosing to steal medication to sell it on the black market. At one point in 2015, one of the national hospitals could not perform any surgeries for two weeks because they were out of anesthetic agents (Mebrahtu, 2019). CT scan equipment and MRI machines were not found in Eritrea until 2015 (Mebrahtu, 2019).

Eritrea’s Ministry of Health has managed to increase general knowledge about the health needs of mothers and expecting mothers which has had a positive impact on women’s health.

Unfortunately, this positive step forward has been counteracted by the government’s closure of Catholic-owned clinics that were providing quality maternity and general healthcare to the population (Mebrahtu, 2019). Presently, the Eritrean government provides the public with family planning consultations and contraceptives but again, most women and girls cannot access these benefits because of a deeply entrenched stigma within the society (Mebrahtu, 2019).

There are a few good government-owned hospitals in Eritrea, but these are reserved for government and high-ranking military officials. These hospitals have higher quality staff and more resources and equipment, and if a patient needs medication that is out of stock, it will be specially ordered. If a patient in one of these hospitals has a condition that cannot be sufficiently managed in Eritrea, they will be sent to Sudan or Italy for treatment (Mebrahtu, 2019).

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“Comparing the private clinics and the government clinics is like comparing oil and water�

(Mebrahtu, 2019). The religious and privately owned clinics offer quality care and hospitality even to individuals living in the remote and rural areas of Eritrea. Their services include vaccinations, emergency care, antenatal care, and childbirth. These clinics have helped decrease the morbidity and mortality rates, especially in rural areas (Mebrahtu, 2019). Despite this, last summer, the Eritrean government closed an additional 22 Catholic health centers following a pattern that has been going on for years of the government closing more and more Catholic and Muslim healthcare and educational centers (BBC, 2019). As it is so difficult to access data from Eritrea, we cannot know the full extent of the damage this move will incur. Most likely, it will take away all medical care from thousands of Eritreans, most devastatingly from mothers and young children in rural areas. In a previous study, women reported poor-quality maternity care due to shortages of staff and ultrasound machines, as well as limited opening hours at clinics (Chol et al., 2018). Of the 40 Eritrean women involved in this study, 31 explicitly stated that they were dissatisfied with the government hospitals and would prefer that the private hospitals be reinstated (Chol et al., 2018). Because there are such serious gaps in the quality of care at Eritrean government hospitals, women and girls are some of the hardest hit by the closure of private, religious-affiliated health centers.

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Gender-based Harassment, Discrimination, and Violence Women in Eritrean society are disadvantaged by deeply rooted oppressive gender norms and beliefs. These beliefs are so entrenched that they take precedence over Eritrean’s laws and commitments to international treaties like CEDAW, which provides for the protection of women and girls equally before the law. The intersection in Eritrean society, between high rates of sexual abuse/harassment and beliefs that tie a woman’s worth to her virginal purity and marriageability, result in a strict policing of women’s sexuality, which does not make concessions even in cases of rape. Freweini, whose full letter is included at the end of this report, shares the story of a woman whose husband divorced her after smugglers raped her as she and her husband journeyed out of Eritrea. This sort of reaction is at the heart of why many survivors stay silent.

Based on the last reliable data collected regarding FGM/C prevalence rates in Eritrea (collected by the Eritrean Population and Health Survey and published in 2010), the prevalence rate among Eritrean women between 15 and 49 was 83%. This is among the highest rates of FGM/C across Africa. Yet, in 2007, three years before this data was collected, the Government of Eritrea passed 33

Proclamation 158/2007 outlawing FGM/C in all its forms. Despite the commitment suggested

by Proclamation 158/2007, efforts to eliminate FGM/C in Eritrea have been acutely undermined by government policy. This has crippled the education system across Eritrea, and has blocked assistance from the international community. The only two organizations still in existence and whose mandate addresses FGM/C prevention in Eritrea are the National Union of Eritrean Women (NUEW) and the National Union of Eritrean Youth and Students (NUEYS). However, both of these groups are impeded in their ability to eliminate FGM/C and all other practices that violate the rights of women and youth because the government prevents them from accepting or accessing external monetary or resource assistance and because the government keeps them tightly controlled and regulated. Just as in the case of FGM/C, women’s health, wellbeing, and bodily autonomy are regularly disregarded by the common practice of sewing the vaginal opening partially closed after a mother gives birth. In this practice, a man’s supposed increased pleasure takes precedence over the woman’s health whereas the justification for performing FGM/C is typically a combination of contrived religious dogma and the preservation of a girl’s virginity and therefore, marriageability.

Women are particularly at risk of sexual abuse in national service, prisons, their own marriages, and on the journey should they attempt to leave Eritrea. The high rates of sexual and genderbased violence suffered by women are followed by significantly increased risks of unwanted pregnancies, STIs/STDs including HIV/AIDS, unsafe abortions, psychological and physical 34

trauma, and suicide (Human Rights Concern Eritrea, 2017). Diagnosing and treating illnesses, pregnancy itself, and later meeting the child’s needs throughout their life imply heavy financial burdens. Women are left to handle these burdens alone, without the benefit of civil societal organizations and with very limited free or affordable health care and support. Furthermore, the climate of fear regarding sexual violence in Eritrea is so pervasive that it constitutes, in itself, a violation of women’s human rights, even for women who never personally experience sexual violence.

Testimonies from the women who participated in this report demonstrate that Eritrean women are frequently subjected to gender-based harassment and violence as well as sexual abuse despite laws that should protect against this. This results from the state’s simultaneously negligent and enabling position whereby those who hold positions of authority within the military and national service system are not scrutinized or held accountable for any kind of exploitation of women and girls. This has given way to the practice of high-ranking military officials ‘hiring women as maids’ where in reality, these women are forced to attend to all domestic chores as well as the sexual desires of their assigned commander (Human Rights Council, 2016). The institutional factors enabling rampant sexual violence and exploitation, are also evident in the way lawyers, village elders, dispute arbitrators, and other men, collaborate to silence many survivors (Mebrahtu, 2019).

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Eritrean law criminalizes forced marriages as well as bride payment exchange yet according to focus group participants, in reality, women and girls are generally forced to marry their rapists, and if a woman or girl is raped by multiple men, she must marry the first one who volunteers to marry her (Focus Group, 2019; UN Women, 2009). Additionally, despite Eritrean laws that are supposed to ensure that any type of forced sexual contact is prosecuted by the law, focus group participants indicate that medical professionals will generally not provide any services unless the patient has an order from the police asserting that a sexual assault has occurred and that the female victim is authorized to receive treatment (Focus Group, 2019). This practice places a survivor’s ability to access treatment at the mercy of law enforcement officials who are exempt from accountability and scrutiny, and it exposes a survivor to risk of further abuse or exploitation.

Overall, it is evident that the Eritrean government continually fails to honor its commitments to women’s human rights as enshrined in many of the nation’s own laws as well as the international treaties and conventions, CEDAW included, that it has ratified.

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Migration In 2017, Eritrea was the 9th largest refugee producing country in the world, despite having a significantly smaller population than all but one of the top 10 refugee-producing countries that year (UNHCR, 2017). Despite legislation in Eritrea, which ostensibly permits citizens to travel freely, in practice, Eritrean citizens are nearly always denied permission to leave the country.

Indeed, a citizen will not be issued a passport by the government until they have been discharged from national service, which for some does not happen until they are well into their 60s. In exceptional cases when Eritreans are granted permission to travel as in the case of the Eritrean men’s football team that traveled to Uganda for a tournament, they are kept under close and constant surveillance. The few football players, who managed to escape while in Uganda in October, continue to fear for their lives, as they believe that the Eritrean government continues to hunt them to this day. It is common knowledge in Eritrea that one’s family can be punished through torture, increased surveillance, and/or excessive fines if one attempts to escape or evade the ENS in some other way. Indeed, in Freweini’s letter, we see that she ultimately chose to enter Sawa and the ENS because she knew that if she did not, her family would be punished.

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In Eritrea, all of the political and economic push factors that drive citizens to leave the country are compounded by the practice of denying access to legal pathways of emigration. In this way, migrants from Eritrea often find themselves in highly vulnerable and dangerous situations.

Indeed, the prevalence of rape of Eritrean women while migrating is so high that many have reported that they took some form of contraceptive before beginning the journey (Focus Group, 2019; Human Rights Council, 2016). The Eritrean government’s policies push people to want to flee the country by denying them the freedom to pursue their own educational and professional aspirations, by denying the medical treatment needed for survival and/or a reasonable quality of life, by trapping people in poverty by setting government wages very low and not allowing citizens to find other jobs on the side, by subjecting people, especially women and girls, to abusive hierarchies of power, by denying their access to the religion of their choice, and by denying their access to freedom of press. To add to this, most Eritreans are given no option to leave the country legally, which forces them to face the increased risks that come with illegal migration, including blackmail, extortion, smugglers, sexual abuse/harassment, and arrest which may lead to indefinite detainment, inhumane treatment, and/or torture. In this way, the Eritrean government contributes to the abuses that befall its people during migration both through negligence and outright unjust practices.

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Part III: Participant Testimonies 1- Bilen I left Eritrea one year ago after the peace agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia resulted in an opening of the border that separates the two countries. First, I went to Ethiopia and stayed there for three weeks and then, I traveled through Kenya to arrive in Uganda where I now live. I made the journey with one friend.

Before I left, I had heard stories about the dangers of attempting to leave. I heard about different scenarios that happened to friends, sisters and other people. I was told that smugglers often tried to rape or sexually harass the women and girls who were trying to leave Eritrea. I was told that the abuse could start even before an individual crossed the border. I even heard that most girls take contraceptives before they start the journey, which shows how often rape occurs. I knew that crossing illegally would mean I would have no one to rely on or turn to if I were subjected to inhumane treatment during the journey. Even in Sudan, there are no embassies or agencies that fight for human rights when abuse occurs. In the end, I was lucky and did not personally 39

experience any of these issues.

In my high school studies back home, I was focusing on the area of Natural Sciences, but after I passed the matriculation exam, I was assigned to a department in the Arts and Social Sciences.

This was demoralizing for me, because I felt passionate about continuing my studies in the Natural Sciences. I asked to be placed in one of the Natural Science departments, but my request was denied. I really wanted to pursue further education and a career in my chosen field, but because I was denied these things, I lost my motivation to continue my education. I then asked to be let go from school and assigned to a job. I was never happy in the job that was assigned to me. The salary was very low, about 145 Nakfa per month, which didn’t even cover basic living expenses. The work was never satisfying to me. Eventually I decided to leave Eritrea because I felt I could only find a fulfilling work environment and access to further education if I left my home country.

Life as a woman in Eritrea is hard. I can tell you that in every sector of life, women experience the negative sides more than men. You can’t study and achieve the things you want within a reasonable or appropriate time, and the system is designed to make life hard for everyone, especially for women. For example, once a woman gets married and has kids, she is not allowed to own any of her family’s land. Even when she dies, a woman is buried on her husband’s family’s land. Also, the perspective on virginity in Eritrea is a bit backward and is one of the reasons girls are discouraged from talking about situations of rape and other forms of sexual harassment. We all know that if you try to tell others about any abuse you have faced, people will probably think 40

you are just making up stories to defame the ruling government of Eritrea. If you get raped in Eritrea, you don’t even receive enough medical attention. If you try to seek medical attention after a rape or other form of sexual harassment, you must bring a police report stating that you have been raped and are allowed to have medical attention. Without this documentation, you will not be acknowledged or treated by medical staff.

People say there is equality but there is no equality when you see the situation on the ground.

The state of healthcare in Eritrea is very poor. My mother used to work in the health sector, and she said that the Ministry of Health was more like a Ministry of Illness. By far, the most crucial problems in Eritrea’s health sector are the shortage of medical equipment and of well-trained medical personnel. When people want to leave Eritrea to seek better medical service, they are either delayed through unnecessary processing or refused. There are countless people who have lost their lives in my country because of delayed medical response. From what I have seen, the Eritrean educational system is also very poor. Individuals are not encouraged to learn, and for the most part, students have to take care of themselves. The quality of service in the private and religious-affiliated schools and clinics was much better than what you would get from the government owned hospitals and schools. The private and religious clinics were well-equipped and employed highly proficient staff. In the private and religious schools, the staff was more qualified and also well paid, so they were happy to work hard. The religious-affiliated schools also did community outreach and they built schools and clinics in remote areas. Some of the religious groups, like the catholic-owned schools were also giving extracurricular skills training 41

in rekiyamo, knitting, and other areas. They assisted people to use these skills to organize themselves to start up small businesses where they could sell the items they made. At this moment, all the private schools providing higher education, like SMAP and IRS, are closed. This is really a big loss to the people of Eritrea. I have no doubt that the closing down of these schools and clinics, has negatively influenced the Eritrean community. I have heard through social media that there have been attempts to create movements to resist the government’s closing of these private and religious schools and clinics, but I haven’t seen any action.

I do not believe that the national service should be discontinued but instead, it should be changed so that each person’s service is for a defined period of time. It is also wrong that Eritrean citizens cannot obtain a passport until they finish their national service when this service has no definite end. Things also need to change in the way Sawa is run. I believe that Sawa is important for every individual Eritrean because of its social benefits, but Sawa has serious administration problems that must be fixed. In my opinion, all the bad things that are happening at Sawa are due to the lack of administration. For example, the only authority you can approach to report issues including rape or sexual harassment, are designated soldiers. However, as the soldiers are the ones who are carrying out these atrocities, your pleas are going to fall on deaf ears. I am lucky that I didn’t see any form of rape or sexual harassment during my stay in Sawa, but I did see girls losing their minds from the extreme level of stress we were under.

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2- Tsenat It has been a year and two months since I left Eritrea. I crossed with a friend through Ethiopia during the period when the borders were opened as a result of the peace agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia.

As a refugee coming from Eritrea, you don’t have anyone there for you who will fight for your rights. Rape or sexual harassment occurs very frequently to women and girls leaving Eritrea, especially on the route to Sudan. Most of the smugglers are savages, who seek to abuse almost every girl that passes through their territory. Because of this, the smugglers contract different sexually transmitted illnesses like HIV, syphilis, and hepatitis, which are in turn transmitted to the girls they attack. When I started my journey, I accepted the fact that rape and/or sexual harassment would probably happen to me. For this reason, I felt I had no other choice than to take contraceptives just before leaving. While I was crossing, I didn’t experience rape or sexual abuse, but before reaching my destination, I was captured and sent to prison in Eritrea. The girls who were in the prison told me about a lot of the things that happened to them. For example, 44

one girl was crossing with her boyfriend and three smugglers. After having traveled for long hours the girl was tired, but when she asked to rest, the smugglers threatened her boyfriend with a knife and raped her. The border patrol arrived only just in time to prevent the couple from being murdered by the smugglers. They managed to survive the incident, but she said it left a very deep psychological scar on her.

Before leaving Eritrea, I worked for two years as a teacher. I was learning at the same time as working, but even then, I was not satisfied at all with my work environment or the low pay that I received. In the end, I left because I wanted to work in a career of my own choosing which would allow me to be financially and mentally stable.

In Eritrea, we don’t pay for education or healthcare, and this has fooled many people into thinking that we have a good system. In reality, a lack of administration has led to the system’s downfall. You can see the flaws of the educational system when you find out that only around 2000 students pass the matriculation exam, out of a total of 17,000 students who sit for the exam.

If you pass the matriculation exam, you are then assigned the university and department where you will study. After you graduate from a program you didn’t choose, you will be assigned a job in the national service. And while you work in the national service, you cannot pursue the education you truly wanted on the side because the government has forced all private higher education institutions to only admit students who have completed their national service. All this means that, in Eritrea, we do not have the freedom to choose our own educational or career 45

paths. The negative impacts of this affect us in all areas of our lives, and in the end, it is what drove me to leave.

Another issue that is causing many people to suffer in Eritrea is the state of healthcare. The people who live in remote areas suffer the most because they have to travel long distances to receive medical attention, and when they finally reach the hospitals, they find large numbers of people already waiting in a queue. These long queues delay medical response, which prolongs people’s suffering and in the worst cases, causes their death. One time, my friend hurt his hand, but when we took him to the national referral hospital they told us they didn’t have sterile water to wash the wound and that they couldn’t access any first aid equipment because it was locked up. In the end, they did not do a single thing to help us and they just referred us to seek attention at another hospital. This is why I can say the healthcare in Eritrea is not at an optimal level.

Based upon my observation, I think children and women bear a relatively higher share of the negative impacts of the closures of private health clinics. Especially, because those private clinics were the main ones giving care to pregnant women and newborns. They even had a major hand in the reduction of mother and child mortality rates through their outreach clinics. Because they maintained adequate medical equipment and sufficient supplies of medicines, they were able to provide healthcare in a way that the government hospitals did not. Hence, the loss of these clinics has been very detrimental to Eritrean society, but especially for women and young children.

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There are other challenges that women face in Eritrea because of their gender, but I think the situation of women and girls is somewhere between okay and very difficult. Some women and girls face many hardships and injustices, but then others don’t face as many. For example, my family was really supportive and provided all the things I needed to pursue an education. On the other hand, there are some families who treat girls negatively. I remember a family that lived near my own house in Eritrea. They were Muslim and they had 3 daughters. They forced all three daughters into arranged marriages. I remember that one of the daughters was around my age at the time when she was forced to marry an older gentleman. These poor girls could have had more opportunities in life, maybe to pursue an education or even try to go abroad, but their family did not permit these things. Instead, they were only allowed to become housewives and mothers, who could only travel if accompanied by a man. Also, it seems to me that the rapes that happen to women in Eritrea are a bit harsh and extreme. I remember hearing about a case where six men snatched and raped two girls who were on their way to Asmara. Then, there was another case where thirteen men raped an older lady who worked in street sanitation. I have also heard about a man who put some kind of medication in a girl’s drink and then repeatedly anally raped her. These stories are all too common in Eritrea, and I am left wondering what can be done to change this.

When I think about the national service, it seems to me that it goes a bit too far. It is as if you had a nightmare and now you refuse to ever sleep again. I think the government has manipulated 47

people into being blind to the issues with the national service. For instance, I saw people subjected to extreme physical military punishment for very minor issues. Some of the soldiers would beat us physically and use psychological military punishments against us and there was no one there to stop them. I still think Sawa gives a lot of benefits to Eritrean society, but, like the national service, it needs to be administered and regulated better. Actually, I really don’t understand why the national service exists after Sawa, but if the national service continues, the government must put a time limit on each person’s service and there must be good administration and accountability.

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3- Freweini It has been two years and six months since I left Eritrea. I tried twice to escape through Sudan, before I finally crossed into Ethiopia, travelled through Kenya and ended up in Uganda.

Since the private health clinics in Eritrea were closed, there has been essentially no medical service in Eritrea. Our educational system is wasted because in the end, we are all forced to study in departments that we did not choose, and once we graduate, we are forced into jobs that we did not study for or qualify to do.

In Asmara, Keren, Dekeamhare and a few other cities, there used to be private clinics and schools, many of which were owned by religious groups. Those schools provided better education, which was very beneficial to the community. The private clinics were not very expensive and maintained enough staff, equipment, and medications to be able to provide quality care to all their patients. When the government closed down all of those schools and clinics, the staff protested and tried to demand answers from the government, but all their inquiries fell on deaf ears. The soldiers left the protesting staff stranded in the street.

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For me, it was the unlimited national service that was my main reason for leaving Eritrea. I went to Sawa with the 27th round. In our time, students had to go to Sawa to get their matriculation results. I chose not to go back for my matriculation results because I saw that all the students from the year before me who went back to get their results ended up being soldiers. After a month, my family received a summons from the local administration of our region demanding to know my whereabouts. In order to prevent my family from suffering, I made the decision to return to Sawa where I was assigned to work in the national service. I was assigned to work at a military base where there was really no work to be done, so we all just sat around doing nothing.

It was a complete waste of time, and the worst part was that we were not allowed to work anywhere else on the side. I reached a point where I could not stand the situation anymore and I attempted to escape Eritrea. On my first attempt, I was captured and sent to prison. I served my sentence and then I was sent back to work in the same place where I had been working before.

This time, I knew my chances of being discharged were even lower. When I tried again to escape, I was captured and again sent to prison. This time however, the peace agreement between Eritrea and Ethiopia led to me being released from prison before the end of my initial sentence and I immediately took that opportunity to escape through Ethiopia.

After all this, I see Sawa from both sides. Sawa is beneficial in some cases because it is a place where young adults start their lives as individuals, but because of poor administration and the impunity enjoyed by the soldiers, Sawa has ruined the lives of countless numbers of girls. For 50

example, while at Sawa, I was sick and severely anemic – my hemoglobin was around 4mg/dl – so I used to visit the clinics a lot. One of the times when I went for a checkup, the doctor tried to kiss me on my lips. I was young and I remember the situation being very scary to me. This is why I think the way in which Sawa is run must be changed. If there is accountability, proper administration, and a definite time limit for national service, then I think Sawa can be a good thing, which can help Eritrean people to have the freedom to plan their futures and help their families.

All the prisons I was sent to were really hostile environments, where we were treated inhumanely.

We were not allowed any visitors or items from outside the prison, and we were only allowed to wash ourselves once per week. The guards did not make any accommodations for menstruating women and girls. The most painful event I went through in prison was the death of my father.

Not being able to see him before he died or attend his burial ceremony and say my goodbyes left a very deep scar on me.

The guards in those prisons were worse than smugglers, and there was no one to hold them accountable. This gave them impunity for the horrible things they did, including raping prisoners of both genders indiscriminately. In one of the prisons, they kept large numbers of us in very small rooms without considering that we might run out of air. We were only allowed to use the bathroom once per day. I remember that some of the girls would bargain their bodies in exchange for extra bathroom breaks or some time out in the fresh air.

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In another prison, I remember that every time we were given yard-time, the guards would talk to the girl prisoners acting as if they wanted to help us. If we refused to talk to them, they would retaliate and find ways to make our lives miserable. If we did start talking to them, in the evening they would take us out from the prison cells and force us to make coffee for them. After that, they would ask us for sex. In some instances, if a girl refused to make coffee for them, the guards would punish all the girls in her cell as retaliation. One time when we were given yard-time, one of the guards took me to a quiet room and tried to force himself on me, but luckily, another guard showed up and he left me alone.

I also remember that during the first two weeks at any prison, you were kept in a section for prisoners who were waiting for their cases to be processed. Prisoners in those transitional sections received the absolute worst treatment. I remember that every day I was there, we were subjected to psychological abuse by the guards. All the experiences I lived through in the prisons have left deep psychological scars, and still today, I struggle with my self-confidence and selfworth.

In Eritrea, women have the same opportunities to study as men, but they face a lot of other obstacles. For example, in the prisons, women experience a lot more sexual harassment by the guards. Also, if women decide to marry and have children as a means of getting discharged from national service, they can’t support themselves and their families financially. Many women end up selling items on the street because they do not have any other means to support themselves.

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They sell small items like gum, boiled eggs, and salvaged clothes, but this work is very dangerous because if they are caught, they will usually have their wares destroyed and be sent to prison.

Situations like this force women into doing things just to survive, like selling themselves for money. Some women are forced into marriages they do not want with older men, again, because this is their only option for survival. Dealing with all of this, leads a lot of Eritrean women to become demoralized and hopeless about their situations.

My experiences while trying to escape through Sudan also show the kinds of hardships Eritrean women face. On my first attempt to leave, I took a contraceptive because I knew I might be raped. The medication disrupted my body’s natural state and I did not have a period for the following 7 months. During my second attempt, while traveling with many others on a boat bound for Sudan, the driver tried to touch and grab me. I escaped his advances because the boat hit a rock, which diverted his attention. Later, as a group of us crossed by land with smugglers, we spent a full night fighting off one of the smugglers who was intent on raping a teenage Eritrean girl. The next day, we were separated and given the chance to empty our bladders. The smuggler took this opportunity to rape the girl. When it was my turn to empty my bladder, the smugglers watched me the entire time even as I was cleaning myself because I had been menstruating. I also remember hearing about a case in which a girl was raped while crossing into Libya and she later became HIV-positive. I also heard about a man who left his wife because she was raped during their journey out of Eritrea. This woman is now struggling to survive as a single mother.

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The frequency of rape while traveling and in prisons is further damaging to women because in Eritrean society, women are made to feel that no one will want them if they are not virgins. We are also taught that a man’s pleasure is more important than our health and safety. After childbirth, some Eritrean women’s private parts are sewn partially shut in the belief that this makes women more satisfying for their husbands.

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4- Hadinet I crossed illegally out of Eritrea two years ago. From all the things I experienced on my journey and all the stories I’ve heard, I know that we migrants were nothing but property in the eyes of the smugglers. They would inflict physical and psychological abuse on us without any kind of remorse. I know of one girl who was crossing to Libya with her brother, and during the journey some of the smugglers tried to rape the girl. The girl and her brother did not succeed in defending themselves, and in the end, the savages forced the brother to have intercourse with her. She later became pregnant from this. Even the police in Sudan seemed to have no empathy for us. I remember them saying, “Eritreans do not even have a government who fights for their rights.”

For me, the hardship within Eritrea that led me to want to leave started when I finished school and received my national service appointment. I was immediately assigned by the government to be a teacher, even though I didn’t have the necessary qualifications to be a teacher. I had always dreamed to further my studies and have a degree, so I had registered to start a course at a private institution, but because I was sent directly to my national service position as a teacher, 55

I could not move forward with my educational aspirations. I was very unhappy in the teaching position because I was being forced to work in a job that I did not want and for which I was not qualified. Plus, the salary was extremely low. I was being paid 700.00 Nakfa, which is not enough for basic living expenses. Because of all this, I soon quit my job as a teacher, and started working in a private mining company. The problem was that I quit without receiving a governmental discharge from national service. At the time, the government would only grant women a discharge from national service if they were getting married or having a baby. Since I did not quit in order to do either of those, I did not qualify for a discharge. When the mining company found out that I had not been officially discharged, they fired me, because the government fines companies that are caught employing people who have left national service before being discharged. When I lost the mining job, I decided that I had to leave Eritrea.

In my opinion, women in Eritrea benefit from the fact that Eritrea is a modernized society and women are not regularly in great physical danger. But, there are other ways in which women experience injustice in Eritrea. In the village where I was assigned to do my national service as a teacher, I saw that most girls married young, and that the highest educational level attained by girls in the village was 7th grade. Some men marry Eritrean girls and then, take them to other countries where they treat the girls like slaves. Many of the girls who find themselves in this predicament suffer psychological trauma. In general, in Eritrea, the prevalence of single parenthood especially single mothers is growing. Single parenthood can be a hardship in itself, 56

but when combined with poverty it becomes much more difficult to bear, and this is the reality for single parents in Eritrea. The national service does not pay enough to support a family. For instance, for your first year in the national service you are paid 145.00 Nakfa monthly as a salary.

After you have worked for 1 year, you get a raise of 500.00 Nakfa, but even this wage isn’t enough to rent a house. These circumstances force many mothers to sell items on the street, even though they know that the police will chase them and attempt to confiscate their wares.

When we were in survival training, one girl injured her lower back from being forced to do hard labor, and the injury caused temporary limb-paralysis. The soldiers who were supposed to protect us were careless in their duties and as a result, one girl was kidnapped by the Hedareb nomads who live around the camp. She was lost for years. When she was found, she was already a wife of one of the Hedareb men and she was with a child.

The national service also assigned elderly people, probably in their late 60s, to carry guns and patrol the city overnight. This is an atrocity! The elderly should be resting, not becoming soldiers.

The national service should have an age limit, and girls shouldn’t be required to be above age 25 and married or with a child in order to be discharged. Now, it is even worse because a while back, they stopped discharging people altogether.

The government issues coupons to families to buy basic necessities like bread. The government measures and regulates how much bread each family buys, with a limit of 2 loaves per person in 57

a 24-hour period. If your family size reduces for any reason and you neglect to notify the government, you face punitive measures.

The education in the government schools is poor and it negatively impacts the motivational levels of the pupils. The system also forces pupils to focus on subjects that do not interest them.

For most Eritreans, the possibility of getting a better education through an international course at a private school is too expensive.

We also suffer as a result of the poor medical system in Eritrea. The chance that you will get first aid attention is very low. There is often not enough medical equipment and personnel so it is hard to attain knowledge about your medical status and condition. Staff members working at the government hospitals contribute to medication shortages because they often steal medications and sell them at higher prices on the black market. Many people suffer complications or an illness reaches an irreversible stage because of very long delays in receiving medical attention.

The many delays and low quality of medical care contributed to my decision to leave Eritrea. I think, that poor medical care and unlimited national service are the two biggest reasons for people choosing to leave the country. Some people even lose their lives trying to cross the border to receive medical treatment.

Generally, the government hospitals were much worse than the private ones. The private medical clinics had much better staff and administration. I remember that several clinics provided anti-d 58

vaccinations needed by Rh-negative mothers at very low prices. When the government began closing the private health centers, numerous soldiers came to remove the staff and patients from the clinics by force, regardless of a patient’s condition or if they were in the middle of a treatment.

They were all moved to the government hospital.

For Eritrea, closing down organizations, which were doing tremendous Good Samaritan work was really damaging. The “yakil” movement– which means “enough” in English – pushed the government to stop sending people to Sawa for national service. The movement put up posters and wall graffiti in cities in Eritrea, especially in Asmara.

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5- Niyat I left Eritrea about a year ago. I crossed legally into Ethiopia, stayed there for a bit, and then moved to Uganda. For me, the main reason for leaving Eritrea was to access medical care. At the time, I was suffering from an illness, which could not be treated properly by the Eritrean medical system, primarily because the personnel were under-trained and under-equipped. For example, when I had my medical checkup at one of the government hospitals, they diagnosed me with a renal calculus that was 4.4.mm in size. I later found out that a great number of other patients seen that day were also diagnosed with renal calculi, and that all of them were precisely the same size as mine: 4.4mm. For me this showed that the staff did not know how to read the results of the medical equipment accurately, because it is too much of a coincidence that so many people could have a kidney stone of the exact same size in a single day.

This lack of fully trained medical personnel affects many Eritrean people negatively. If you have a condition that cannot be sufficiently treated in Eritrea, it is possible to appear before the medical board to request to leave the country to seek medical attention. Of course, the problem 60

is that most people will never get this chance, because the few who are allowed to go before the board are those who can afford to pay the bribes or those who have high-ranking military relatives.

When it comes to the educational system in Eritrea, it feels like the whole system is rigged so that most students will fail. I know that there is a quota provided by the government for the number of students who should pass their exams per year. During my first year of college, I was assigned to a department that I didn’t want, and to make matters much worse, my mid-term exams and all my GPA and associated documents were lost by the university. Two months later, they claimed that they found my documents, but this was untrue and the scores weren’t mine. I put my GPA under review and the mistake was rectified, but the whole process derailed and ruined my opportunity to pursue a college education. On top of this, I was instructed by one of the school administrators not to tell anyone about the incident. As a result of all of this, I was not able to continue my education and I lost all motivation to pursue an education. I felt demoralized and so I asked to be assigned to my national service. I was sent to work under the Ministry of Defense, where I worked for 3 years before being let go.

I don’t think Eritrea should stop the national service, because national service occurs in every country but the main problem in Eritrea is that the national service does not have a fair ending period. I think that if national service involved going to Sawa for military training for 4 months only, then that would be good.

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It is also a problem that you cannot get a passport until you are discharged from the national service. I had a friend who studied to work with an airline company, but she needed a passport to qualify to work in that job and she couldn’t get one because she had not finished her national service.

The perspective of our society regarding women and girls is moderately okay, but there are many policies made by the government that are really harmful. For example, if a girl is raped, the civil code states that the matter can be resolved if she marries her rapist, which she is often forced to do. In the case of gang rape, she will be given to whichever of her rapists agrees to take her first.

The people who raped her will be fined 1500.00 Nakfa as their only punishment. If any girl tries to speak up about her rape, she will face stigmatization. There are also very high numbers of Eritrean women becoming single mothers because their husbands abandon them and leave the country. I know that some girls find work opportunities in Arab countries through labor exporters, but then, the people for whom the girls work, torture them and make their lives very hard. There was one case of an Eritrean girl who went to work as a housemaid in Saudia Arabia where her employer poured boiling water over the girl’s body on four separate occasions. In the end, the girl went to the embassy and was sent back to Eritrea. Women and girls face extreme hardships in Eritrea, but I want to tell you in particular about the hardships women face in Sawa and the national service.

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When I was in Sawa, the soldier who was our team leader asked me to be in a relationship with him but I respectfully rejected his offer. I also rejected a battalion doctor who wanted a relationship with me but then whenever I needed medical attention, the doctor mistreated me.

One time he gave me the wrong medication, which caused me to lose consciousness. The doctor admitted that he did it because he couldn’t understand why I did not have feelings for him. He spent one night in prison.

When you are almost done with military training, they take you for survival training known as “slti.” When I was supposed to do the survival training, I was sick and was allowed to stay home during work hours. One day while I was home sick, a squad leader came and told me I had to go out for punishment for staying at home. I tried to explain that I was allowed to stay home because I was sick, but he didn’t listen. This particular squad leader had a reputation for being mentally unstable and would sometimes point loaded guns at us or aimlessly shoot into the air. When he ordered me to go outside and lay on the stony ground, I followed the orders because I was scared. He then stomped on my lower back, which left my uterus damaged by the stones on which I was laying. Because I was unable to access medical attention immediately after the incident, the injury has left me infertile to this day. I didn’t find out until later that his best friend was the soldier whom I had rejected. It seems that he hurt me as revenge for denying his friend.

I had a really difficult time coping with all of that. I remember training at the shooting range one day and thinking about killing that soldier and then killing myself. Somehow, I was able to come 63

to my senses, but dealing with all of that made me want to leave Eritrea.

I saw other girls go through many horrible things. There was one girl who was very social and known by everyone. One day, she missed a fall-in call because she had gone out to call her parents. The soldiers punished her with the “Otto�. This was a punishment in which your hands are tied to your feet above your head so that your legs and arms are being pulled backward and up while you are face down on the floor. They left her and her friend like that all night. The next day, she hanged herself in the bathroom. Experiencing all these things from an early age can push some girls to lose their way, and it sometimes means that girls pass through their childbearing years before having the chance to start a family.  

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