1.1 From transitional government (1991) to drafting the 1995 Constitution

2With the establishment of the transitional government in 1991, consideration began to be given to women’s political participation, including decision-making roles. Political measures have been taken to implement women’s rights to ensure equality with men, such as the ratification of the Women’s Policy in 1993, which aims to integrate women’s rights into all aspects of social life.

3A Women’s Affairs Office (WAO) was established under the Prime Minister’s Office to appoint gender focal points in ministries and commissions. Under its auspices, a national action plan was launched, and one of the seven priorities was the need to increase women’s participation in decision-making.

4Although too few in number, there were two female combatants as members of the Transitional Assembly and a few more as ministers in the ministries of education, health and labour and social affairs. There were also deputy ministers in the ministries of trade, economic cooperation and health. It was the first time that women had held such senior posts. Three women were also members of the Constitutional Drafting Commission, while twelve women were elected to the Constitutional Assembly, which ratified the 1995 Constitution. A study of their actual role in the ratification process would be of great interest.

5The lack of historical research on these women raises the question of the balance between their commitment to party membership and ideology, and their role in women’s issues. It should be noted that the women appointed as ministers were not party members at the time of their nomination. In addition, two ministers (for health and education) have taken action on women’s issues. They taught at Addis Ababa University and were part of the group responsible for establishing the Centre for Education and Training of Women in Development (CERTWID) at Addis Ababa University.

6Until 2005, when the WAO was shifted to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MOWA), the implementation of the WAO’s activities was weak due to its lack of representation in ministerial (or cabinet) meetings. In 2006, the MOWA further stated that the WAO was constrained by a lack of institutional capacity (particularly at the sub-regional level) and a lack of budget to confront coexisting customary laws and practices. In the regions, women’s offices were dependent on donors or NGOs for capital and project funding.

Figure 16. The transitional government of Ethiopia

1.2 The 1995 Constitution adaptation

7After the drafting and ratification of the 1995 Constitution, women tried to make it gender sensitive. They challenged the Constitutional Commission because the first draft did not directly address women’s demands. Women members of the EPRDF and others from Addis Ababa and the regional states attempted to play a pivotal role in improving the first draft, which had only one article stating that “women, children and physically challenged people will have special provisions” (1995). They rejected this article demanding its improvement. In March 1995, they sent a petition signed by many women to the commission asking for a discussion on women’s rights.

8The commission responded positively. A month later (in April) a forum was set up, with the participation of women from all regions, to identify the rights to be included in the constitution. As a result, women’s social, political and economic rights were enshrined in the constitution, mainly in Article 35. The constitution laid down the principles and rights that women had been fighting for since the student movements of the 1960s: equal rights for women in marriage, paid maternity leave, equal rights in employment, promotion and pay and organisation rights; rights that eventually empower women. The 1995 Constitution also recognised the historical marginalisation of women and granted them positive measures to redress it. But these constitutional provisions have rarely been put into practice.

1.3 The question of women’s participation in parliament

9The 1995 Constitution provided a basis for amending the penal and civil codes, which contained most of the discriminatory and harmful traditional practices. Here too, women were involved in the process of amending the laws. They participated through the intermediary of women who sat in parliament, a position that enabled them to enforce gender equality in debates and legislation, as well as through members of women’s associations in the regions.

10The level of women’s participation in legislative assemblies is indicative of the level of women’s political participation in a country. In this regard, in 2000, the UN declared women’s participation in parliament to be one of the criteria for measuring the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs): it should be at least 30% to ensure women’s participation in the legislative assembly. In line with the MDGs targets, the EPRDF proposed from the 2005 elections that 30–40% of its candidates for the national and regional assemblies should be women. However, although the number of women in the legislature increased slightly in 2006, it was still below the expected 30%.

2.1 Women’s participation in politics (1995–2010): the statistics

12The first national election was held in May 1995. Women’s participation as members of the House of People’s Representatives during this first election was only 2.75%. The National Action Plan of 2006 mentions that there were 42 (7.7%) female parliamentarians after the 2000 election. In the House of Federation, they made up 6.0%, 12.9% in the regional state councils, 7.1% in wäräda councils, and 13.9% in qäbäle councils. In the same year, out of the 161 candidates who competed for seats in the HPR only 23 (14.3%) were women, and 15 of them were independent candidates. Out of the 263 candidates running for regional council, only 35 (13.3%) were women that came from established parties, while only one was an independent candidate. In fact, female party members tended to compete for lower-level institutions and women’s engagement at the executive level was still very low.

13During the third election in 2005, female participation in the wärädas and qäbäles was 8,246 (22.8%) and 162,837 (20.6%), respectively. As well, the population of female parliamentarians reached 21.2% and in 2010, their representation in parliament reached 27.8% (152 women). They still remain below the benchmark set to increase female participation in parliament (30% and 40–50% at regional state level).

14As reported by the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia for the fourth elections for the House of People’s Representatives in 2010, while 1,916 (87.6%) were male, only 272 (12.4%) were female. At the same time for state councils, 4,021 (84.7%) males, and 725 (15.3%) females were elected. In the year 2010, women’s involvement shows little progress. Accordingly, only 16.9% of the judges were females. At the federal level, the number of female lawyers was 27.58%.

2.2 Political participation (2015–2018)

15Since the adoption of the 1995 Constitution, women have stood for election and slowly secured parliamentary seats where their numbers have increased from one election to the next. Women started to become more present in the legislative, executive and the judiciary branches of government in both federal and regional governments. As a result, in the last election of 2015, women secured 38.8% of the seats in the Federal Parliament. They also have the opportunity to chair important parliamentary standing committees such as agriculture, budget, government expenditure, social affairs, natural resources, democratic institutions, planning and of course women’s affairs.

16The percentage of women in regional parliaments, particularly in 5 regions, was better than the Federal reaching gender parity. For example, in Tǝgre, 50% of the parliamentarians were women, while the percentage of women parliamentarians in Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples and Addis Ababa is 48%, and in Amhara and Oromia 47%. In the rest of the regions, the percentage of women ranged from 18% in Benishangul-Gumuz to 37.6% in Dire Dawa.

17Starting from 2015, women were included in all three branches of government in leading ministries and other government agencies in the executive branch. Women’s participation has reached about 25% in the judiciary.

18According to Tesfaye Semela et al., women’s participation slowly increased between 2010 to 2015, being more represented as parliamentarians than ministers. In October 2015, women represented less than 10% of the ministerial positions, though the 30% has not been reached yet in all sectors.

19It may be attributed to a change in mentality, to some efforts by government, but also with to the rise of women’s civil society organisations. Since the appointment of Dr Abiy Ahmed as Prime Minister in April 2018, the promotion of gender parity has been given a key focus. On 18 October 2018, he appointed a gender-balanced cabinet of 20 members, as the previous cabinet consisted of 28 members, of which only 4 were women. Ethiopia followed in Rwanda’s footsteps towards this equal gender representation, as Rwanda received international recognition for women’s representation in government with women making up to 43 percent of its cabinet and 61 percent of its parliamentarians. In Ethiopia, women now hold leadership positions in defence and security, trade, labour, culture, science and finance. For example, Aisha Mohammed Musa became the country’s first female defence minister and Muferiat Kamil (former speaker of parliament) was appointed the first minister of peace. Meaza Ashenafi, the founder of the Ethiopian Women Lawyers’ Association, an adviser on women’s rights to UNECA (United Nations Economic Commission for Africa) and a former a judge on the Ethiopian High Court from 1989 to 1992, was appointed Chief Justice. Birtukan Mikdesa was approved to head the National Electoral Board of Ethiopia (NEBE). Finally, Sahle Work Zewde became President, the third woman to hold this position on the African continent. Formerly, Ethiopia’s ambassador to France, Djibouti, Senegal and IGAD, she was UN Undersecretary General and special representative of the Secretary General to the African Union before her nomination. These are the few examples of women whose education, career and leadership have finally been recognized for their own achievements. In fact, Ethiopia has seen the largest increase in women’s political representation in the executive, from 10 percent women ministers in 2017 to 47.6 percent in 2019.

2.3 Women’s civil society organisations: rise and struggles

20After the 1995 Constitution, women’s associations were organised in Addis Ababa and in the regions, whether general (mass), professional or sectoral. They included women from all walks of life, from small traders and farmers, to office workers. Some of the regional women’s associations in Amhara, Tǝgre and Oromia have between half a million to one million members. They were mobilised around issues such as political and economic empowerment, access to property and ending harmful practices. For example, Dire Dawa women demonstrated against the rape of a child by an old man and an acid attack on a young couple. On Nehase 22, 1987 (E.C.) (28 August 1995), the Addis Ababa Women’s Association (AAWA) mobilised a thousand women to demand the closure of pornographic newspapers that were degrading the position of women in society. One of the most prominent and publicised associations is the Ethiopian Women Lawyer’s Association (EWLA), which fights discrimination against women and raises awareness of issues such as violence against women. Others include AAWA, the Network of Ethiopian Women’s Associations (NEWA), which has 20 member organisations, and the Organization Against Gender-Based Violence, the Ethiopian Teacher’s Women’s Coalition Against HIV and AIDS or the Forum for African Women Educationalists Ethiopian Chapter, Women in Mass Media, Women Writers’ Association, Women Painters’ Association. These organisations work hard to promote women and their place in the society as a central social issue. Smaller associations are doing extensive work: Setaweet, a feminist movement association founded in 2014 to empower men and women equally; AWSAD (Association for Women’s Sanctuary and Development) was founded in 2003 to help women rebuild their lives after experiencing violence; or Siiqqee established in 1997, which brings together marginalised women to train them in practical work skills and provide information on their rights. Gemma Burgess, who has worked on women’s activism, explains that: “a new law was passed, the Proclamation for the Registration and Regulation of Charities and Societies (in 2009), which classifies civil society organisations (CSOs) whose contributions from abroad make up more than 10 percent of their budget as ‘international’ NGOs. The law identifies areas that such NGOs cannot work on, one of them being ‘gender.’” Other scholars have also questioned the implementation of this law on the capacity of women’s associations to act, but there have been no in-depth studies or exhaustive studies on how the law really affects all associations, from the largest to the smallest. Members of Ethiopian women’s associations also have different views on the use of foreign funding to support Ethiopian women’s position in society. Most women’s associations continue to operate as “local associations” and promote a woman as a mandatory representative of Ethiopian society. In 2019, a new Civil Societies Proclamation introduced a number of changes, including a clear recognition of the right to operational freedom, the lifting of restrictions on funding considered “foreign,” particularly for those working on human rights (and therefore on “gender”), and the expansion of fundraising opportunities. This change will allow an in-depth study of the implementation of actions by the women’s associations over the last decade.